Blood. It always blows my mind how an idea that is so complicated can be drawn and explained by a single word. If you think about blood cells from a biological point of view, they are the single most effective carriers of anything. This is why when you have a blood disease the molecular structure of said disease looks a lot like a nutrient or mineral that the blood is designed to carry. While there is some diversity to that statement, you must be asking yourself why I'm talking about blood.
What's so important about blood that I've taken an entire paragraph to explain one mechanic of the stuff? Well for one, blood in the Bible is heard. When God says to Cain that He can hear Abels blood (Gen 4:8) It makes it clear that there is not just a nutrient that is carried by the substance, but a voice. Not only that but the simplicity of the remark "The blood of the lamb takes (or carries) away the sins of the world." Not only can blood carry a voice, or a nutrient, but it also carries the icky black stuff that gets all over our flesh and makes us unclean in the sight of God. It takes away what makes our rags dirty, and it allows us to receive gowns and crowns that are pure and clean.
When God sees us, He is looking through the lens of the blood of the lamb, which is kinda funny because you'd figure that would make things fairly "rose-colored" as you may have heard some say, and yet it is the most real thing we as believers have. This purity is simply handed to us, this identity, completion. There are many words you could use to describe it, but we are well aware that there is no one like Jesus who lived a completely perfect life, and the fact of the matter is that if there was He wouldn't be worth worshipping.
However, He did come, and He did succeed in completing the will of the Father perfectly, in absolute obedience, and because of that He has atoned for the sins of the world, and more than that He has been raised to life and been awarded a Bride who is absolutely perfect for Him, who is still being perfected. The now/not yet concept comes into play here.
So what do I mean by the "Bride Heart"? Well, we have to ask ourselves as a Church how much we are living with the reality that we are in covenant with the Most High King. The covenant has been sealed, and every believer that has received that seal is absolutely sealed by the blood of the Groom who came to die for her, and thus not only renewed his vows to be faithful but rewrote the contract so that we became completely His, and He became completely ours. Or to even make the language even more personal, Jesus became completely Mine as His bride. How does that even work? I don't know honestly, I just know that that's what Jesus did, and that's how we ought to celebrate Him. I think it's a significant point looking at Philippians 3 which explains that we've been given one mind, one accord, and really expositing it, one love. One blood covers us all, just as one veil covers one bride. Yet soon this veil will be lifted, our eyes will be lifted up to heaven, our knees will bow to the ground, and we will absolutely know what it means to be a Bride.
So I think that the Bride is constantly looking in expectation, as the parable of the ten virgins who are wise. I think the Bride heart means that we are imagining and loving our soon to be Groom with such intimacy that we might as well already be married. We are constantly trying to sneak a peek at His face behind our veil, pushing ourselves into His loving arms. We are constantly moving closer, looking deeper, discovering and learning more about Him, because frankly we as a bride are completely obsessed with Him. I think this is the Heart of Flesh that God gives us so faithfully. Completely abandonment to Him and His life, not just because of how much He's done, but how much He does! Because His character and justness outweigh any glories we could have in the world. Because His love and presence are so sweet that our quality of life just continues going up.
Because of the blood that cleans us, because of the identity that has been freely given.
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