Are we nearly there yet?

I think Jesus is returning soon.  Sooner than we think.  Heard it all before, I hear you say.  Let me assure you that I’m not accustomed to hiding under the stairs with tinfoil on my head or walking round Leicester Square with a sandwich board proclaiming, “The End is Nigh”.  And I realise too that it’s one of the most predictably silly things to do, trying to pinpoint when the 2nd Coming will finally happen.  Many have tried and ended up with egg - complete with mayonnaise and cress - on their faces.

No, I think the Lord’s return is close because of a significant and exciting “sign” that is unfolding as we speak.  Often, when we talk of “signs of the times” in relation to the 2nd Coming of Christ – the prophecies that must be fulfilled before He can return – we focus on the negative and “terrible” ones:  wars and rumours of wars, nations against nations; a tsunami of earthquakes, famines and pestilences; family breakdown, and the rise of lawlessness, greed, arrogance, violence and disobedience (see Luke 21:8-11, 2 Tim 3:1-5).

Rarely do we mention the single most important and positive sign of His approaching return – that the church, His Bride, should awaken, arise and enter into a new, passionate, stratospheric level of intimacy with her Lord; that individual believers will begin to hear and answer the call to enter the cloud-filled chamber of His presence (Song of Songs 1:4 The Passion Translation); the secret place of His abiding (Psalm 27:5-6, 32:, 91:9-10 TPT); the higher ground on which we may stand next to Him and be enveloped by His glory (Exodus 33:21).

God wants a passionate relationship with us.  Too often we wallow in the shallows of a religious servitude devoid of the electrifying passion of His love.  If we are to understand anything at all from the glorious Song of Songs – which is the most passionate love song ever written - it is that Jesus doesn’t want to return for a reluctant Bride who feels as if she is entering into an arranged marriage with someone she hardly knows.  He doesn’t want a cold, formal, distant relationship with us.  He wants to awaken our hearts to love Him as passionately as He loves us. Jesus said to His disciples in John 14:21 (TPT) “….whoever passionately loves me will be passionately loved by my Father.  And I will passionately love you in return and will manifest my life within you”.

And this call to greater intimacy isn’t an invitation to a private social-bubble love-in with Jesus – the place of greater intimacy is a place of radical transformation, a place of gene-therapy where layer by layer, precept upon precept, He is bringing to maturity His image in us.  

As you embrace intimate union and communion with Jesus you discover that such intimacy is the foundation for everything.  Intimacy – loving Jesus - informs and shapes everything we are and everything we do. In Song of Songs we note that the bride goes first to the private chamber before she goes to the banqueting hall.  

​Intimacy is the key to…

• Intercession, because it aligns us with His perspective (Revelation 4:1)
• Unity, because only by “connection to the head” (Colossians 2:19) can we receive to minister what other believers need.
• Holiness, because Jesus told His disciples in John 14:15 “Loving me empowers you to obey my commands” (TPT)
• Fruitfulness, because Jesus told His disciples in John 15:5 “As you live in union with me as your source, fruitfulness will stream from within you” (TPT)
• Power, because as Paul explained in Ephesians 6:10 “…be supernaturally infused with strength through your life-union with the Lord Jesus.  Stand victorious with the force of His explosive power flowing in and through you” (TPT)
• Evangelism, because only after fully surrendering to her Beloved’s transforming love, is the Bride finally motivated by passion to tell others.  She says to the Groom in Song of Songs 7:10-12 “Now I know that I am filled with my Beloved and all His desires are fulfilled in me. Come away, my lover. Come away with me to faraway fields.  We will run away together to the forgotten places and show them redeeming love.  Let us arise and run to the vineyards of your people and see if the budding vines of love are now in full bloom.  We will discover if their passion is awakened.  There I will display my love for You”.

And this call to greater intimacy is something that must happen in these last days.  In Matthew 25 Jesus told the parable of the 10 virgins, relating to His return, and verse 6 says: “At midnight the cry rang out ‘Here’s the Bridegroom! Come out to meet Him’”

​All 10 virgins were expecting the Groom but only 5 were ready, prepared, when He came.  The cry is ringing out right now – the Spirit of God is urging us to prepare, to get ready, to answer the call to greater intimacy.