More comfort from my spiritual Spouse

Glancing at today’s devotional verse, I realize I’ve more to learn about the nature of my union with Jesus Christ. This verse says we belong to each other, but do I fully grasp its significance?

My beloved is mine, and I am his…. (Song of Solomon 2:16)

The person who wrote the devotional lived in the 1600s. His interpretations are as timely now as there were then. The first thing he says is that my spiritual Spouse is kind. Today’s news is showing videos of a man who veered back and forth along a street hitting all pedestrians in his path. Would his wife (if he has one) say he is kind? What about those wives who are abused and mistreated? What about the woman whose spouse is always at work, or in the bar, or cheating on her? I don’t know if all women desire a kind man, but this is important to me. However, even the kindest husband can slip from thoughtfulness. Jesus never does.

My spiritual Bridegroom sticks by me in weakness. Human marriage vows say for better or for worse, but at the time they are made, no husband (or wife) can imagine the worst-case scenarios that could test that vow. I know a man whose wife was on life-support and he could not handle it. He left her. Jesus does not and never will do that. When I am weak, He offers me His strength.

But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” (2 Corinthians 12:9)

Normal human marriage is “’til death do us part” but in my spiritual union with Christ, death is the physical beginning of that spiritual union I enjoy now. When I die, I will go to be with Jesus. In this world, God wisely allows change and trouble so I am weaned from its appeal, even longing for the day that my soul is divorced from it and from my body to be married to Christ.

The Bible says that each person dies once, and then there is judgment. I’m not afraid of that either, for my spiritual Husband will be my judge. Satan may accuse me, and often rightly, but my sins are obliterated in the blood of Christ. As the devotional writer says, He cannot pass sentence against His spouse without passing it against Himself for Christ and His Bride are one.

As for suffering, I have a Husband in heaven that cares about all that happens to me, but He and I know that one day those sorrows will be over and He will replace the cup of trembling with the cup of consolation.

He will swallow up death forever; and the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces, and the reproach of his people he will take away from all the earth, for the Lord has spoken. (Isaiah 25:8)

On that day, I will forget all sorrows and the challenges of life as I enter the banqueting house of heaven and sit down to the marriage supper of the Lamb.