The bride has made herself ready! Passivity is not making yourself ready.... Here I go....starting another fight.....sigh
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[FONT="]The Scriptures tell us that every believer who wants to be the eternal wife of Jesus must make themselves ready[/FONT] [FONT="]. [/FONT] [FONT="] Many believers mistakenly think that they have already made themselves ready just because they are “Christians.” Many believe that since they made a decision to follow Christ, said the sinners’ prayer at the church altar, attend church every Sunday, sing worship songs, say “amen” to the [/FONT] [FONT="]Pastor’s message, and are relatively good people, they have already made themselves ready. As important as these things are, they do not automatically make you ready as a worthy bride. [/FONT] [FONT="] [/FONT] [FONT="]Several scriptures confirm the need to make ourselves ready. A very important one is: [/FONT] [FONT="]Let us rejoice and be glad and give the glory to Him, for the Marriage of the Lamb has come and His bride has made herself ready. It was given to her to clothe herself in fine linen, bright and clean; for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints. Then he said to me, “Write, ‘Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb. ’” And he said to me, [/FONT] [FONT="]“These a r e true words of G od” (Rev 19:7-9). [/FONT] [FONT="] [/FONT] [FONT="]Another of these scriptures is the parable of the wedding feast (Matt. 22:1-14). Jesus begins this parable by saying that the kingdom of heaven can be compared to a king who gave a wedding feast for his son. As the story goes, the king sent out his slaves to bring people to the feast. First, he sent them to those who had already been invited but were unwilling to come. He sent other slaves to tell the people that everything was ready, but this group paid no attention to the invitation. The third group who was invited persecuted and even killed the slaves. Finally, the slaves went to the highways to invite all they could find. As a result, the wedding hall was filled with those who accepted the invitation. [/FONT] [FONT="]But an interesting observation follows. The king came in to look over the dinner guests and found one man who was not dressed in wedding [/FONT] [FONT="]clothes. The improperly dressed man was immediately removed from [/FONT] [FONT="]the marriage feast. Why? He had accepted the invitation, but he had not clothed himself in wedding garments. That is, he had not made himself ready.[/FONT] [FONT="] [/FONT] [FONT="]Matthew 24 records Jesus’ words to His disciples about the events surrounding His second coming. He tells them many things, but one statement stands out. Even though not specifically about His bride, He tells His followers in the end times: Be on the alert, for you do not know which day you r Lord is coming. But be sure of this, that if the head of the house had known at what time of the night the thief was coming, he would have been on the alert and would not have allowed his house to be broken into. For this reason you also must be ready for the Son of Man is coming at an hour when you do not think He will (Matt. 24:42-44). [/FONT] [FONT="] [/FONT] [FONT="]Again, the familiar end-time theme emerges: be ready! [/FONT] [FONT="] [/FONT] [FONT="]One chapter later , but still a continuation of His message from Matthew 24, Jesus tells the parable of the 10 virgins. As the parable goes, being made ready to participate with the Lord in the outworking of His end-time purposes. This requires our having a single eye in order to hear and respond to His work of preparation, and our spirit set toward the Lord, so we can obey all that is required of us. Only then will we be ready in that day to be lifted into a cooperative relationship with our Lord. ... This process will begin when we acknowledge our unconditional dependence upon the Lord, giving total, unqualified permission to Him to do with us all that may be necessary, so we will not only be able to sing this song [the song of victory recorded in Psalm 149:5-9], but also actively participate with the Lord in its full outworking. To be made ready as a worthy bride, we must pursue God’s grace aggressively. Every work of God in our lives is accomplished by God’s grace. [/FONT] [FONT="] [/FONT] [FONT="]Simply defined, grace is God’s power released into our lives to accomplish His purposes in and through us (2 C o r. 12:9). [/FONT] [FONT="] [/FONT] [FONT="]However, a false view of grace has crept into the church. The thinking goes something like this: “God is in control; therefore, He will work out everything He wants to do in my life. I will just sit by passively and let Him do whatever He desires. [/FONT] [FONT="] [/FONT] [FONT="]This type of passive attitude does not activate God’s grace in our lives. [/FONT] [FONT="]When we are passive, things rarely change. This attitude toward the grace of God is unbiblical. Instead, we should pursue God’s grace aggressively. [/FONT] [FONT="] We must aggressively desire change, aggressively pray for change, and aggressively make changes in our lifestyle. Realizing that we are helpless to change on our own, we aggressively cry out f o r God’s grace, and the changes we need, will occur. [/FONT] [FONT="]The Holy Spirit is calling the end time church to “eat the book” and to [/FONT] [FONT="]“keep the prophecy.” [/FONT] [FONT="] [/FONT] [FONT="]Revelation 10:9 states, “So I went to the angel, telling him to give me the little book. And he said to me, ‘Take it and eat it; it will make your stomach bitter, but in your mouth it will be sweet as honey.’ " [/FONT] [FONT="] [/FONT] [FONT="]In Revelation 22:7, Jesus says, “Behold, I am coming quickly! Blessed is he who keeps the words of the prophecy of this book” (NKJV). [/FONT] [FONT="] [/FONT] [FONT="]When Jesus returns , He will reward us for studying His end-time plan [/FONT] [FONT="](eating the book) and for overcoming whatever entangles us (keeping the prophecy) (Re v. 22: 12). [/FONT] [FONT="] [/FONT] [FONT="]As w e dig into the book of Revelation, along with other end-time scriptures, and as we obey what is written, we will grow in intimacy with Jesus, we will mature as an overcomer, and we will have greater power and authority in ministry. In other words, we will begin our journey of making ours elves ready. [/FONT] [FONT="] [/FONT] [FONT="]More verses about making yourself ready.[/FONT] [FONT="] [/FONT] [FONT="]• [/FONT][FONT="]
Hebrews 9:28 [/FONT][FONT="][/FONT]
[FONT="]So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that
look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation. [/FONT]
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Luke 12:37[/FONT]
[FONT="]Blessed are those servants, whom the lord when he cometh shall find
watching: verily I say unto you, that he shall gird
himself, and make them to sit down to meat, and will come
forth and serve them.[/FONT]
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Matthew 24:44[/FONT]
[FONT="]Therefore be ye also
ready: for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of man cometh.[/FONT]
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Matthew 25:10[/FONT]
[FONT="]And while they went to buy, the bridegroom came; and they that were
ready went in with him to the marriage: and the door was shut.[/FONT]
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Luke 12:40[/FONT]
[FONT="]Be ye therefore
ready also: for the Son of man cometh at an hour when ye think not.[/FONT]
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Luke 21:28[/FONT]
[FONT="]And when these things begin to come to pass, then
look up (look for Him), and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh.[/FONT]