Desire, hunger and love. God began teaching me these things at the very beginning of orientation and they aren’t leaving my mind. One easy way to know God is trying to speak to you is when a certain verse or phrase follows you around. When random people and random conversations will “echo” what you’ve been thinking about and meditating on… THIS KEEPS HAPPENING.
It all began one of the first days I was in the prayer room here. I was pondering the truth that Christians are the bride of Christ, and I was thinking about how intensely God desires us. God wants everyone to come to know him. Second Peter 3:9 says, “The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.”
God wants a massive bridal party of people who have lived wholly committed to Him. Stop thinking God is weird that He wants to marry every Christian—don’t bring your incorrect, misguided beliefs about marriage into this. This is not a human marriage. God is not a polygamist. God simply desires a deep level of intimacy with His people—the deepest way we know intimacy in this life is marriage, but God’s intimacy with us will be even deeper when we live with him forever! There will be no blockage between us—nothing will hinder our relationship and we will speak freely with God! That is the intimacy we will get!
This is not an IHOP-exclusive idea. God says in the Hosea 2:16 “…You will call me ‘My Husband’…” Also in Jeremiah 31:32 God calls himself the husband of Israel and Judah.
Jesus calls himself the bridegroom in Matthew 9:14 while he discusses fasting; even Isaiah touches on this in Isaiah 62.
In Jeremiah 2:2 God equates the devotion of Israel to that of a marriage. Paul even says that he betrothed (or engaged before marriage) the Corinthian church to Christ (II Corinthians 11:2).
So there you have it—this is not a strange idea from IHOP. THIS IS THE WORD OF GOD.
Anyway, I was meditating on God’s desire for us and I began to think about Revelation 19:7, “Let us rejoice and exult and give him the glory, for the marriage of the Lamb [Jesus] has come, and his Bride has made herself ready…”
Read this passage again. Take note of the wording. The Bride has made herself ready… While reading this I began to realize that God did not make the Bride ready. God didn’t force her to become ready. The bride, of her own accord, prepared herself. Why would she do this? She would only seek to prepare her heart if she desired the bridegroom, as well! She wants to be ready for the wedding, and she wants to be fully prepared for married life! She wants to return the affections of her bridegroom.
The bride can only prepare herself if she desires God. This truth floored me. I realized that I need to have my desire for God remarkably increased—I suddenly became even hungrier for Him!
As my own desire was growing, I began to get a taste of how deeply God desires me. The Hebrew word “Hephzibah” has been stalking me since coming here. The word comes from Isaiah 62:4-5, “You shall no more be termed Forsaken, and your land shall no more be termed Desolate, but you shall be called My Delight Is in Her [Hephzibah], and your land Married [Beulah]; for the LORD delights in you, and your land shall be married. For as a young man marries a young woman, so shall your sons marry you, and as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so shall your God rejoice over you.”
GOD DELIGHTS IN ME! GOD REJOICES OVER ME! His love for me is phenomenal and mind-blowing. He desires me and delights over me and rejoices over me!
Zephaniah 3:17, “The LORD your God is with you, he is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing.”
Don’t you see it?! Nothing you do can take away this relationship. God is constantly delighting in you. God is rejoicing over you. God is singing over you!
And He desires that you would return His affections. God wants lovesick worshippers who are willing to seek Him through prayer and praise and pursue His heart. God wants to reveal His heart to you, but you need to desire Him and seek Him! The first and greatest commandment we have been given is to love the Lord. That should be our first priority. The more I meditate on this the hungrier I become, which is good since Jesus himself said in Matthew 5:6, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.”
I am hungry. I am starving for God to fill me with His desire, love, delight and affection… This yearning is consuming me and I can think of almost nothing else. I want God. I want the knowledge of His heart. Only that can satisfy.
Love is consuming. I want to understand God’s love for me… I want to love Him back… I want to learn to love OTHER PEOPLE the way God loves them…
God struck me in class before I finished writing this with a fresh revelation of why he is making love and desire follow me around. I need to learn to really, really love everyone.
I’ll be heading to Detroit in early November to spend a week with Lou Engle, TheCall team, the Strike team and many other intercessors and Nazirites preparing for TheCall Detroit. We’ll be evangelizing, praying, fasting and contending for a real move of God in that region of the US.
I intend to make love my primary weapon. Hopefully the next entry will be focused on TheCall and everything God is going to do in Detroit.
Please keep me in your prayers and I strive to understand just a fraction of this love! I am overwhelmed by such a topic and know I’ll be a student of this forever, but oh how my heart longs to know it now!
Please also be praying for all the preparation going into TheCall Detroit. Again, I’m planning on focusing my next entry solely on this, but who knows what will happen.
In the meantime, please visit TheCall Detroit website to get a better grasp on what we’ll be doing there. http://www.thecall.com/Group/Group.aspx?ID=1000080537
Don’t give up on your prayers! All too often when we become busy and overwhelmed, the first person we cancel on is Jesus. Don’t let this be the case for you! Seek Him first! Love Him first!
Be blessed!
Rachel Korhonen
(Originally posted September 24th on Tumblr)
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