I will make you my wife forever, showing you righteousness and justice, unfailing love and compassion.Hos. 2:19 (NLT)
As a bridegroom rejoices over his bride, so will your God rejoice over you. Isa. 62:5 (NIV)
“Hallelujah! For our Lord God Almighty reigns. Let us rejoice and be glad and give him glory! For the wedding of the Lamb has come, and his bride has made herself ready. Fine linen, bright and clean, was given her to wear.” Rev. 19:6-8 (NIV)
Dear Lord Jesus, our oldest ache, deepest longing, greatest delight can only be understood (and satisfied) in light of these Scriptures. We crave intimacy because you wrote it into our DNA. We’re love hungry, because you’ve made us for yourself, and we will remain restless and foolish, until we rest in your love. We’re wired for hope, because you have secured a future for us that immeasurable exceeds everything we could ask or imagine.
Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah! Jesus, you are the Spouse we always wanted, the Savior we always needed, and the Sovereign who reigns forever. By the power of the Holy Spirit, we ask you to take us “further up and further in”—take us deeper and deeper into the wonders of your love, the ocean of your grace, the vastness of your delight.
Free us from the heart-dulling limitations of our doubts and disbelief. Forgive us for ever thinking, looking, or hoping we for some human being, some horizontal relationship that could possibly give us what we can only find in you.
For those of us that are married, liberate us from under-believing the riches of the gospel and over-expecting our marriages to give us what they were never meant to deliver. Free us, as spouses to love each other, as you—our ultimate Spouse love us. And for those of us who are single, make it palpably and profoundly real that, indeed, we ARE married… to you and for eternity.
Jesus, we praise, bless, and adore you for so great a salvation, so marvelous a story, and so eternal a joy. So very Amen we pray, in your great and grace-full name.