Another Coffee Break - By Regner Capener
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Preparing the Bride of Christ For His Return By Janet Van Hierdan
A Tale of Two Brides is now available on Amazon.com:
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Wednesday, December 5, 2012
Another
Coffee Break:
A
Virtuous Woman
Well,
here we are already in the final month of 2012, and it seems like the year just
started yesterday. The pace of
events worldwide has been quickening. God's
Time Clock for this age is ticking in its final moments.
The
Bride of Christ has been going through some pruning, some cleaning, some
refining, and a lot of final preparations for the coming of the Bridegroom,
Jesus Christ. This morning, just
after getting up and heading into the kitchen to start heating water for my
French Press coffee, the Lord downloaded a picture of the finished Bride for me
in a way I've never seen before. I'd
like to share that with you today, as well as in the next few Coffee Breaks as
we wrap up our eighth year of publication.
A
word of reminder before we begin today. Destiny
Image Publishers is preparing to release A TALE OF
TWO BRIDES shortly. Many
of you know that this book is a product of a series of experiences in which the
Angel of the Lord took me out of time, into eternity, and back into time a
different intervals to see the preparation of the Bride of Christ.
A
TALE OF TWO BRIDES
is the first book to come out of those experiences, and it is a picture of the
preparation and responses of two separate women -- Vashti and Esther -- when
they were called to become the wife, the bride, the queen and the counterpart of
King Xerxes (Ahasuerus in our KJV).
The
book continues on into the present to see the exact parallel in the processing
and the responses of Christians in this modern age and separates the body of
Christ into two distinct groups: those who rely on their religious upbringing,
their doctrines and their traditions in the way they respond to the quickening
of Holy Spirit; and those who throw away all of their preconditions, their
religious understanding and their "learning" in order to respond to
the heart's desire of the Lord. It
is a look at what believers are experiencing today as the call of Holy Spirit
quickens and strengthens within their being, and it is a careful look at what is
required of us as believers if we are going to be a part of the chosen and
called-out company known as "The Bride of Christ."
That
said, let's begin today with the portion of the Word (Proverbs 31:10-31) which
specifically describes "a virtuous woman."
"Who
can find a virtuous woman? for her price is far above rubies.
The heart of her
husband doth safely trust in her, so that he shall have no need of spoil. She
will do him good and not evil all the days of her life. She
seeketh wool, and flax, and worketh willingly with her hands. She
is like the merchants’ ships; she bringeth her food from afar.
She riseth also
while it is yet night, and giveth meat to her household, and a portion to her
maidens.
"She
considereth a field, and buyeth it: with the fruit of her hands she planteth a
vineyard. She girdeth her
loins with strength, and strengtheneth her arms.
She perceiveth
that her merchandise is good: her candle goeth not out by night. She
layeth her hands to the spindle, and her hands hold the distaff.
She stretcheth out
her hand to the poor; yea, she reacheth forth her hands to the needy. She
is not afraid of the snow for her household: for all her household are
clothed with scarlet. She
maketh herself coverings of tapestry; her clothing is silk and purple.
"Her
husband is known in the gates, when he sitteth among the elders of the land. She
maketh fine linen, and selleth it; and delivereth girdles unto the
merchant. Strength
and honour are her clothing; and she shall rejoice in time to come. She
openeth her mouth with wisdom; and in her tongue is the law of kindness. She
looketh well to the ways of her household, and eateth not the bread of idleness.
Her
children arise up, and call her blessed; her husband also, and he
praiseth her.
"Many
daughters have done virtuously, but thou excellest them all. Favour
is deceitful, and beauty is vain: but a woman that
feareth the LORD, she shall be praised. Give
her of the fruit of her hands; and let her own works praise her in the
gates."
Many
years ago, when I was attending Bible College, I'd been dating several different
classmates. The "search"
going on my spirit was for a wife, a companion who would share my vision, my
call and my destiny in the Kingdom. When
I became engaged to one of my classmates and asked her to marry me, one of the
young men who shared the house where I was living on campus felt quickened to
deliver a Word from the Lord to me. I
came back to the house late one night and his Bible was opened up on my pillow.
Proverbs 31:10-31 was highlighted for my attention, along with an implied
warning to be careful that the young lady I was engaged to would meet those
qualifications.
It
all seemed a bit overboard at the time and unrealistic.
The picture of this paragon of virtue wasn't something I could relate to
and -- not realizing the significance of the Word being given to me -- I set it
aside to my own peril. I closed the
Bible and put back on my roommate's dresser.
The day would come when I would rue that decision.
At that stage of my life, I was devoid of any understanding of the
concept of God having designed a mate who was the exact counterpart and missing
pieces of one's existence.
That,
my friends, is an area of teaching that has been sadly lacking in all of the
pre-marital counseling and instruction given by pastors or church leaders in any
recent generations within the body of Christ; and I'm not even sure any of that
teaching has existed in many centuries. Nevertheless,
the Word of God is filled with it!
There
are uncountable hundreds of thousands of marriages that have ended in divorce --
the one I just referred to included -- because folks entered into them in
absolute ignorance of the will, the design and purpose of the Lord in joining a
man and a woman together whom He had specifically created and equipped for each
other.
Were
it not for the grace and mercy of the Lord in giving Della to me, I would not be
in any position to share what I'm about to share.
I absolutely understand and appreciate the picture of "the virtuous
woman" of Proverbs 31 because Della meets every description and
characteristic given -- and I have almost 30 years of marriage to her as living
testimony. We'll talk more about
that as this discussion proceeds.
Let's
see if I can get to the nitty-gritty of this discussion right from the get-go!
In the same way that we have been created to be a counterpart -- an
"Other Self", if you will -- for the Lord Jesus Christ; in the same
way that we have been, and are being, prepared to complete Him in every respect,
God has created for each of us a wife (or a husband in the case of a woman) who
fulfills and completes us.
Here's
the principle. In the same way that
Adam was first created complete, then rendered incomplete once Eve was created
out of his side, and then completed once again when Eve was presented to him as
his wife, everyone of us -- having been born of Adam & Eve -- have that same
incompleteness without our counterpart.
The
world has a counterfeit that it refers to as one's "soul-mate."
The problem with that terminology is that it doesn't take into account
the fact that we are first and foremost spirit beings, created in the image of
God. When I refer to Della, I do not
refer to her as my "soul-mate." She
is much more than that! She is my
counterpart. She is my "other
self." She has every
characteristic in her that I lacked.
As
I said to her last night, I became "me" as a whole and complete person
when the Lord gave her to me. She
fulfills and completes every part of my being.
She is what I am not. By the
same token, I am what she is not. Together
we make one whole being!
I've
used a portion of this illustration in the past, but let me repeat myself.
Let me share with you a segment from another book in progress titled, THE
GARDEN EXPERIENCE.
The
Adam and Eve we consider in this place of timelessness (for time has not yet
begun) are a visible representation -- a prophetic image -- of that which will
be worked through six millennia of time, as our Bridegroom forms for Himself a
people -- a corporate entity -- who will become One with Him, and in so doing
cause Completion! They are a picture
of unity. Yes, Eve is different than
Adam -- in the way she thinks, in the way she talks, in the way she arrives at
conclusions -- and yet, no two people could be more alike.
They
share the same existence. They are a
part of each other. Without Eve,
Adam is incomplete. Without Adam,
Eve is incomplete. They share the
same purpose. They are best friends.
Yet they are spiritual beings, created to have fellowship with the Lord,
our Bridegroom, without whom they would be even more incomplete.
Consider
Eve. She is the perfection of Adam.
No woman could more compliment and finish a man.
Yes, she is beautiful -- stunningly so -- but, that is not our focus.
She has been given an independent mind with which to think.
She has been given the independence to choose.
Were a thousand other men arrayed before her, she would still choose
Adam.
Why?
Because she was literally taken from him.
She was extracted from his side. Before
she was, he was. Before she was, he
saw her -- if only in his spirit. Before
she was, they were one -- but incomplete. Adam
had no separate feminine expression of his onoma.
He was forever bound to exist in only one dimension as a masculine
expression. There was no independent
expression of love and commitment towards him from a like being who could share
his thoughts, his desires, his hopes, his purposes.
Though
Adam was ruler over the earth, though he had been given power over every living
species, though he had been given the wisdom and revelation to identify the onoma
of every living creature, he had no one with whom to identify his onoma.
Eve
is like him. Yet, she is different.
Full of grace and beauty, Eve is the expression of all that Adam could
not be. Her onoma
is his onoma because she was taken
from his side. His onoma is her onoma because
he is in her as she is in him. Without
Adam, Eve is terribly incomplete. Without
Eve, Adam is incomplete, lonely, unable to fully express that onoma
which was bred into his genetic structure when the Lord breathed those first
breaths into his being. Together,
they make one whole being.
Even
though the Adam we see walking here in the Garden is a picture of masculine
greatness, authority and power, he is only that way because Eve is here to
complete him. Remove Eve from the
equation and you have a man unable to be whom the Lord created him to be.
Remove Eve, and his destiny will never be fulfilled.
Remove Eve, and you will have a partial man.
Eve,
for all her stunning beauty, is incomplete without Adam.
Remove Adam from this picture and you have grace, form, stature,
loveliness, compassion, love, emotional expression and tenderness that will
never be fully expressed. There will
be no counterpart with whom to express those facets; there will be no recipient
of her love; there will be no complete demonstration of the power, authority and
greatness incorporated into her onoma.
With
Adam, Eve is the personification of greatness.
With Adam, Eve is the complete expression of love.
With Adam, Eve is the visible manifestation of grace and power.
With Adam, Eve is complete. With
Adam, Eve is Eve!
With
Eve, Adam has greatness. With Eve,
Adam's authority can come forth. With
Eve, Adam can rule the dominion he has been given by the Lord.
With Eve, love will go forth in the land.
With Eve, Adam is Adam!
Together,
there will be a full expression and demonstration of the onoma that is Adam. Adam
is not Adam without Eve. Eve is not
Eve without Adam. Adam pours out his
being to Eve. She reciprocates of
her own free will and choice. They are Adam.
And
now we understand the mystery of our Bridegroom, Jesus Christ.
Now we know why He brought us to the Garden to see this picture.
He is the second Adam. We are
the second Eve.
Before
we were, He was. Before we -- the
second Eve -- became, we were One in Him. Before
we were, He saw us and knew us. We
are because of Him. And He now is
because of us.
Before
we were, He had no complete expression of the onoma which was incorporated into His spiritual genetic structure.
To be sure, He was full of grace and beauty.
To be sure, He was the personification of all that is love, the
manifestation of all power, all authority, all strength, all life.
And, yet, none of those facets had expression.
There was no recipient of His love. There
was no way for His strength and life to be demonstrated.
There was no means for all that is His being, His essence, His makeup,
His character, His onoma to be shared
and to be given back in a way that would fulfill Him. They were capped,
enclosed, sealed within Him awaiting a counterpart: an "other self"
who would receive and reciprocate His life -- all that He is -- by free will and
choice, a co-equal who would know as He knows, see as He sees, and function as
He functions. By the same token,
this co-equal must have been taken from Him in order to be imbued with His onoma
-- his essence, his personality, his very makeup.
Before
we were, He was incomplete, unfinished, lacking in the expression of His innate
perfection. For each of us here
today, there is not a shred of doubt that we are because of Him.
We, the second Eve, the Bride of the Lord Jesus Christ, came forth from
His side just as surely as the first Eve came forth from the side of the first
Adam. In the same manner in which
Adam willingly was put to sleep in order that Eve could be taken from His side
and molded, conformed and shaped in his image, the second Adam, Jesus Christ,
willingly allowed Himself to be put to sleep on the cross, suffering the pain of
crucifixion and the sword thrust into His side so that the second Eve -- us, His
Bride -- could be taken from Him and molded, conformed and shaped in His image
and likeness. Just as Eve came forth
to become the source of ecstasy for Adam, we have come forth to become the
source of ecstasy for our Lord and second Adam, Jesus Christ.
This
is the mystery of Godliness. This is
the mystery of "the way of a man with a maid."
This is the mystery of Christ and His Bride.
The mystery is -- no more and no less -- the completed expression of His onoma.
It is the manifestation in both the first Adam and the first Eve of the
completed Adam -- all that had been hidden in his being from the time of
creation, and now expressed fully in both Adam and Eve.
They were the complete Adam. The
mystery of Godliness is the complete expression of Jesus Christ as the second
Adam with His Bride who is the second Eve. Jesus
Christ and His Bride are the completed I
AM!
And
you've just seen a glimpse of "the virtuous woman" -- that perfected
Bride, the second Eve, that lady whose exquisite character and personality
compliment and complete the Lord Jesus Christ.
You've just had a peek at a corporate woman -- that many-membered Bride
of Christ -- whose entire existence revolves about pleasing her husband and
seeing that every need of His is fulfilled and completed.
You
understand, don't you, that this isn't a one-sided arrangement?
This woman's husband literally suffered every indignity, every
humiliation, persecution, torture and death itself -- gaining victory over death
in the process -- in order to win her hand in marriage.
This woman's husband literally breathes her existence, and has provided
every conceivable need in order to assure her welfare, her safety, her
protection, her provision -- and He has done it in such grand style and grandeur
as to defy human imagination!
Here's
how the apostle Paul put it in I Corinthians 2:9 [my amplification]:
"But as it is written, [natural] Eye hath not seen, nor
[natural] ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of [unregenerate] man,
the things which God hath prepared for them that love him."
This
is where we will stop for today, and pick this up again in our next Coffee Break
and finish Paul's statement.
After
years of walking with the Lord, David gave expression to his heart's longing. He
had ultimately concluded there was only one thing he truly desired and one thing
that would fully satisfy the purpose of his life: to dwell in the house of the
Lord all the days of his life and to behold the beauty of the Lord and meditate
in His Temple (Psalm 27:4).
David's passion was to gaze upon and perceive the Lord's beauty and delight in
His loveliness. His expression signifies an experiential comprehension of the
beauty realm of Heaven. Can we behold the King in all His beauty?
In Isaiah 33:14-15, the Holy Spirit through the prophet Isaiah asks a revealing question: "Who can live with continual burning?" Or, in other words: Who can live in an atmosphere where there are perpetual expressions of God's justice? The prophet provides the answers:
1. The one who walks righteously.
2. The one who speaks with sincerity.
3. The one who rejects unjust gain.
4. The one who shakes his hands so that they hold no bribe.
5. The one who stops his ears from hearing about bloodshed.
6. The one who shuts his eyes from looking upon evil.
Such a person lives in a state of consecration and purity, which allows them to dwell in the heavenly heights; their refuge will be the impregnable Rock. Such a person's heavenly bread will be provided and their spiritual water source will be sure. Such a person's eyes will see the King in all of His beauty and will behold the far-distant land (Isaiah 33:14-17).
In Isaiah 33:14-15, the Holy Spirit through the prophet Isaiah asks a revealing question: "Who can live with continual burning?" Or, in other words: Who can live in an atmosphere where there are perpetual expressions of God's justice? The prophet provides the answers:
1. The one who walks righteously.
2. The one who speaks with sincerity.
3. The one who rejects unjust gain.
4. The one who shakes his hands so that they hold no bribe.
5. The one who stops his ears from hearing about bloodshed.
6. The one who shuts his eyes from looking upon evil.
Such a person lives in a state of consecration and purity, which allows them to dwell in the heavenly heights; their refuge will be the impregnable Rock. Such a person's heavenly bread will be provided and their spiritual water source will be sure. Such a person's eyes will see the King in all of His beauty and will behold the far-distant land (Isaiah 33:14-17).
Although the Lord first appeared as the suffering Lamb, He is now being revealed as the victorious King. Presently, Heaven is unveiling the Lord's great glory and kingly authority. It is our outstanding privilege to be offered the opportunity to possess anointed eyes to see, behold, and perceive the revelation of the King and His Kingdom design. (excerpted from a recent prophetic Word delivered by Paul Keith Davis.)
Blessings on you!
Regner
Regner
A. Capener
CAPENER MINISTRIES
CAPENER MINISTRIES
709
South 7th Street
Sunnyside, Washington 98944
(509) 515-0133
All Coffee Break articles are copyright by Regner A. Capener, but authorization for reprinting, reposting, copying or re-use, in whole or in part, is granted – provided proper attribution and this notice are included intact. Older Coffee Breaks are available at http://www.RegnersMorningCoffee.com. Coffee Break articles are normally published weekly.
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CAPENER MINISTRIES is a tax-exempt church ministry. Should you desire to participate and covenant with us as partners in this ministry, please contact us at either of the above email or physical addresses, or visit http://www.RiverWorshipCenter.org.
Sunnyside, Washington 98944
(509) 515-0133
All Coffee Break articles are copyright by Regner A. Capener, but authorization for reprinting, reposting, copying or re-use, in whole or in part, is granted – provided proper attribution and this notice are included intact. Older Coffee Breaks are available at http://www.RegnersMorningCoffee.com. Coffee Break articles are normally published weekly.
If you would like to have these articles arrive each morning in your email, please send a blank email to: Subscribe@AnotherCoffeeBreak.com. To unsubscribe, send a blank email to Unsubscribe@AnotherCoffeeBreak.com.
CAPENER MINISTRIES is a tax-exempt church ministry. Should you desire to participate and covenant with us as partners in this ministry, please contact us at either of the above email or physical addresses, or visit http://www.RiverWorshipCenter.org.
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