Dec. 19 - The Betrothal

Devotion

My wife, Fern, and I were going to Kansas City to visit the International House Of Prayer (IHOP). We were interested in intercession and found out about this place of worship, and intercession. Since its day of beginning nearly 3 years ago, IHOP has been a place of continual offering of thanksgiving, praise, worship, and intercession around the clock, seven days a week, 365 days a year. You might ask, "How can one spend so much time in one place and what keeps people dedicated to such a cause?" We were about to find out.

We spent nearly a week seeking God and spending time in His presence. It was there, nearly two years ago, that I began to discover God's bridegroom love and began to embrace Him in that way.

God often goes to extreme measures to give us a visual aid to comprehend His amazing love. All through the scriptures, He likens the church, His people, to a bride. God asked Hosea to become such a visual aid to the Israelites by marrying a harlot. She became his wife and had his children.

Hosea suffers pain and humiliation as Gomer left him for other loves. She ends up on the auction block and Hosea buys her back for himself. In Hosea 2:16 the Lord says to Israel, "It shall be in that day, that you will call Me 'my husband' and you will no longer call Me 'my master.'" What a picture of God's redeeming love to His people!

So was the Advent! Extreme love! God giving us His own Son in living color for the whole world to see and record! The Groom came to His bride ... !

Will we not but be intimate with Him and share our innermost thoughts?
Can we not but respond to His embrace?

As a bride makes her way down the isle, she is captured by the eyes of her lover and soon to be husband. Their eyes meet in an embrace of love equal to no other on earth!

During this Advent season, may we each find new understanding of our betrothal to Him that will change the way we live everyday henceforth.