The Father knew that Christ would have to pray, and then suffer exceedingly, before He would be able to possess people in the only manner in which they truly can be possessed. The Creator can create people in His image, but getting them to love Him with all their heart, soul, mind, and strength is another matter.

Human parents can have a child, but getting the child to truly love them requires much more than giving birth to them. We cannot obtain the love of our children by coercion, money, or by informing them of their obligations toward their parents.

The dictators of the world possess authority and power over the bodies of their subjects. But they have no authority or power over their hearts. Thus, the dictators possess flesh, "grass"—nothing of value.

God has created all the people of the world of today, but few of them truly love Him and gladly keep His commandments. God has made it possible for people to choose to give Him their love or to withhold their love from Him; to serve Him or to disobey Him.

The Father has added something else. The Father has planted in the Spirit of Christ the understanding that contained in the multitudes of the earth is a special prize—an elect who will become to Him what Eve was to Adam: that is, an enlargement and completion of Himself. With this understanding has come the fiery love of the Father into Christ—a love so intense, so consuming, that death itself cannot stand in the way; a love that finally brought Christ to the Garden of Gethsemane.

The Lord Jesus Christ is motivated by the most powerful of all motives. He never can be satisfied until His Eve is with Him. At the present time Christ is incomplete—the Lord God has made Him incomplete. Christ never again can live in peace and satisfaction until the day in which the Spirit proclaims, "The marriage of the Lamb is come"; until the second Adam can announce, "This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh."

The Song of Solomon gives us a faint idea of how the Lamb feels about His Bride.

It is the hope and desire for His Bride that moves Christ to keep on working with the Jews and with the other nations of the earth. It is the thought of His Bride that provides life and splendor to Heaven and earth. As far as Christ is concerned, the creation waits for the touch of her hand.

The formation stage of the marriage of the Lamb comes about as we partake of His body and blood, and then as we learn to live by His body and blood, by His indwelling Virtue.

The calling out of the Bride from the multitude of believers can be witnessed in the sixth chapter of the Gospel of John.

To be continued.