BRENDA COBB MURPHY
A Lover of Jesus
It would have been a hand whose every touch was pure and giving, a hand that lifted, a hand that covered, a hand that cherished, a hand you just knew you could trust - and that whispered with its every touch, "I love you. I love you. I love you."
(Jesus by
Bruce Marchiano)
Questions From Readers:
Is The Wild Romancer written for women only?
I wrote this book to men and women alike, as we are all His bride, both men and women, and in the end men, too, will have the relationship of the bride. That is why I included many quotes from men who understand that relationship.
The Afterward in The Wild Romancer is written by my husband Terry, who talks about not only being married to a woman in love with Jesus but about being a man with his own passion for his Bridegroom Jesus.
While men generally live the adventure and dragon-slaying side of the Christian life more, there are now more men than ever who are falling in love with Jesus and identifying with the disciple John. Women crave romance and a heart-to-heart relationship, we crave being pursued for ourselves just because someone loves us beyond anything else, so it is easier for women to relate to this book, yet, here is something a man wrote after reading it:
If you are a Christian man and want to experience more adventure and excitement in your life, then read this book. If you have ever felt God's presence come upon you and you are hungry for more of Him, then read this book. If you are tired of the same old routines, and think there has got to be a better way, then read this book. You can wait until you get to heaven to experience a real, exciting friendship with Jesus, or you can read this book and see that it is possible to experience heaven on earth today.
(Jeff M.)
So while the book is good (if I do say so myself) the Journey Guide is much more valuable, because it is about your own personal journey.
Where is the place of the church as the Bride of Christ?
The Bride of Christ is definitely a body as a whole, but you cannot have a body unless it is made up of individuals. You can’t take a bunch of fish and put them together and make a body, a body is made up of individual bodies, to corporately become a whole. Would Jesus rather come back for a corporate body made up of slaves, children, servants, friends, and workers, or would he rather come for a Bride made up of individual brides who love Him passionately? In Revelation 22:17 we get that answer, when it says, “The Spirit and the bride say ‘Come!’” The Greek word for “say” can be translated “call.” Jesus is coming back when his bride is so passionate about Him that she is crying out for His return.
Therefore, while we are all part of one corporate, passionate Bride who can’t wait to be with her Bridegroom, that corporate Bride is made up of individual brides. That doesn’t exclude the importance of the church (body, Bride), but our focus, whether we’re alone or in a body, is to be on Jesus. We are individual Christians who are supposed to have a personal (individual) relationship with God. First there are Christians, then there is a body, you can’t start with a body made up of nothing to which you then start adding individuals. No individual brides, no corporate Bride.
For example, Congress is a good analogy. Congress is an entity that makes laws and tends to the business of the government of the United States. When we refer to Congress we are referring to it as a whole and to what it does as a whole, just as we refer to the Bride as a whole entity in that context. When we refer to Congress we are not referring to any of the individuals who make up Congress, we are referring to the entity. But, can you have Congress without any individuals? Does it matter who is in that body? Yes, it must be made up of people who care about the United States, who are educated and who understand the processes. Can we have a Congress that is made up of beggars, convicts, derelicts, children, uneducated people, foreigners, or youth who are at that stage where the world revolves around them? No. We must have a body of people who understand the purpose of Congress, who are educated in the things that Congress controls, who want the best for the United States, and who have lived here long enough to understand what the United States stands for. So, while we refer to Congress and what it does as an entity in itself, it is very important who the individuals are and their interest in the US, as they are also “Congress.”
I see Matthew 6:6 as showing that our intimacy with God is personal. But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. (NIV)
If it was all about
the corporate Bride we’d be told the opposite, to pray loudly in public,
to let everyone know when we fast and suffer for Jesus, and to announce
to everyone when we do anything for God. Yet he tells us the opposite,
that relationship is about being in the secret place with Him.
Yes, God is wholly God without us. It doesn't make Him any less God to have a place that only we can fill, to hunger for our company, to desire our love even to the death, and to make us His bride. It makes Him more God.
1 John 4:8 tells us that God is love. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. Again in I John 4:16: And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him.
It’s not just that He loves, but He IS love. What is the point of love
if there is no object to receive that love? The very word denotes a
lover and a recipient of love. There is no Biblical indication that God
loves the angels, and there are verses that indicate it is not a love
relationship, for example, Heb 1:14
Are not all angels ministering
spirits sent to serve those who will inherit salvation?
We complete God’s love. I John 2:5 tells us,
But if anyone obeys his word,
God's love is truly made complete in him. This is how we know we are in
him. We’re told again in I John 4:12 that
No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us
and his love is made complete in us.
God created us for a relationship where He gives and receives love. As
much emphasis as God puts in the Bible on the fact that He IS love, on
His love for us, and on His desire for our love, shows us that He is
emotionally involved, both corporately and individually, in mankind. So
emotionally involved, in fact, that He allows a part of His Godhead to
dwell within us in order for us to have the capability of loving Him the
way He so desperately wants us to (Acts 2:38,28). This intense love
causes Him to give us His mind (I Co. 2:16), to adopt us as sons
alongside His real Son (Romans 8:15,16; Ephesians 2:6), provide us with
His inheritance (Ephesians 1:13,14), and to seek each one of us out to
walk in a personal relationship with Him (John 15:15). His love moves
Him to jealousy (II Co. 11:2), provokes Him to anger (Mark 3:5), and
causes Him to literally beg us to come back from our waywardness and
love Him (Luke 13:34). It has Him rejoicing over us with singing one
minute (Zephaniah 3:17) and weeping brokenheartedly the next (Luke
19:41). He cries over us the way a mother’s heart breaks over her
children (Luke 13:34). He loves us in a way that only Love Himself can.
And He feels a great loss when we don’t respond to that love.
God pursued us (I John 4:10),
performing the greatest act of love that exists. (John 15:13
Greater love has no one than this,
that he lay down his life for his friends. Romans 5:8
But God demonstrates his own love
for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.) He
didn’t do it just out of charity, or feeling sorry for us, or because
having created us it was His duty. He felt so emotionally in love with
us that He chose to do it because we were worth it. Love needed us to
complete Love. Over and over the Bible refers to a union between us and
God, and the nature of a union is that two are united into one. Here are
some examples:
God is love. Whoever
lives in love lives in God, and God in him.
(1 John 4:16)
"Haven't you read,"
he replied, "that at the beginning the Creator 'made them male and
female,' and said, 'For this reason a man will leave his father and
mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh'?
(Matt 19:4-6)
But he who unites himself with the Lord is one with Him in spirit. (1 Co. 6:17)
Remain in me, and I
will remain in you.
(John 15:4-27)
Jesus replied, "If
anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him, and
we will come to him and make our home with him.
(John 14:23)
Marriage, the greatest expression of love on earth, was created by God, and we are His bride. (See Ephesians 5:31,32; I Corinthians 6:17; and II Corinthians 11:2.) In I Corinthians 6:17, when He says But he who unites himself with the Lord is one with Him in spirit, it stands to reason that the God who created marriage for a man and a woman to complete each other also expects His marriage with His bride to work that way.
While God is wholly God without us, there is a place we fill in Him that
nothing else can fill. When it comes to God loving man, Ezekiel 16 and
the second chapter of Hosea are two of the most heartbreaking chapters
of the Bible, as a broken-hearted God cries out for us, His beloved. I
cannot read the verses below and not believe that there is a place in
God that needs our love. Otherwise, we would not have the ability to
cause Him such deep, heart-rending pain.
"And you took your
sons and daughters whom you bore to me and sacrificed them as food to
the idols. Was your prostitution not enough? You slaughtered my children
and sacrificed them to the idols.”
(Ezekiel 16:20,21)
"You adulterous
wife! You prefer strangers to your own husband!”
(Ezekiel 16:32)
"How can I give you
up, Ephraim? How can I hand you over, Israel? How can I treat you like
Admah? How can I make you like Zeboiim? My heart is changed within me;
all my compassion is aroused.”
(Hosea 11:8)
“You also took the
fine jewelry I gave you, the jewelry made of my gold and silver, and you
made for yourself male idols and engaged in prostitution with them. And
you took your embroidered clothes to put on them, and you offered my oil
and incense before them. Also the food I provided for you-- the fine
flour, olive oil and honey I gave you to eat-- you offered as fragrant
incense before them. That is what happened, declares the Sovereign
LORD.”
(Ezekiel 16:17-19)
“I will punish her
for the days she burned incense to the Baals; she decked herself with
rings and jewelry, and went after her lovers, but me she forgot,"
declares the LORD.”
(Hosea 2:13)
"O Jerusalem,
Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how
often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers
her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing!”
(Luke 13:34)
What a love story! It is so grand, so noble, and so true. It is so
beautiful, good-hearted, and strong, withstanding every attempt by satan
to destroy it. Through the ages God continues to woo us back to Him. And
this fairy-tale does end with happily-ever-after. We
will stand by our King and speak our marriage vows to each other. He
will be wholly loved and we will be wholly loved. God is wholly God, and
it doesn’t make Him any less God for Him to need us to complete His
love.
Fear is the first result of self-consciousness and boldness is the first result of God-consciousness.
(Terry Murphy)
Playing with the camera during the fireworks at Epcot Center. :)
