Becoming the Bride of Christ

By Tishana Griffiths

Tishana Griffiths hails from the beautiful Island of Kingston, Jamaica. The youngest of 5 siblings, she grew up exploring the bustling streets through play under the tropical breeze and abundance of sunshine. She's a mother of two handsome boys, a mentor, friend, woman of prayer and intercession.

Tishana has experienced and ove

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tishana Griffiths
• Release date: Dec 2, 2022
• ISBN: 9781908552808

Book preview

Introduction

A most decent proposal

Accepting Jesus’ proposal to becoming His bride was the best thing I could have ever done on earth. Jesus is the true bridegroom as it is His nature, and is what He refers to Himself as in the scriptures.

Isaiah 61:10²

I will rejoice greatly in the LORD, My soul will exalt in my God; For He has clothed me with garments of salvation, He has wrapped me with a robe of righteousness, As a bridegroom decks himself with a garland, And as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.

Jesus desires a bride, He desires a bride who will share His love, one who would bear His name. In marriage the bride takes the name of the bridegroom, this is also what happens when we become united by faith to Christ. Saying ‘yes’ to Him will make it easier for Him to love you passionately as this is what He yearns to do. Jesus is looking for us to see if we are going to come to Him; to see if we want Him alone; to know whether we yearn for Him as much as He yearns for us.

By accepting Jesus as my bridegroom - by saying ‘yes’, made it easier for Him to give me His love but He was also waiting for me to return that love back to Him. By being Jesus’s bride I’m learning more about His love - the jealous love He has for me and you.

Exodus 34:14³

Do not worship any other god, for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God.

Jesus wants me and you, our soul and our heart completely. Jesus is jealous when the love that should be directed towards Him is directed towards others. The love for others should flow from our love for Him. Jesus is jealous when we redirect our passion to other people and to other things over and above Him. Jesus is jealous when we pay more attention to everyone else apart from Him, when we give them more of our time, more of ourselves, than we give to Him. He stands beside us, grieved and becomes upset and wounded because He loves us so much.

As His bride He doesn’t force me to love Him and He isn’t going to force you either He asks: Will you give me your love? Then you make the choice like I did by saying, Yes. The one thing that will satisfy Him is our love because He first loved us.

Love 100%

1 John 4:19⁴

We love him, because he first loved us.

Anything other than your love in return for His is too small for Him. Our love is demonstrated by our submission to His word⁵. The Lord wants you to believe in Him, obey Him and come to Him for forgiveness. Our human nature can often be drawn to God for all the benefits that following Christ brings. But He is not only the physician who heals us. He is not only the Redeemer who delivers us from our bondages. But He wants to be in a deep relationship as our Bridegroom; and as His Bride He gives us His great, affectionate, most intimate love. An example of this is when I was feeling down at work. The Holy Spirit directed someone to buy and deliver sunflowers to me – it was an act of His unfailing love for me, when I felt like I needed it the most.

Jesus wants us to follow Him in the way of the cross, (that is by dying to ourselves). But His heart is filled with grief and sorrow if it is not love that drives us. We cannot take the way of the cross as some mere outward show of religious surrender. Paul writes:

1 Corinthians 13:3⁶

If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

Just because you love Him, love alone should make you choose obedience, lowliness, humility and disgrace. Only the dedication which comes from love will make Him happy. This is the only dedication which He will accept. All else is insufficient. Anything else would be more likely to wound Him, because it is simply religious deception; we seem to be going His way, but it is really for our own sake.

True partnership: the pain, the passion, the pleasure

Jesus the Bridegroom is the ‘Man of Sorrows’⁷. He suffers to this very day. He is seeking a bride who will share with Him what is in His heart. His heart is filled not only with love, but also with suffering past and present. He is seeking a bride who will really live out the bridal state till death, whose heart will beat with His, who will carry the burdens of His heart. This bride will not only