Tuesday, December 14, 2010

Commitment as a Bride

To understand more about vows and commitments, the LORD led me to a book titled “Call to Commitment”. The book tells the story of a small 1940’s community of people who dedicated their lives to Christ, to one another, and to a common life together. They demonstrated an expression of the Church as a living Body should function. As I read this book, I found within myself a deep longing for the very sweetness that this Church tasted. I needed to experience what they did. I needed to believe that it was possible to have a functioning community of humans, passionate in their diversities yet, living together as one voice. And with this voice they shouted from the skyscrapers, the great and marvelous beauties that they were aloud by God to gaze into. In the midst of all this, there was a crowd beneath crying out for some sort of truth all the while trapped in a colorless culture manufactured for the mundane. The Bride in this American Culture today, wants to believe that this unity is possible. In result of failure to perform, we sit convincing ourselves that those miracle-stories, which we grew up reading and became enlightened with, must be more than fiction. I believe that His handiwork to the utmost will be demonstrated through His Bride in the “readied” generation. I desire for us to be that generation. The Call of Commitment rests on every member of the Bride and that Commitment is one to not only the Head of this body but also to the hand, and foot, and eye, and nose. Are we willing to be committed to each other to the fullest extent?

Where does the committed life start? It begins within you. It begins within you and at some divine point, punctures through you, revealing “the mystery enclosed” to all of your surroundings. The meekness of your tamed spirit will begin to inhabit everything that you do; the way that you think, the things that you desire and the things that you do not, the way you speak and the reason to not. But this does not happen until you commit yourself to emptying your cup and commit yourself to being continually filled with Him; whatever that may look like. All life is shaken to the very core of being and every department of one’s life will be swept up in this holy transfiguration. You will never be the same. Friends, we are living in a culture where we have been carefully fed and some of us made full with the emptiness found in a counterfeit world. Futility is a choice!  We the Bride, here in this American society, need to take hold of this absolute truth: We-Need-Each-Other. I don’t want to live like the rest of the Americans do. In pursuit of privacy and peace, they proceed veiled by this “dream” and tricked into dwelling as a separate entity. Intended existence is to be shared with others. I desire something deeper, something somewhere that I can find tranquility in knowing that I am responsible for your family as you are for mine. Where we as a Bride can live as one, eat as one, and be as one.  Longing for this is one thing but attaining this is unimaginable.

I stand in awe of the Body where each member is living in the reality of devotion to the other. This Body’s foundation is built to last because they achieve their primary purpose for existence, which is to enter into covenantal relationships with each other and with Christ. There is a freshness of life and roister contained within the mere breadth of this Body that even Elohim is captivated by. The light of this Body attracts the downtrodden. The weary and poor come and find the road of peace. The hungry and thirsty unite with this Body and become partakers of heavenly feasting. Receiving and giving, the Bride walks hand in hand with Her Groom, She echoes His realm of ministry: total healing- spiritually, physically, and emotionally. They don’t have to dream anymore of being involved in the supernatural phenomena they read about, they promenade in it!

I (joseph Henson) am called to the lifestyle of being committed to you (the Bride). You (the Bride) are called to the lifestyle of being committed to me and to eachother . We are called to the lifestyle of being committed to GOD. We must fulfill our calling!

With all of this said, where do we go from here?


“Only the Holy Spirit converts, only the Holy Spirit redeems, only the Holy Spirit will make us One”- Elizabeth O’Conner (author of Call to Commitment)

“In our house He is Head of our family and makes all the decisions. For Christ, the Church was the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow. To God, everything is simple- God’s love for us is greater than all the conflicts which will pass” Mother Theresa

“I pray for them. I do not pray for the world but for those whom You have given Me. For they are Yours. And all mine are Yours, and Yours are Mine, and I am glorified through them. Now I am no longer in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to You. Holy Father keep through Your name those whom You have given me, that they may be one as We are… I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word; that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be One in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me. And the glory which You gave me, I have given them, that they may be One just as WE are One: I in them, and You in Me; that they may be made perfect in One, and that the world may know that You have sent Me, and have loved them as You have loved Me” –john17:9,10,11,20,21,22,23

Can’t you see? The greatest form of mission, the perfect commission, lies in the simple simple simple move of loving and receiving love from your Brother and Sister in Christ. This is the Kingdom! Everything else will come from this Love. The rest of the world will see the Christ that God sent for them in our perfect Love for each other. The readied Bride is the entire race throughout history that lived in harmonic love for each other, serving each other to the farthest degree. He is so delighted in His beautiful Bride! This love, was not mustered up by any human, it was divinely given by God through the example of His Son who lived as the greatest servant of all. Lets take Christ’s example and love with everything that we have inside of us. Maybe than… we will truly grasp the Call to Commitment.