If you see an unmarried man flaunting a luxurious lifestyle and hear him telling how great it is to be an independent bachelor, don't believe him; he just doesn't know what it is like to be married to a good woman.

The Lord knows what a man needs. After He created him, He said, "It isn't good for man to be alone; I will make a companion for him, a helper suited to his needs" (Gen.2:18).

It has been a long time since I was a single man, but I can still remember quite well some of the foolish, hypocritical statements that I made before I met the girl who was to become my wife. I would say things like, "Marriage is not for me" or "Who needs a ball and chain like that?" But in my heart I was begging God to give me a good wife.

The Lord answered my prayer. Now, all I can say--speaking from the experience of thirty-two years in a wonderful marriage that keeps getting better every day--is that God is truly "The Great Matchmaker"! If you are blessed with a good marriage, you can be assured that it was made in Heaven!

Perhaps you are not so fortunate to be happily married. There may be so much stress in your marriage that you wonder if you have the right partner. You may be thinking, Oh, did I make a terrible mistake. When I got married, I did not ask the Lord for help; I went ahead on my own and now look at the mess I'm in! If that is the case, don't be discouraged, because your marriage can still be transformed by the power of God.

There is something you can do if you see your marriage falling apart: you can pick up the pieces and begin to work things out. Perhaps a marriage counselor may be of some help; that is, if you can afford to pay for his advice--or--you can turn to your Heavenly Father and commit your marriage to Him. It is astonishing what the Master Potter can make out of a mess of clay that we place into His hands.

Marriage is not to be taken lightly. Any man or woman who places their career before their marriage must have a poor concept of what wedded life is all about. Perhaps they view it through the eyes of the world rather than through the wisdom of God. Marriage should not be considered as some man made commodity, but rather as a wonderful, magnificent, sacred work of God! Jesus said, "What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder" (Mat.19:6).

If you are a single woman who wants to have a good marriage, don't think you have all the wisdom needed to understand the mystery of love. Don't count on your own ability to be able to identify Mr. Right, and don't trust your intuition to decide with whom you will spend your life. The stakes are too high for such a gamble. You should ask God to choose for you that one and only--of all the men in the whole world--who will make the best husband for you. Only the Lord knows who that special man is because He created him.

If you are a man looking for the perfect wife, be careful when your friends try to play cupid, and don't trust those dating services that rely on a computer to track down a good woman for you. Go to the Great Matchmaker. He is good at what He does, and He loves to give good gifts to His children (Mat.7:11); and what could be a better gift than a prudent wife?

Before we earthly fathers walk down the aisle to give away a daughter, we should explain to the groom that we are only carrying out a custom, and make certain that he knows she is a gift to him from the Lord. The Bible says, "House and riches are the inheritance of fathers: and a prudent wife is from the Lord" (Prov.19:14).

Back in Bible days it was the custom (and still is in a few countries) for the father to pick out a bride for his son. Now that is an awesome responsibility! What father--out of all the fathers in the whole world--would have the wisdom to pick out his son's lifetime partner? What person is wise enough to make such a choice for someone else or even for themselves? If you are contemplating getting married, don't take any chances when it comes to choosing your marriage partner; don't even trust your own judgment. There is only one who is able to choose the right mate for you, and that is your Heavenly Father.

Up to this point we have only begun to view the wonders of marriage. The union of a man and woman in wedlock is an incredible work of God, but it is only a glimpse of the glory of the greatest marriage of all.

If you are as happily married as I am, you would claim to have the greatest marriage that God has ever created; but that would not be true, because the finest of them all is the first one He made--the one He is still working on.

When I speak of the first marriage, most likely Adam and Eve will come to your mind, but theirs was not the first. God ordained one long before that. This marriage is the marriage of all marriages. It is so magnificent that it is too much to comprehend with the mind; it must be revealed to the heart by the Holy Spirit.

So often we view the works of God through our limited human vision and place them in the framework of our time and space understanding. In reality, something becomes real when God calls it into being, and He is not limited to time and space the way we are while we are on our pilgrimage here on earth. What I now speak about took place before time as we know it began, and will continue on after time as we know it ends.

Before the creation of the world, God ordained a marriage. This was not an ordinary marriage. It was, and is, and is to be, the greatest wedding of all weddings. It is the first and the last marriage all combined into one. It is the perfect marriage. The actual wedding service began about two thousand years ago and is still in progress. It could continue on for a long while, but according to the end time signs proclaimed in the Bible, it looks as if it is nearly over.

When this wedding ceremony is finally completed, the celebration will go on throughout all eternity! The wedding banquet is still to come. It will be so glorious that there is no place on earth to be found that is worthy to accommodate such an affair. It is scheduled to take place in Heaven! As you can see, this is not a common wedding. I am speaking of the marriage of the Son of God!

The Bible says, "Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him. But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God" (1Cor.2:9, 10). Oh, the wonder of it all!

Way back in eternity, long before the creation of the world, God willed to give His Son a Bride. This could be no ordinary bride: she would have to be perfect, which means she would have to be so righteous and have such purity as to be sinless in the sight of Almighty God! How could He ever come up with a Bride like that?

Well, first, He would have to purchase her, and she would cost Him plenty. If you are the father of a bride, you know what it is like to foot the bill for a wedding; but that is nothing in comparison to what it cost God to make it possible for the Bride to be made so that she could be acceptable. The Bible states that she was, ". . . not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold . . . But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot" (1Pet.1:18, 19). The cost to God can only be measured by the weight of the sin of all mankind placed on the Messiah on the cross at Calvary.

What could be so valuable to God to carry a price tag like that? The answer is, You! YOU ARE THAT BRIDE!!!

You were chosen before the foundation of the world to be the Bride of Christ! This is how it is stated in a modern language Bible: "Even before the world was made, God had already chosen us to be his through our union with Christ, so that we would be holy and without fault before him" (Eph.1:4).

Shortly before He went to the cross, Jesus prayed for His glorious Bride-to-be. He prayed, "Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one, as we are one" (John 17:11). Becoming one is speaking of marriage (Gen.2:24). Referring to those who are joined to Christ, the Bible says, "For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones" (Eph.5:30).

The Lord God did not create us as a ready-made Bride. We were made with a free will--we have a choice to be united to Christ or to be independent from Him. Unfortunately, beginning with Adam and Eve, we all have chosen to be independent from God, to go our own way, to do our own thing. The Bible says, "For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God" (Rom.3:23). But God in His great love for us has given us a way back, a way to be united to Him with a bond that cannot be broken.

Some may not have heard the invitation that God has given to them. They may have heard a preacher say, "Come to my church" or "Come and join my denomination," while the Holy Spirit is saying, "Come to Christ, be joined to Him!" Listen to His proposal to you: "And I will betroth thee unto me for ever; yea, I will betroth thee unto me in righteousness, and in judgment, and in lovingkindness, and in mercies. I will even betroth thee unto me in faithfulness: and thou shalt know the Lord" (Hosea 2:19).

When you are joined to Christ, you become part of His Bride, along with every other believer who becomes united to Him. It is the Royal Wedding, but, in a way, it is also a one-sided marriage. Usually, when there is a problem in a marriage relationship, both partners are partly to blame. This is not so in our union with Christ. When any difficulty comes in that relationship, it is always our fault. We can be unfaithful; He cannot. Two of His titles are "Faithful and True" (Rev.19:11). And we can leave and forsake Him, regardless of the promises we make, but He promises never to leave or forsake us (Heb.13:5), and He never will. And He can never break a single one of His promises to us, for it is "impossible for God to lie" (Heb.6:18). The Bible says, "Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering: (for he is faithful that promised)" (Heb.10:23).

The Holy Spirit brings the marriage proposal to each individual in a personal way with much care. It is given in the love of God. Jesus said, "No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him" (John 6:44).

What is so incredible to the Bride-to-be is that when she is given the invitation to be joined to Christ, she is not holy and without fault, but is loaded with sin. It is very difficult for her to think that God would love her in that condition; and when someone offers her an invitation, in the Name of the Lord, to come to Christ, she will think, Why me? How can this be? Why would the Son of God want me?

Some who read this may be in that condition. You may have a longing in your soul to get right with God, to know His love, and to have His forgiveness. You want to be joined to Christ, but you know that He is righteous and you are not, that He is Holy and you are sinful; and you turn down His invitation to become His very own.

You think, Perhaps, when I get more religious, my life will get straightened out and cleaned up and I will be ready to accept Christ. But that is not how it works. The Bible says, "Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation" (2Cor.6:2). Jesus wants you today--right now! You cannot change yourself to become worthy for Him; it will take the power of God to do that. But you must be willing to let Him change you.

Union with Christ is not forced; no one holds a gun to your head! But God loves you dearly and keeps calling and calling for you to come to Him through Jesus to become a member of His family. If you are willing, with His help, to turn from sin and receive Christ as your Lord and Savior, He will receive you (as you are), cleanse you by His blood--that was shed at Calvary--from all sin and unrighteousness, and place His Spirit within you. Jesus has no reservations about receiving the Bride who has been chosen by His Father. He said, "All that the Father giveth me shall come to me, and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out" (John 6:37).

Some people turn down the Lord's wedding invitation because they simply do not know who He really is. Would you expect a woman to consent to a marriage proposal before she knew anything about the one she was asked to marry? If you are not sure of who Jesus really is, ask God to show you. He is much more than just another prophet or religious figurehead: He is The Holy One of God, The Messiah, The Christ, The Son of God. He is from everlasting to everlasting. It was He who left Heaven and came into this world though the virgin birth, went about healing the sick, raising the dead, casting out devils, and teaching the Kingdom of God. It was He who bore your sin, my sin, the sin of all mankind on the cross of Calvary. It was He who rose from the dead and is seated at the right hand of the Father. And it is He who is coming again to judge the quick and the dead and to take His Bride to Heaven.

There are people who refuse the Lord's wedding invitation for another reason. Oh, I hope you are not one of them! They know who Christ is; they know He is calling them, but they refuse to come to Him because they do not want to give up their sinful way of life. It means more to them than Jesus. The Bible states, "And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil" (John 3:19).

There is a day coming when the angels will gather up all the unbelievers for the great judgment. All the workers of iniquity, all those who would not consent to the wedding invitation of Christ, all those whose names are not written in the Lamb's Book of Life, they--according to the Scriptures--along with the devil and all his unholy angels (demons), will be judged by God and sent into the eternal lake of fire (Mat.25:41; Rev.20:15).

God is very merciful and patient. He keeps extending His invitation over and over for people to be saved. He is "not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance" (2Pet.3:9). He will still be trying to reach some as they take their last breath on their deathbed! But even then many will refuse to repent and believe in Christ, because during their lifetime they have hardened their heart so much that they still reject the Savior. Anyone who has not yet come to Christ and doesn't seem to be concerned about it, may not have completely hardened their heart, but is on a very dangerous course.

There is a time coming--only the Heavenly Father knows the exact date--when His wedding invitations will cease; no more will be given out--ever! The Gospel will have reached everyone in the whole world. All who are willing to receive Jesus will be born again. The scripture will be fulfilled: ". . . for the time is at hand. He that is unjust, let him be unjust still: and he which is filthy, let him be filthy still: and he that is righteous, let him be righteous still: and he that is holy, let him be holy still" (Rev.22:10, 11). The marriage service on earth will come to an end, the door to Heaven will be closed, and the magnificent Bride of Christ will be complete. All who belong to Christ will be in Heaven together in perfect unity in their new glorious bodies and the eternal celebration will begin. As the Great Wedding Banquet in the Kingdom of God begins, those who refused the Lord's invitation will be outside knocking on the door to get in; but for them it will be just too late.

Some will be knocking to get in who, when they were offered the invitation back on earth, said to the Lord's servant delivering it, "You should go talk to my mother; she would be interested in that stuff." But the Spirit of God who is in their mother is not in them as they say, "Lord, Lord, open to us." He will answer, "Verily I say unto you, I know you not" (Mat.25:11, 12). In other words, "You are not My Beloved Bride."

Others will be holding up their own passports for door openers as they knock on the closed door. Oh, how close they were to the Kingdom of God when they were back on earth; they did everything but say "yes" to the wedding invitation to come to Christ. They will be saying, "Lord, Lord, open unto us . . . We have eaten and drunk in thy presence, and thou hast taught in our streets." But he shall say, "I tell you, I know you not whence ye are: depart from me, all ye workers of iniquity" (Luke 3:25-27).

And there will be others outside knocking on the door, claiming that they should be allowed in due to the work they did back on earth. They will say, "Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works?" (Mat.7:22) And the Lord will profess unto them, "I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity" (verse 23). Their work of iniquity is rejecting a personal invitation to be united to Christ and trying to gain entrance into the Kingdom of Heaven by works rather than by the gift of God, which is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

There are countless people all over the world who claim that they do certain things to please God; yet, they refuse to do the one thing He wants them to do most. And that is to be joined to Christ so that they become one with Him (John 17:21)--a union our Heavenly Father has been preparing since before the creation of the world.

If you are the mother of a bride, you know how much planning has to go into a wedding, but that is nothing compared to the preparation for the Royal Marriage. Most of the work of God has to do with making us ready to become the Bride of Christ.

The Bible tells of a certain king named Ahasuerus who was looking for a new bride. The king's appointed officers made a diligent search to find the most beautiful girl in the entire empire. They found a gorgeous Jewish woman whose name was Esther. You would think that being the winner of a beauty contest like that would be all the qualification she would need; but before being presented to the king, she was required to have a whole year of beauty treatments (Esther 2:12). And he was only an earthly king. Can you envision the preparation that is necessary to be applied to the Bride before she is presented to the King of kings and Lord of lords?!

She must be changed from filthy to pure, from unholy to holy, from sinful to sinless, from unrighteous to righteous--it is not just an overhaul that she needs, she must be made completely new. Jesus said, "Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again" (John 3:7).

The Bride cannot make these miraculous changes in her life; it is all accomplished by God. And He began this preparation way back in eternity before the creation of the world. The Bible speaks about Christ being the Lamb of God "which taketh away the sin of the world," and that the Lamb was "slain from the foundation of the world" (John 1:29; Rev.13:8). Yes, the crucifixion of Christ took place in time and space about two thousand years ago, but it was ordained way back in eternity before the world was created when God began the preparation of the Bride of Christ.

On judgment day the King will say to them on His right hand who have become His Bride while they were back on earth, "Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world" (Mat.25:34). The best part of the inheritance will be being with Jesus.

The moment a person receives Christ is when God receives him as His own; he enters the Kingdom of God, has eternal life, the pardon of God, and a new life free from the bondage of Satan. But compared to what is ahead he has received only a touch of glory!

There is a new day coming for all who belong to Christ: a day when our weak natural body will be turned into a new incorruptible, glorious one that will never get sick, never grow old, and never die; a day when our minds will be renewed to have unlimited knowledge and be unstained from the slightest trace of sin. The Bible states that our vile body will be changed and "fashioned like unto His glorious body" (Phil.3:21).

There is a day coming when all who belong to Christ will be in a new location where there will be "no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain" (Rev.21:4); a place where there will be no more injustice, no more hatred, no more greed . . . no more Satan!

That great day will be ushered in when our Lord Jesus returns in His glory to pick up His Bride. This will be the grandest spectacle in the history of the universe. It will be announced by a blast from the trumpet of God. All the holy angels will come with Him. All who belong to Jesus who have passed through physical death will rise first, and all who belong to Him who have not passed through physical death will be changed "in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye" (1Cor.15:52). So the whole Bride of Christ will be together and will meet the Bridegroom in the air and be with Him forevermore (1Thes.4:17).

For all who are going to be part of the Royal Marriage--those who have not yet been joined to Christ--go directly to God in prayer and, in your own words, tell Him that you want to be united with Christ. Ask for His forgiveness for your sin, and receive Jesus into your life as your Lord and Savior.

After you are united to Christ, what next? Just do what any bride should do: stay close to your Husband, always remain faithful to Him, and keep Him first in your life. Keep in mind to whom you are married and how much you mean to Him. He will always be faithful; He will never leave nor forsake you. You are number one with Him. You are the Bride of Christ!