Rousing Her Radiance: Day 9

Springing Up

‘You heavens above, rain down righteousness; let the clouds shower it down. Let the earth open wide, let salvation spring up…’- Isaiah 45:8

That our simple prayers to Jesus rouse Him ‘to make her righteousness shine out like the dawn, her salvation like a blazing torch’ (Is. 62:1) amazes me. Her shining hour is coming.

In moments that are blessed, we experience Her radiance. We witness hard hearts softening, young hearts welling up in Spirit and giving His gifts generously, seasoned hearts guiding this impartation, each wooed and won by Jesus who draws us together in humble expectancy. We who have been brought near want more of Him to give to those further out.

We the Bride manifest Jesus afresh on the earth; He the Bridegroom pours out His Spirit on our worship like life-giving rain—this His Church, the ground of all goodness.

May our hearts become virgin again, able to perceive and receive His perfection among us.

I do mean perfection. We get trapped by wounding churchmen who tempt us to harden our hearts and forego gathering as a defense against the Bride. Might we recall instead faithful ones who believed for our freedom and invited us into the fold? This perfect harmony played by imperfect members sets us free! The faith of whole-hearted churchmen and women drew us into living communion with the Bridegroom—this is the Bride blazing like a torch!

May I urge you to allow His Spirit to pray through you to purify and empower Her radiance? Admittedly, we are often at a loss to know how to pray for the broken Bride. He ‘helps us in our weakness. We do not know how we ought to pray, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us in groans that words cannot express. And He who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for us in accordance with God’s will’ (Rom. 8: 26-27).

Knowing our weak prayers and weak grasp of how God is rousing this Bride to perfection, the Spirit prays through us. Let us ask Him to infuse us with His heart for Her and pray for a quickening of His Spirit to endow Her with what She needs to shine.

May mere words deepen into groans for Her perfection—the Bride at once holy and wholly embracing of the lost and the least, people like ourselves whom Jesus welcomed through His faithful members.

‘Send forth Your Spirit, O God, upon Your House. May we the Bride spring up in generous, pure love. May we bring forth something of Your perfection on the earth; through Your members, manifest Your unfailing love and glorify Your name through the saving of many lives.’

‘Father, we thank You for Jesus who established the Church on a Rock against which hell will not prevail (Matt 16:18). We pray for every Christian leader to build on Her firm foundation of sexual clarity and integrity. Father, unmask the deceiver and divider of Christians and unite us in one Spirit. As weak members of Christ, we ask for truth to guide our pursuit of sexual wholeness, for grace to sustain it, and for spiritual power to transform us. May we reflect the chaste radiance of Jesus (2 Cor. 3:18) as we “shine like stars in the universe, holding out the word of life” (Phil. 2:15-16) to a lost and hurting world.’