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

0:00 Music. Welcome to the Diary of a Black Woman podcast with your host, Connie Morris, where healing has a voice and truth is no longer silent. Father God, like Jabez, we cry out that thou would bless us indeed. Bless every woman listening beyond trauma, beyond limits, beyond what she thought was possible. Enlarge her territory. Expand her purpose. Let your hand be upon this moment. Saturate every word with oil and truth. break cycles, cancel every curse sent to silence her. This isn't just a podcast.

0:49 This is holy ground. In Jesus' name, amen. Welcome back to the Diary of a Black Woman's Podcast. I'm your host, Connie Morris, and we're continuing our prophetic series, Where is My Bride? Today on episode three, will be covering wrinkled garments, the decay of compromise. We've already talked about the cry of the bridegroom and the stains of sin. So I hope you enjoyed that episode. But today we're looking at something a little more subtle. It's the wrinkles in the bride's garment. Now think about that. You know, some of us like to wear wrinkled clothes and some of us don't. A little bit of wrinkle, no wrinkle.

1:34 I've seen some guys who have things crisp and some girls like it crisp, and sometimes we can bear a little bit of wrinkle. But God is saying, I don't want any wrinkles in my bride's wedding dress, no wrinkles. So what does the meaning of wrinkles really, really mean? And so if a wedding dress has stains, if it's been crumpled in a corner, ignored or pressed down, it can look wrinkled, limp, and unfit for the aisle. Wrinkles don't scream out like stains do, but sometimes they can, right? But they still make the bride look prepared. If I ask you to raise your hand, how many of you want to look like an unprepared bride? Many of us don't. We want that.

2:17 We even, I don't know about you, but as a bride, I remember steaming my wedding dress the day, a few hours, that was about a couple hours before the wedding. It still gets wrinkled. And so you want to make sure there's not one wrinkle. You want even you're trained to be wrinkle free. You know and so you want everything to look prepared and we know that even though wrinkles don't scream out like stains but they do they do when when you're unprepared don't matter it's you wearing that gown right so it depends on your tolerance for sin and your tolerance for compromise is how you can feel unprepared and if you're used to it then you know okay a little wrinkle a little saying, I can handle that.

3:07 But if you want to be righteous before God, nothing else but perfection will do. So that's what compromised life does in the life of a believer. It may not be as obvious as open sin, but over time, it makes the garment of our faith look careless and unready. The Lord is asking us to let him press out every wrinkle with the refining fire of his Holy Spirit. We talked about in the last two episodes about being prepared for our groom. Now, we don't know when he's going to come, but we could just get ready. How about that?

3:51 When you're getting ready, I don't know about you, but I can tell you about me. Before I got married, I was always looking at my wedding dress. Even though I wasn't going to wear it for maybe a couple months or so, I will open it up and I'll just look at it. I want to make sure, is this the right dress? Is there anything I need to do differently? I wouldn't try it on because I didn't want to mess it up. But I always was getting ready. What can I do to prepare for this wedding day? And if you've ever been a bride, there's always something you can do to prepare for your wedding day. Okay? And so we are waiting for our bridegroom, Jesus. And so we can always get prepared. We can always get ready. So let's look at some scriptures.

4:37 Remember, we don't have to show up with a spot or wrinkle. Remember I told you I had this vision of a dirty bride with wrinkled dress and she couldn't look at her bride, her groom. She can look up at her groom because she felt ashamed, but she wasn't ready. When you know Jesus is coming, he's telling you right now to get ready. Use the blood of Jesus. Use the washing of the word. Use the fiber of his spirit. To get those wrinkles out, to get those stains out, to get ready for his coming. Pretty much get your act together. Get your act together. Don't be the foolish virgin.

5:17 Be the wise virgin. Get your oil together. It's never too late. Don't be the last minute. And then the doors close and he says, I never knew you. Why? Because he's given us time to get ready. Okay. I'm going to keep going. Let's go. Cause I preach on that. People take blast. You have, you know, we talked about this before. We all have last minute friends and when you get to their house. They still trying to figure out what they're going to wear. When you know the date that you told them was probably a month or two ago, like you could have had like an idea of what you were going to wear you know you still putting on eyelashes I mean like dude like so most of the time as I've gotten older I'll just say meet me there so you can walk in late and then I can leave when I'm ready to go because at you know first it was okay to wait be casually late then after a while it's like no this is you this is how you're going to be I'm not going to be walking in late you know sometimes at a point just a little section of my life I thought it was kind of cute but my heart is always prepare be ready be respectful be on time and so that's how you are and then pretty soon when you did have a car you had to count on that late person being late but when you your whole goal was I'm getting my own car so I be on time.

6:44 And then when God gave you your own car, guess what? You made it your business to be on time. Nothing wrong with that. You know, being on time is okay. It's okay. Okay. Let's go through some scripture. Somebody might need to hear that. It's okay. Let your friends be late. Let your friends be late. Because you know, if you know the story of the wise and the foolish version, they were late and they got left outside. 2 Corinthians 4, 16 reads, it says, Therefore, we do not lose heart. So outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. Wow. James 4, 4 says, You adulterous people, don't you know that friendship with the world means enmity against God?

7:31 Therefore, anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God. You're making a decision or not, right? If you're choosing right or you're choosing wrong, sometimes if you're not making a choice, the choice is being made for you, right? So as you walk in righteousness all the time, it says, therefore, we do not lose heart. because outwardly, we might look like we're wasting away, but inwardly, something is happening in you, right? But then James 4, 4 just pretty much kind of give you the slap across the face. You adulterous people, don't you know that friendship with the world means enemy against God?

8:12 Therefore, anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God. So it's like, if you choose the world, you automatically, by default, becomes the enemy of God. These verses remind us that the battle of wrinkles is about neglect and compromise. Hourly, we can look fine. Hourly, if we're not daily renewed by the Spirit, we become wrinkled, weighed down, careless, and compromised. Wrinkles form when something is pressed down, folded, or ignored. Spiritually, wrinkles represent prayerlessness, neglect of the word, blending in with the world, or becoming comfortable with the good enough faith.

9:03 James make it clear, compromise with the world is spiritual adultery. A wrinkled bride isn't pursuing holiness. She's trying to look acceptable to both the groom and the world. But Christ is not coming for a half-prepared bride. He is coming for one renewed, day-by-day, radiant, and without compromise. And once again, that image pops into my head where the bride is standing before the groom. The bride has spots and wrinkles on her. the groom, which is Jesus Christ, was still yelling out, where is my bride?

9:44 If you have spots or wrinkle on you and you are not purified by the blood and the word and also by the fire of the Holy Spirit, he cannot take you with them. You will stay. And that shame is like you're not prepared. If you're not prepared to go, you're not going. You're looking like you're sad and you're disappointed, it's not going to faze it. It's not going to work. The tear is not going to work because you have time right now to get ready. So if you want to wait to the last minute, that's your risk, but you have now the time to get ready.

10:28 And now I understand why he was saying, where is my church while the bride with spot or wrinkle was standing right in front of him because it don't count. It don't matter. She wasn't ready. So he was yelling out for the church, the bride that was ready. So if you're not ready, it's like he doesn't see you. That's a sad moment. That's a sad moment. So if you're in a process of compromise. Prayerlessness, neglect of the word, trying to blend in with the world and trying to blend in with the church or saying with this faith that says, you know, that's too much. I ain't going to go that far.

11:14 You won't be seen by Jesus. I know. And he sees everybody, but that, that sin and that wrinkle kind of like acts as a fog screen. So let's keep going on. Wrinkles in our walk with Christ can look like going days or weeks without prayer. How many times do you do that? Can you go days or weeks without prayer, without connecting with God? You don't go days a week without eating. You don't go days a week without talking to your friends, talking on your phone. Getting on your social media account. So how can you, as a bride, praying for your groom, Jesus, not talk to him? Only opening the Bible on Sundays, if at all, and maybe not even a real Bible, maybe just an app, nothing wrong with that, but sometimes you need to touch a real Bible, accepting values, entertainment, or lifestyles that contradicts God's word.

12:10 You know what I find out? Some people are so connected to these stars that they are so emotionally connected that when something happens to them, that they just seem to get so caught up and so distracted by their lives. And all that is entertainment. What does their life have to do with your life? I don't know. Sometimes it's interesting. I used to watch soap operas. And after a while, these people die and they come back to life on another soap opera. After a while, you're like, this is not working for me because. You're died on this soap opera, then you pop up on another soap opera, then you pop up in a movie.

12:50 Actually, you want to believe that this soap opera is real life, but it's not real life. It's not reality. It's all for show. The reason it's for show, because it's just they're popping up on other shows, okay? You know, for some reason, duh, you know, you know that. But then when you see that, you go like, it just takes away the whole punch of the story, punchline of the story. I don't know why I went there, but that's the thing about accepting values, entertainment, or lifestyle that contradicts the word of God's word. Because on those shows and on those movies and on those soap operas, they're doing stuff that Christians should not even be watching. You know, you meet a guy, you sleep with the guy, you marry the guy, you get a divorce, you adultery. everything that God's against in these shows.

13:41 After a while, we think that's okay. Let me keep going. We're settling for spiritual laziness instead of pursuing holiness. What is spiritual laziness? You get the unction to get up. Now the unction is like, you feel like I should be praying right now. And the unction comes really strong, but you ignore it. And then you ignore it the first time and you go do something different. And then God's tried to get you to do it again. You have a dream and you go. Boom, then you ignore it. Then after a while, that signal that he's giving you, it just starts slowly to fade.

14:23 And then you would get into the spiritual laziness and then your world crumbles. And guess what happens? Now you're alert. Now you're praying. We get into what you call spiritual laziness. We have time for everything else but Jesus. Time for everything else. Count how many hours you're on your phone. How many hours do you watch whatever you're scrolling through? How many hours you're reading a book that's probably not probably a Christian book that you're spending your mental abilities on? How many hours you do that? What words are coming out of your mouth? Are they Jesus' words or are they curse words? Just begin to monitor yourself. and saying, are you a reflection of the bride that Jesus is going to ignore when he comes?

15:11 Living away one way in public, but differently in private. We're seeing that all over the church. You know, we have, I was just surprised to see this gospel singer with this guy that recently, I guess he called himself a pastor, where that church was recently raided by the police. And This lady was a real powerful gospel singer, but she got caught up in the glamour of this guy. Maybe because of the money. I don't know. But yet she sang for Jesus, but yet she believed the guy who says that you can sleep with me because I'm a friend of Jesus.

15:55 And it's like, do you read your Bible? The Bible said we don't fornicate. We don't commit adultery because someone says they know jesus and they're a friend of jesus, that don't mean that he i can't even say it out read your bible would jesus allow you to sleep with this man you got caught up in the hoopla and the compromise so now your gown is wrinkled to spot it. Why? Because of spiritual laziness, lack of discernment, living one way in public and different in private. Everything is going to be exposed.

16:36 And you can write a book about it all you want. That's nice. But when did you know? Writing a book is just exposing how ignorant you were, right? I'm going to write a book about it because, you know, I made a big mistake. Yeah, thanks for writing the book about it and it'll help others get healed from it. But during her talk, I never hear how that she was restored by Jesus. It was more like she was covering her butt, but that's near here, they're there. Or let's keep going. These wrinkles may seem small, but over time they became decreases that dull are radiant. So usually when you're in sin, someone I know that's in sin, she said, well, usually after I do my fornication, I have a little bit of glow.

17:23 It might start out like glow, but then after a while, you're going to be dull because you're living in sin. You're living in sin. It's the shine of what? Sin. Your radiance is going to dull because you're not living in holiness. So your wrinkles. So when Jesus calls out, where is my bride? You're going to miss him because you're still thinking that you can do A when God's telling us not to do A, when he tells us not to compromise, when he's telling us to be washed by the word of God. You know, be washed by the word of God. be washed by the word of God. I got some good news. The good news is this. Just as iron smooths out wrinkles with heat and pressure, the Holy Spirit refines us with his fire.

18:11 Viction, discipline, and correction. These are not punishments. These are God's way of pressing out the wrinkles so we can shine bright, holy, and unwrinkled before him. So when you get to a point, a lot of times when you get sick and tired of feeling like this is, you will, sin only can take you so far. You know, so when you get said, this is not what I thought it was going to be, that's kind of the bottom of it. And then you can be, you can go on and say, okay, Lord, I've had enough of this dark life. Show me your light. Remember, he's always there to rescue you. He's always there to rescue you. But I'm just saying, don't be last minute. Do not be last minute. Let's go over some questions. where, and even if you are last minute, he will still rescue you.

18:59 He will still rescue you. Even until people come to Jesus on their deathbed, they come to Jesus even on their deathbed. Where have I allowed compromise to wrinkle my walk with Christ? Only person can answer that is you. Where has I allowed compromise to wrinkle my walk with Christ? Number two, am I content with our religion while neglecting my inward renewal? And then finally, am I willing to let the spirit apply the heat of discipline to smooth out my life? Anyone who's been a Christian long enough knows what that heat of discipline is.

19:41 God will allow you to go so far. If you allow that heat to iron out those wrinkles, the heat to get those stains out, I guarantee you that lesson You won't want to do that again ever, Never, ever, ever, because that's his way of saying, nope, we don't want to go that way. Let's pray. Father, forgive us for the areas where we have compromised and grown complacent. Press out every wrinkle of worldliness in our lives. Renew our mind for our spirits and set us apart for you. We choose holiness over compromise and intimacy over our comfort.

20:24 Let's decree. We decree that every wrinkle of compromise is being pressed out of our life. We will not be lazy or complacent. We will be renewed daily by the Spirit of God and will stand radiant, unwrinkled, and ready for my bridegroom. Yeah, I was a little hard on that one, but guess what? Sometimes a little spanking never hurt anyone. I want to see everyone in heaven. And sometimes people never really hear the truth. They can hear that they can be complacent, they can be lazy, and that God will still love them. God loves you anyway. That's why he's setting up different avenues for people to speak to you.

21:10 And so if you hear this podcast or you hear someone else talking about get ready, get ready, then you need to get ready. You need to be prepared. But I also want to just say thank you for even listening to me just go at this because my heart is saying, hey, Jesus is coming soon. Don't be last minute. But the reason I want you last minute because I want you to live out the life that Christ has already ordained for you. So why be last minute and go right to heaven when God has a heaven on earth for you? So thank you for joining me on the Diary Black Women Podcast. This was episode three of our series, Where Is My Bride?

21:51 Next time we're going to look at what happens when the church ignores both the stains and the wrinkles and we put on a mask of holiness. But miss the heart of intimacy. We talk about the danger of becoming a counterfeit bride. Until then, stay watchful, stay prayful. Let the spirit keep your garment ready for this bridegroom return. Not just your garment, but your whole spirit, mind, and soul. Let it keep you ready. Stay ready so you don't have to get ready. And I'll see you on the next episode. Thank you for listening to this episode.

22:33 And before we close out, I want to speak a word of promise over you from Jeremiah 29, 11 through 14. Father God, you declared, I know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. So today we received that truth. You said when we call on you, you will listen. So we pray. You said that when we seek you with our hearts, you will be found, so we pursue. You said you will restore us from captivity, so we declare freedom over every place where our listeners feel stuck, silenced, or small.

23:13 Thank you for always drawing near when we show up in faith. In Jesus' name, amen. Music.