Relational Bridges

 PRAY AND DO NOT GIVE UP Luke 1:13-18 The Angel Gabriel told Zechariah that God had heard hi sprayers and the prayers of his wife and they would have a son. How long had they prayed? A long time. They had prayed to have children. Now they were long past the season of child-bearing and it was evident that any and all human effort would avail nothing. It was here that God confirmed that nothing would be impossible with God. Have you prayed long and hard for a breakthrough for someone dear to you? God has heard you. He needs us to realize that salvation, deliverance, healing, and newness of life are either done by His power and sovereignty or not at all.  Believe that the Lord will do what he said only He could do. Even when it seems impossible, do not stop praying for the One you are seeking in prayer can still do exceedingly, abundantly more, above all you could ever ask or imagine by His power. Do not give up for He has not given up!

 WE ERR We err when we try and reduce our life with God to a series of steps, religious and practical steps thinking that by following the program we have devised we can gain control over an Infinite and Holy Mystery. We can know God ONLY because He has revealed Himself to us in Christ Jesus. 

WHAT GOD GIVES People ask, "God, give me joy!" But God does so much more than that. True joy is never separated from God, Himself. God gives us Himself, all that He is. He becomes life within everyone who believes Jesus Christ. he becomes life in us as He was in Adam and Eve before the fall. God gives to every believer all that He is: Creator, Lord, Savior, Redeemer, Sustainer, Provider, Hope and everlasting Peace...and JOY! 

 WORSHIP Worship can happen at an event, but worship is NOT an event. Worship is an ongoing way of living and being for those who belong to Jesus Christ. It is a life yielded in the consciousness that we are utterly dependent on the Lord for every aspect of salvation and wholeness. He, alone, is worthy of life-worship, submission, and obedience, for He alone rescues, disciplines, blesses and redeems His people.  

 ONENESS Jesus Christ prayed for us in John chapter 17 for nothing less than our absolute oneness with Him. What God the father has given to us through God the Son is to make us one with Him and He is one with the Son. That is what Jesus prayed. Therefore, that is what the Father is doing. What Jesus prayed for is that we would never be satisfied with anything short of eternal union with the Father through the Son by the power of the Holy Spirit in resurrection power. He is to become Life and Breath to all who will follow Jesus as Lord of all.

 PURPOSE IN PRAYER As we pray, God's purpose for us and in us is not just to answer our prayers (as if we could ever know by our own finite "knowing" what we need to pray into). Prayer is meant to be a two-way form of communication, communion between The Lord God and us. It is through prayer: speaking and listening informed by His Word that we come to discern His will, His mind. Jesus made it clear that when He prayed, the Father always heard Him. Jesus Christ NEVER taught on "unanswered prayer." We get discouraged when we have reduced in our own minds that God is like a kind of eternal vending machine that IF we have the 'right change", the magic wording to get God to do what we want. That would make God our servant, not we His disciples, His learners.  It has been said that when we pray something always happens. And sometimes when we pray, everything happens. "Yes", "No", "Not now", "Not yet" are all ways that G...