The Language of Love is Prayer
In Your Presence is Fullness of Joy
— Psalm 16:11 —
Prayer is a sacred privilege and treasure never to be taken for granted or neglected. Such a blessed gift to communicate with our Creator and Savior must never be a ritual of going through empty motions and asking for what we want and hoping we have it as soon as possible. Our God and Savior alone is to be our heart’s desire and “exceedingly great reward” (Genesis 15:1). Therefore, prayer is not a brief check in or half hearted one-way conversation. It is not an obligation to give to “the lover of our souls” a token acknowledgement and squeezed in small portion of our all too busy day. NO, no, no! Our Redeemer alone deserves the utmost, undivided, loving attention, and wholehearted affection. Prayer is the ultimate love song between Yahshua (Jesus) and His beloved redeemed remnant who are longingly waiting to be together with Him forever!
Knowing our identity in the Spirit will encourage us to cultivate the language of love in an intimate, prayerful relationship with our blessed Savior. The biblical concept “of the Bridegroom and the Bride” is eternally important and easy to understand as we study and take to heart a few key scriptural references. (John 3:29, Revelation 19:7) Let’s begin at the beginning when Almighty God created the first man Adam in the Garden of Eden (Paradise). In divine loving kindness, He created Eve as a helpmate for Adam. This “first Adam” is the prefiguring of the “last Adam”, Yahshua (Jesus). Likewise, the union between man and wife to “become one flesh” was the natural earthy relationship preceding the ultimate supernatural eternal union of Yahshua (Jesus) and His redeemed heavenly Bride. Apostle Paul said, “I am jealous for you (the redeemed) with a godly jealousy; for I betrothed you to one husband, so that to Messiah (Christ) I might present you as a pure virgin [undefiled by sin and the flesh’s desires for the world]” (2 Corinthians 11:2). Yahshua is the eternal Bridegroom engaged to His redeemed righteous Bride! We are to be as a Bride in waiting who is eagerly preparing for our holy Bridegroom to come and bring us into His glorious kingdom.
It’s helpful to know that in the spiritual realm, there is “no male nor female in Messiah” (Galatians 3:28). “Therefore, if anyone is in Messiah, he (she) is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come” (2 Corinthians 5:17). The Bride of “the Son of God” can only be a spiritual and holy new creation. Apostle Paul explains, “The FIRST MAN, Adam, BECAME A LIVING SOUL.” “The LAST Adam became A LIFE-GIVING SPIRIT…The first man is from the earth, earthy; the second man is from heaven…Now I say this, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God" (1 Corinthians 15:45-50).
Before the foundation of the earth, our Savior passionately loved His Bride to be. At the divinely appointed time, He left His Heavenly Kingdom, lovingly compelled unto death, to deliver a people from Satan’s deception, bondage to sin, and the gross darkness of this evil world. Yahshua (Jesus) longs to carry us in His loving embrace to the place “He has prepared for us” to share with Him in His Father’s glorious eternal kingdom (John 14:3). Through omnipotent unfailing love, our Bridegroom sacrificially poured out His divine blood to save a remnant of Jews and Gentiles. This “born again” remnant, through faith, is a spiritually “new creation”, His righteous Bride united as one with Him in His eternal heavenly body and Kingdom.
Yahshua (Jesus) is continually wooing and calling His redeemed, “Come out of this dark world; come away with Me, My Beloved. You are the desire of My heart; I love you so much that I died for you. Oh, that I, your Bridegroom, would become the greatest love and desire of your heart. I long for you to draw so near to Me that you will understand and receive My unfailing life changing love.” Apostle Paul, knowing the intensity of Yahshua’s love said, “And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep His love is” (Ephesians 3:18).
Through prayer, we wholeheartedly draw near to Yahshua (Jesus), to gratefully and lovingly commune, worship, and praise Him. The Holy Spirit is jealously longing, pursuing, and drawing us to stay close and to walk with Yahshua (Jesus) in Spirit and Truth. His ever present love entices us to break free from all competing enticements of the flesh and worldly interests to “diligently seek Him with all our heart,” until we find Him to be the utmost true love and fulfillment of our life and heart’s desires.
“Therefore if you have been raised up with Christ (Messiah), keep seeking the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of (Yahveh) God” (Colossians 3:1). Yahshua (Jesus) draws us with cords of love, pulling us tighter and higher into His glorious spiritual embrace. Through prayerful communion, we are cultivating a love relationship that continually grows more intimate as we forsake distractions and preoccupations, to be alone with Him. Spending quality time in our Savior’s presence is unspeakable joy filled with glory that changes us “from glory to glory”. King David said it so beautifully, “One day in Your courts is worth a thousand anywhere else” (Psalm 84:10) and “In Your presence is fullness of joy; In Your right hand are pleasures forever” (Psalm 16:11). Drawing near to our beloved Redeemer through the language of prayerfully expressed love fulfills, fortifies, and strengthens us in spirit, body, and soul.
Prayer
Heavenly Father, You have touched my heart with Your immeasurable love for me. It is true that I have neglected an intimate relationship with You and have taken for granted the sacred privilege to communicate with You as freely as a child with Father and a bride with bridegroom. Yahshua (Jesus) please forgive me for taking lightly Your incomparable gift of eternal salvation and the heavenly access to lovingly communicate with You, my Savior. I am so sorry that I have been preoccupied and more interested in myself, others, and this world. Please help me to live my ransomed life focused on the eternal riches above, where You are seated as King, and not enticed and ensnared by the worldly perishable things here below. Thank You, my holy Savior, for sacrificially giving Your life to redeem me to be with you eternally. I am forever indebted and owe You my life, totally surrendered with undivided love and loyal obedience to Your perfect will. You alone deserve all adoration, worship, praise, and overflowing thanksgiving for purchasing my life with Your own blood. With sincere godly sorrow, I humbly repent for not making You my first and foremost love and the all consuming desire of my life. Thank You with all my heart for Your unfailing love that mercifully forgives and cleanses me with Your precious blood and clothes my wretched nakedness with Your infinite righteousness.
Yahshua (Jesus), I know that working out my salvation is an ongoing process; please help me to forsake and exchange this world’s worthless attractions for the eternal riches of Your glorious Presence and Heavenly Kingdom. I give You my all and everything for You to become my all in all. I pray for the grace and overcoming power of Your Spirit to help me to persevere on that very “narrow path” that leads into Your Righteous Kingdom. Yahshua (Jesus) I love You, I need You, and I long to grow spiritually to become more intimately united as one with You. I wholeheartedly commit to diligently seek, obey, and please You, as I learn to cultivate the only language You speak and desire, which is the language of love. With all my heart, I thank You for hearing and forgiving me and answering my prayerful heart’s desire. In Your holy Name I humbly pray.