Where is My Bride: Ep 3: Wrinkled Garments: Exposing the Quiet Compromise of the Bride

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Music.

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Welcome to the Diary of a Black Woman podcast with your host,

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Connie Morris, where healing has a voice and truth is no longer silent.

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Father God, like Jabez, we cry out that thou would bless us indeed.

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Bless every woman listening beyond trauma, beyond limits, beyond what she thought

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was possible. Enlarge her territory.

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Expand her purpose. Let your hand be upon this moment.

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Saturate every word with oil and truth. break cycles, cancel every curse sent

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to silence her. This isn't just a podcast.

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This is holy ground. In Jesus' name, amen.

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Welcome back to the Diary of a Black Woman's Podcast.

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I'm your host, Connie Morris, and we're continuing our prophetic series, Where is My Bride?

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Today on episode three, will be covering wrinkled garments, the decay of compromise.

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We've already talked about the cry of the bridegroom and the stains of sin.

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So I hope you enjoyed that episode. But today we're looking at something a little more subtle.

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It's the wrinkles in the bride's garment.

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Now think about that. You know, some of us like to wear wrinkled clothes and

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some of us don't. A little bit of wrinkle, no wrinkle.

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I've seen some guys who have things crisp and some girls like it crisp,

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and sometimes we can bear a little bit of wrinkle.

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But God is saying, I don't want any wrinkles in my bride's wedding dress, no wrinkles.

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So what does the meaning of wrinkles really, really mean?

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And so if a wedding dress has stains, if it's been crumpled in a corner,

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ignored or pressed down, it can look wrinkled, limp, and unfit for the aisle.

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Wrinkles don't scream out like stains do, but sometimes they can,

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right? But they still make the bride look prepared.

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If I ask you to raise your hand, how many of you want to look like an unprepared

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bride? Many of us don't. We want that.

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We even, I don't know about you, but as a bride, I remember steaming my wedding

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dress the day, a few hours, that was about a couple hours before the wedding.

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It still gets wrinkled.

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And so you want to make sure there's not one wrinkle. You want even you're trained to be wrinkle free.

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You know and so you want everything to look

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prepared and we know that even

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though wrinkles don't scream out like stains but they

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do they do when when you're unprepared don't matter it's you wearing that gown

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right so it depends on your tolerance for sin and your tolerance for compromise

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is how you can feel unprepared and if you're used to it then you know okay a

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little wrinkle a little saying, I can handle that.

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But if you want to be righteous before God, nothing else but perfection will do.

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So that's what compromised life does in the life of a believer.

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It may not be as obvious as open sin, but over time, it makes the garment of

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our faith look careless and unready.

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The Lord is asking us to let him press out every wrinkle with the refining fire of his Holy Spirit.

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We talked about in the last two episodes about being prepared for our groom.

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Now, we don't know when he's going to come, but we could just get ready. How about that?

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When you're getting ready, I don't know about you, but I can tell you about

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me. Before I got married, I was always looking at my wedding dress.

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Even though I wasn't going to wear it for maybe a couple months or so,

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I will open it up and I'll just look at it.

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I want to make sure, is this the right dress? Is there anything I need to do

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differently? I wouldn't try it on because I didn't want to mess it up.

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But I always was getting ready. What can I do to prepare for this wedding day?

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And if you've ever been a bride, there's always something you can do to prepare

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for your wedding day. Okay?

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And so we are waiting for our bridegroom, Jesus.

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And so we can always get prepared. We can always get ready. So let's look at some scriptures.

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Remember, we don't have to show up with a spot or wrinkle.

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Remember I told you I had this vision of a dirty bride with wrinkled dress and

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she couldn't look at her bride, her groom.

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She can look up at her groom because she felt ashamed, but she wasn't ready.

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When you know Jesus is coming, he's telling you right now to get ready.

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Use the blood of Jesus. Use the washing of the word. Use the fiber of his spirit.

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To get those wrinkles out, to get those stains out, to get ready for his coming.

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Pretty much get your act together. Get your act together. Don't be the foolish virgin.

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Be the wise virgin. Get your oil together. It's never too late.

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Don't be the last minute. And then the doors close and he says, I never knew you. Why?

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Because he's given us time to get ready. Okay. I'm going to keep going.

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Let's go. Cause I preach on that.

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People take blast. You have, you know, we talked about this before.

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We all have last minute friends and when you get to their house.

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They still trying to figure out what they're going to wear.

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When you know the date that you told them was probably a month or two ago,

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like you could have had like an idea of what

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you were going to wear you know you still

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putting on eyelashes I mean like dude

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like so most of the time as I've gotten older I'll just

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say meet me there so you can walk in late and

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then I can leave when I'm ready to go because at you

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know first it was okay to wait be casually late

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then after a while it's like no this is

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you this is how you're going to be I'm not

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going to be walking in late you know sometimes at a point

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just a little section of my life I thought it

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was kind of cute but my heart is always prepare be ready be respectful be on

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time and so that's how you are and then pretty soon when you did have a car

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you had to count on that late person being late but when you your whole goal

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was I'm getting my own car so I be on time.

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And then when God gave you your own car, guess what? You made it your business

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to be on time. Nothing wrong with that.

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You know, being on time is okay.

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It's okay. Okay. Let's go through some scripture.

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Somebody might need to hear that. It's okay. Let your friends be late.

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Let your friends be late. Because you know, if you know the story of the wise

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and the foolish version, they were late and they got left outside.

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2 Corinthians 4, 16 reads, it says, Therefore, we do not lose heart.

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So outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day.

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Wow. James 4, 4 says, You adulterous people, don't you know that friendship

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with the world means enmity against God?

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Therefore, anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of

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God. You're making a decision or not, right?

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If you're choosing right or you're choosing wrong, sometimes if you're not making

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a choice, the choice is being made for you, right?

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So as you walk in righteousness all the time, it says, therefore,

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we do not lose heart. because outwardly, we might look like we're wasting away,

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but inwardly, something is happening in you, right?

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But then James 4, 4 just pretty much kind of give you the slap across the face.

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You adulterous people, don't you know that friendship with the world means enemy against God?

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Therefore, anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of

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God. So it's like, if you choose the world, you automatically,

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by default, becomes the enemy of God.

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These verses remind us that the battle of wrinkles is about neglect and compromise.

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Hourly, we can look fine.

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Hourly, if we're not daily renewed by the Spirit, we become wrinkled,

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weighed down, careless, and compromised.

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Wrinkles form when something is pressed down, folded, or ignored.

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Spiritually, wrinkles represent prayerlessness, neglect of the word,

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blending in with the world, or becoming comfortable with the good enough faith.

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James make it clear, compromise with the world is spiritual adultery.

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A wrinkled bride isn't pursuing holiness.

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She's trying to look acceptable to both the groom and the world.

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But Christ is not coming for a half-prepared bride.

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He is coming for one renewed, day-by-day, radiant, and without compromise.

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And once again, that image pops into my head where the bride is standing before the groom.

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The bride has spots and wrinkles on her. the groom, which is Jesus Christ,

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was still yelling out, where is my bride?

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If you have spots or wrinkle on you and you are not purified by the blood and

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the word and also by the fire of the Holy Spirit, he cannot take you with them. You will stay.

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And that shame is like you're not prepared. If you're not prepared to go, you're not going.

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You're looking like you're sad and you're disappointed, it's not going to faze

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it. It's not going to work.

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The tear is not going to work because you have time right now to get ready.

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So if you want to wait to the last minute, that's your risk,

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but you have now the time to get ready.

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And now I understand why he was saying, where is my church while the bride with

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spot or wrinkle was standing right in front of him because it don't count.

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It don't matter. She wasn't ready. So he was yelling out for the church,

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the bride that was ready.

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So if you're not ready, it's like he doesn't see you. That's a sad moment.

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That's a sad moment. So if you're in a process of compromise.

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Prayerlessness, neglect of the word, trying to blend in with the world and trying

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to blend in with the church or saying with this faith that says,

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you know, that's too much. I ain't going to go that far.

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You won't be seen by Jesus. I know. And he sees everybody, but that,

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that sin and that wrinkle kind of like acts as a fog screen. So let's keep going on.

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Wrinkles in our walk with Christ can look like going days or weeks without prayer.

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How many times do you do that?

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Can you go days or weeks without prayer, without connecting with God?

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You don't go days a week without eating.

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You don't go days a week without talking to your friends, talking on your phone.

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Getting on your social media account.

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So how can you, as a bride, praying for your groom, Jesus, not talk to him?

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Only opening the Bible on Sundays, if at all, and maybe not even a real Bible,

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maybe just an app, nothing wrong with that, but sometimes you need to touch a real Bible,

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accepting values, entertainment, or lifestyles that contradicts God's word.

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You know what I find out? Some people are so connected to these stars that they

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are so emotionally connected that when something happens to them,

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that they just seem to get so caught up and so distracted by their lives.

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And all that is entertainment.

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What does their life have to do with your life? I don't know.

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Sometimes it's interesting. I used to watch soap operas. And after a while,

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these people die and they come back to life on another soap opera.

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After a while, you're like, this is not working for me because.

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You're died on this soap opera, then you pop up on another soap opera,

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then you pop up in a movie.

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Actually, you want to believe that this soap opera is real life,

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but it's not real life. It's not reality.

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It's all for show. The reason it's for show, because it's just they're popping up on other shows, okay?

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You know, for some reason, duh, you know, you know that. But then when you see

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that, you go like, it just takes away the whole punch of the story, punchline of the story.

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I don't know why I went there, but that's the thing about accepting values,

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entertainment, or lifestyle that contradicts the word of God's word.

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Because on those shows and on those movies and on those soap operas,

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they're doing stuff that Christians should not even be watching.

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You know, you meet a guy, you sleep with the guy, you marry the guy,

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you get a divorce, you adultery. everything that God's against in these shows.

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After a while, we think that's okay. Let me keep going.

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We're settling for spiritual laziness instead of pursuing holiness.

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What is spiritual laziness?

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You get the unction to get up. Now the unction is like, you feel like I should be praying right now.

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And the unction comes really strong, but you ignore it.

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And then you ignore it the first time and you go do something different.

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And then God's tried to get you to do it again. You have a dream and you go.

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Boom, then you ignore it.

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Then after a while, that signal that he's giving you, it just starts slowly to fade.

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And then you would get into the

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spiritual laziness and then your world crumbles. And guess what happens?

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Now you're alert. Now you're praying. We get into what you call spiritual laziness.

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We have time for everything else but Jesus.

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Time for everything else. Count how many hours you're on your phone.

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How many hours do you watch whatever you're scrolling through?

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How many hours you're reading a book that's probably not probably a Christian

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book that you're spending your mental abilities on?

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How many hours you do that?

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What words are coming out of your mouth? Are they Jesus' words or are they curse words?

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Just begin to monitor yourself. and saying, are you a reflection of the bride

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that Jesus is going to ignore when he comes?

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Living away one way in public, but differently in private. We're seeing that all over the church.

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You know, we have, I was just surprised to see this gospel singer with this

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guy that recently, I guess he called himself a pastor, where that church was

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recently raided by the police.

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And This lady was a real powerful gospel singer, but she got caught up in the glamour of this guy.

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Maybe because of the money. I don't know. But yet she sang for Jesus,

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but yet she believed the guy who says that you can sleep with me because I'm a friend of Jesus.

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And it's like, do you read your Bible? The Bible said we don't fornicate.

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We don't commit adultery because someone says they know jesus and they're a friend of jesus,

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that don't mean that he i can't even say it out read your bible would jesus

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allow you to sleep with this man you got caught up in the hoopla and the compromise

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so now your gown is wrinkled to spot it.

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Why? Because of spiritual laziness, lack of discernment, living one way in public

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and different in private.

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Everything is going to be exposed.

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And you can write a book about it all you want. That's nice. But when did you know?

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Writing a book is just exposing how ignorant you were, right?

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I'm going to write a book about it because, you know, I made a big mistake.

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Yeah, thanks for writing the book about it and it'll help others get healed from it.

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But during her talk, I never hear how that she was restored by Jesus.

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It was more like she was covering her butt, but that's near here, they're there.

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Or let's keep going. These wrinkles may seem small, but over time they became

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decreases that dull are radiant.

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So usually when you're in sin, someone I know that's in sin,

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she said, well, usually after I do my fornication, I have a little bit of glow.

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It might start out like glow, but then after a while, you're going to be dull

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because you're living in sin.

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You're living in sin. It's the shine of what? Sin.

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Your radiance is going to dull because you're not living in holiness. So your wrinkles.

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So when Jesus calls out, where is my bride?

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You're going to miss him because you're still thinking that you can do A when

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God's telling us not to do A, when he tells us not to compromise,

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when he's telling us to be washed by the word of God.

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You know, be washed by the word of God. be washed by the word of God.

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I got some good news. The good news is this. Just as iron smooths out wrinkles

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with heat and pressure, the Holy Spirit refines us with his fire.

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Viction, discipline, and correction. These are not punishments.

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These are God's way of pressing out the wrinkles so we can shine bright,

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holy, and unwrinkled before him.

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So when you get to a point, a lot of times when you get sick and tired of feeling

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like this is, you will, sin only can take you so far.

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You know, so when you get said, this is not what I thought it was going to be,

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that's kind of the bottom of it.

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And then you can be, you can go on and say, okay, Lord, I've had enough of this dark life.

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Show me your light. Remember, he's always there to rescue you.

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He's always there to rescue you. But I'm just saying, don't be last minute.

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Do not be last minute. Let's go over some questions. where, and even if you

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are last minute, he will still rescue you.

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He will still rescue you. Even until people come to Jesus on their deathbed,

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they come to Jesus even on their deathbed.

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Where have I allowed compromise to wrinkle my walk with Christ?

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Only person can answer that is you.

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Where has I allowed compromise to wrinkle my walk with Christ?

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Number two, am I content with our religion while neglecting my inward renewal?

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And then finally, am I willing to let the spirit apply the heat of discipline to smooth out my life?

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Anyone who's been a Christian long enough knows what that heat of discipline is.

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God will allow you to go so far. If you allow that heat to iron out those wrinkles,

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the heat to get those stains out, I guarantee you that lesson You won't want to do that again ever,

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Never, ever, ever, because that's his way of saying, nope, we don't want to go that way. Let's pray.

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Father, forgive us for the areas where we have compromised and grown complacent.

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Press out every wrinkle of worldliness in our lives.

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Renew our mind for our spirits and set us apart for you.

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We choose holiness over compromise and intimacy over our comfort.

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Let's decree. We decree that every wrinkle of compromise is being pressed out of our life.

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We will not be lazy or complacent. We will be renewed daily by the Spirit of

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God and will stand radiant, unwrinkled, and ready for my bridegroom.

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Yeah, I was a little hard on that one, but guess what?

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Sometimes a little spanking never hurt anyone. I want to see everyone in heaven.

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And sometimes people never really hear the truth. They can hear that they can

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be complacent, they can be lazy, and that God will still love them. God loves you anyway.

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That's why he's setting up different avenues for people to speak to you.

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And so if you hear this podcast or you hear someone else talking about get ready,

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get ready, then you need to get ready. You need to be prepared.

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But I also want to just say thank you for even listening to me just go at this

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because my heart is saying, hey, Jesus is coming soon. Don't be last minute.

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But the reason I want you last minute because I want you to live out the life

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that Christ has already ordained for you.

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So why be last minute and go right to heaven when God has a heaven on earth for you?

00:21:42.194 --> 00:21:46.114
So thank you for joining me on the Diary Black Women Podcast.

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This was episode three of our series, Where Is My Bride?

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Next time we're going to look at what happens when the church ignores both the

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stains and the wrinkles and we put on a mask of holiness.

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But miss the heart of intimacy. We talk about the danger of becoming a counterfeit bride.

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Until then, stay watchful, stay prayful.

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Let the spirit keep your garment ready for this bridegroom return.

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Not just your garment, but your whole spirit, mind, and soul.

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Let it keep you ready. Stay ready so you don't have to get ready.

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And I'll see you on the next episode. Thank you for listening to this episode.

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And before we close out, I want to speak a word of promise over you from Jeremiah 29, 11 through 14.

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Father God, you declared, I know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper

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you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

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So today we received that truth.

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You said when we call on you, you will listen.

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So we pray. You said that when we seek you with our hearts, you will be found, so we pursue.

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You said you will restore us from captivity, so we declare freedom over every

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place where our listeners feel stuck, silenced, or small.

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Thank you for always drawing near when we show up in faith. In Jesus' name, amen.

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Music.