Making Room for the Coming of the Bridegroom 2

Matthew 25:11-13

¹¹ “Later the others also came, and said, ‘Lord, Lord, open [the door] for us.’ ¹² But He replied, ‘I assure you and most solemnly say to you, I do not know you [we have no relationship].’ ¹³ Therefore, be on the alert [be prepared and ready], for you do not know the day nor the hour [when the Son of Man will come].” AMP

Are you using the name of Jesus for name-dropping purposes only, or does He really know you?

I was at the local library the other day and a lady came in and when I saw her I thought to myself, “That lady looks familiar, where do I know her from? I usually remember faces, so the thought became persistent in my mind to the point that I could not shake it. I started thinking if I had met her at church, or perhaps ran into her when my son was in high school, or if I know her from my neighborhood. I did this until I finally got my boldness on and approached her to ask her hoping she could give me the clues I was not coming up with on my own. But when I said to her that she looked familiar to me, her response was of being puzzled because she did not know me from Adam.

Sometime later I remember the awkward encounter and the Lord used it to say to me that many people claim to know Him or that He knows them but they have no relationship with Him. They only use His name for name-dropping purposes, but they do not know Him as their God, their source of everything they need, and much less do they come to spend time with Him so they can get to know Him. Yet, many of these people claim to know Him. Sadly, the day will come when in their time of need they will come to Him expecting answers from a God they only know by hearsay or only from former encounters in which they used His name and He responded, and have the audacity to say, “Jo! Big J!! This is your friend, so and so over here. Remember me? We used to kick it back in the day.” but He will say to them, “I beg your pardon! I do not know you.”

First of all, we do not dishonor our God by using His name in vain. Neither is He the man upstairs. His name is Jesus and His name is to be in our mouths with reverential worship and praise because of the sacrifice of the shedding of His blood for our sakes which reconciled us to our Father after Adam’s fall in the Garden of Eden. His name should also be in our mouths for us to exalt and declare His fame for He is the only door and way to salvation. He is the only one that can lead us to learn the truth through His Holy Spirit. And He is the only one who can shed light in our darkness to help us live the life of abundance He died for us to have.

Second of all, we must not treat Jesus only as a celebrity and use His name to remember only the things of the past when we have forsaken His ways in the now. This happens when we refuse to be changed from the old wineskin and still pretend to be used by God when in reality, our old condition not in age but in mindset, gets in the way of being used of Him when He comes to visit His church. Intimacy with Him has become a thing of the past for many Christians and reading His word is done just as a routine, to put a check in our daily activities instead of looking to have encounters with His Spirit that bring transformation by the renewing of our mind.

Welcoming the new that He wants to bring is rejected by many who are set in traditions and allow fear to keep them from experiencing in ways they have not known before but that is the requirement that will help us fulfill our calling and be relevant I these end-times. We cannot resort to the old things He has done in our lives and through our lives and say that we are still walking in relevance with His Spirit. This relevance happens every time the logos of His Word becomes a Rhema which helps us see Him in a new way and helps us advance toward our destiny in Him. Without these revelations, we are only feeding ourselves with historical information. The dangerous thing about this is that these are signs that the presence of God has departed from someone or from an entire group and serving Him becomes a chore rather than a joyous privilege.

Another sad thing I have witnessed is when I have been around some people who behaved in immature ways. Even people in positions of leadership. But after not being around them for a year or two and being with them again, nothing had changed and they were still acting and reacting to circumstances in the same immature way and treating people that do not agree with their carnality in ways that are contrary with what the word says. These people thought and behaved like they were better than others and treated the situations they were involved in more like three-year-old children who hoard their toys or candy away from others and still expect God to promote them in the next season. Luke 12:48 says,

“But he who did not know, yet committed things deserving of stripes, shall be beaten with few. For everyone to whom much is given, from him much will be required; and to whom much has been committed, of him they will ask the more.” NKJV

We must also remember that God is not mocked and whatever we have sown in the past season is what will be ripped. Galatians 6:7 reminds us, “ Do not be deceived, God is not mocked [He will not allow Himself to be ridiculed, nor treated with contempt nor allow His precepts to be scornfully set aside]; for whatever a man sows, this and this only is what he will reap. 8 For the one who sows to his flesh [his sinful capacity, his worldliness, his disgraceful impulses] will reap from the flesh ruin and destruction, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life.” AMP

A measuring ruler has also been brought to measure us against the truth of His word in Galatians 5:22-26 which says, ²² “But the fruit of the Spirit [the result of His presence within us] is love [unselfish concern for others], joy, [inner] peace, patience [not the ability to wait, but how we act while waiting], kindness, goodness, faithfulness, ²³ gentleness, self-control. Against such things there is no law. ²⁴ And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the [l]sinful nature together with its passions and appetites.

²⁵ If we [claim to] live by the [Holy] Spirit, we must also walk by the Spirit [with personal integrity, godly character, and moral courage—our conduct empowered by the Holy Spirit]. ²⁶ We must not become conceited, challenging or provoking one another, envying one another.” AMP

Those who have been found not measuring up because of emotional and spiritual immaturity, especially those who occupy positions of leadership or aspire to, are being instead sent to a period of decontamination from the influence of the spirit of this world which involves a pressing in the wilderness of testing where they will know their God and cling to Him to make sure He knows them. In this place, they will also be reduced to Christ and learn to esteem others more highly than they think of themselves. Romans 12:3 says,

“For by the grace [of God] given to me I say to every one of you not to think more highly of himself [and of his importance and ability] than he ought to think; but to think so as to have sound judgment, as God has apportioned to each a degree of faith [and a purpose designed for service].” AMP

Part of the shortcomings found in these people has been that they give themselves easily to slander, gossip, pointing of fingers, and to become stumbling blocks to the advancement of others. God in His grace and mercy, has tried to lure them to Him in order to heal them from the wounds in their soul that have blinded them to their mindset and behavior so they are able to become emotionally mature, but they continually ran from Him and His healing. We have mentioned before that the problem with emotional immaturity is that it gets in the way of spiritual maturity. But we are called to reach oneness in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God. A mature believer is one who reaches the measure of the the fullness of Christ which enables him or her to work in unity with others a expressed in Ephesians 4:13,

^“until we all reach oneness in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God, [growing spiritually] to become a mature believer, reaching to the measure of the fullness of Christ [manifesting His spiritual completeness and exercising our spiritual gifts in unity].” AMP

When we allow the Lord to give us His healing touch that resurrects those areas that have died in our souls because of sin and hurts as well as traumas, we can be set free to experience more of Him and know Him not only in the fellowship of His suffering, but also as we share in His glory that brings us to having life more abundantly because His presence is dwelling among us. On the other hand, when we run from our problems, and instead try to solve them with our own understanding and bring man-made solutions instead of the divine solutions we receive from our times of intimacy with the Holy Spirit, we are taking steps to go around the mountain of despair and challenges once again because we have not learned that overcoming the enemy of our souls is done when we cling to the lover of our souls. This happens when we do what Romans 12:1-2 says,

1-2 “So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.” MSG

We are in times when what is expected of us is our preparation by partnering with God and clinging to Him to learn who He is in our circumstances, and spend times in His word, in worship, fasting, and obeying every command which comes out of His mouth (Matthew 4:4) which brings transformation. This transformation is important because we are called to become His image and likeness more and more each day. If we come to Him and He sees Himself in us, then we will be told that He knows us. When we avoid the process every time and look more like the world He is trying to get us to come out of by the renewing of our mind, we will find that just like it happened with the ill-prepared virgins, the door will also be shut for us.

We cannot continue to avoid going through the process that crushes us to bring the oil of anointing out of us like an olive is crushed to bring the pure olive oil. The process of crushing is not pleasant, but it will ensure that our lamp will be full of oil and we will be ready to meet our bridegroom. Remember that He is looking for Himself in us and if He can find Himself, we will hear “well done good and faithful servant, enter into the joy of the Lord.” 

2 Corinthians 3:18 reveals to us, "So all of us who have had the veil removed can see and reflect the glory of the Lord. And the Lord--who is the Spirit--makes us more and more like him as we are changed into is glorious image."

To God alone be all the glory. ■

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