We are in a season where I have been hearing and sensing the Spirit of the Lord continually point the people of God back to the place of INTIMACY with JESUS. The Lord is preparing a people, a BRIDE, that will hunger, thirst, and seek after Him not only for what He can give to them but for who He is.

I sensed the Lord saying to His people in this hour, “It is not so much the outward [appearance] of My precious people that I am concerned with. It is time to prepare the ground of your heart, to be intimate with Me, so I can bring you into the next season and move of My Spirit that I will usher in.”

Do you remember Queen Esther? At one time hidden in complete obscurity she is placed under the care of Hegai right in the midst of the King’s house. And for one whole year, Esther underwent the proper purifications and beautifications all for one exact reason: to enter into the PRESENCE of the KING. Her time of private preparation was then followed by a time of public display where she was presented before the king.

In this season I have been hearing the Lord say that He is doing this very thing in the lives of His people. He desires a people who are willing to be prepared by Him to be in the PRESENCE of the KING and to go into deeper dimensions of His presence and His glory. Are we ready and willing to allow the Lord to do the necessary work and preparation in us? Are we willing to do whatever it takes to enter into the presence of the King of Kings, and the Lord of Lords? The Lord is calling us into His courts in this hour.

In Revelation 19:1-7 we see prophetically that it is Jesus’ utmost desire and passion for us to be His bride and to meet with Him at the marriage supper of the Lamb. What a glorious future awaits us as His BRIDE. But my dear brothers and sisters, positionally even NOW each one of us that belong to Jesus Christ and have the Spirit of God dwelling within us: WE ARE HIS BRIDE PRESENTLY. Romans 7:4 tells us that we first “married to another, even to Him who was raised from the dead…”

The Lord ministered to me that there are two important things He desires from us: OUR AFFECTION and INTIMACY with each of us! Oh, how simple this sounds but how often we complicate the simplicity of walking with Jesus, sitting at His feet, sitting under the FOUNTAIN of His SPIRIT, breaking away to be in the SECRET PLACE with Him. How often we have traded a love relationship with Jesus in for things that do not profit us, and could never satisfy. Oh, even now the Lord groans and yearns for His people to once again be lovesick and full of passion for Him. You are His bride, His beloved, His place of affection. You and I are the very reason He came to die.

In Revelation 2, Jesus Himself commended the church at Ephesus for their labor and willingness to persevere in the midst of a unruly and idolatrous city who was content to worship the false goddess Diana. But even then there was only one thing they had neglected which was of the utmost importance, to have JESUS as their FIRST LOVE.

My brothers and sisters, I hear the Spirit of the Lord calling His people back to that very place of LOVE and INTIMACY in this hour. Now is the time to take our eyes off the natural and place them back where they belong, on our BELOVED BRIDEGROOM JESUS! Every thing we need and desire flows forth from that place of being in the PRESENCE OF GOD and sitting at His feet. As much as we cry out to God to pour out His Spirit upon us, He desires to do that for each of us more than we want for ourselves. But we must get before Him like never before.

Now is the time of preparation, we are A BRIDE MADE READY!!

“I charge you, O daughters of Jerusalem, if ye find my beloved, that ye tell him, that I am sick of love.” Song of Solomon 5:8

~ Kevin Stevens

Kevin Stevens is a Pastor, Evangelist, Revivalist, and Author out of Western N.Y. It is Kevin’s heart and passion to write prophetically under the unction of the Spirit of God. Kevin’s books “A Word for the Weary” and “Moving Mountains” are available now on Amazon.