Relational Bridges

  As we have entered into the Season of Advent, preparing for the Second Coming of Jesus Christ, the signs are ever increasing, more and more, bearing the stamp of the prophetic Words Jesus Christ gave to His followers concerning His return. For example: Matt 24:9 9  “Then you will be arrested, persecuted, and killed. You will be hated all over the world because you are my followers.   World-wide, over the past 70+ years, there have been more followers of Jesus Christ martyred for their faith than the combined number of Jesus followers martyred since the 1 st Century. Christians are hated because they believe that God has made a singular, unique way for all humanity to be restored into Life as God intended it from the beginning. There is forgiveness and unearned mercy (grace) to all who will believe. Satan hates what God loves. And God loved the whole of humanity, the whole world, so much that He gave His One and Only Son to die our death, to bear our shame, to ass...

  The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the Eternal Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, God Almighty is not silent. He has spoken and everything He has said has and will come to pass. His Word never falls short of what He declares. His promises never fail. His faithfulness is from everlasting to everlasting. There is no other God. He spoke all of creation into being out of nothing. He is the source of all life and by His Word, all things hold together. He fashioned the universe with such exactitude that everything that exists is exactly where it should be for the whole to hold together. He stands transcendent, outside His creation as its Creator and yet imminent, engaged in the minutia of life as its Savior. He did not simply “wind up the clock” and leave it to run on its own. He is engaged in it all. His ways are perfect and His character eternally the same. He does not change. His perfections are infinite. His love is infinite and perfect, His mercy is infinite and perfect, ...

  Today is the last Sunday in the liturgical season of Pentecost. Pentecost is the longest season reminding us that we are on the same mission Jesus Christ extended through His followers to the world. By proclaiming the Gospel in its fullness, making disciples (ones in who the Lord is reproducing His life, character, ways and will in the world), healing the sick (physical, spiritual, emotional, mental), raising the dead (those still spiritually dead, separated from God as well as those emotionally and physically dead) cast out demons (exercising the authority given to the followers of Jesus Christ who is King of kings and Lord of lords & in Jesus’ Name, revealing His victory over Satan and all the forces of spiritual darkness), and to cleanse lepers (those whose lives have been numbed by sin, whose inner selves are decaying and falling apart) making those unclean, clean and whole again. This is the Kingdom work given to Jesus' followers. This is Christ the King Sunday. It is o...

  In every culture, there are things, actions and habits, that people commonly agree will not benefit anyone. These things have been called “taboos” in the past. There are things that will not only prevent human flourishing on every level, but will eventually destroy peoples and cultures from the inside out. Almighty God has infinite love for humanity. “God loves the world ( all people are included in the word “world”, even those who refuse His love and live with hatred toward Him in their hearts) that He gave His one and only Son, to the end that all who would believe in Him would not perish, but have eternal life. God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world ( to damn it eternally) but to save the world through Him.” John 3:16-17 God calls “sin”, the things that separate us from the wholeness of Life that is only found in Him. The word translated “sin” in the New Testament is an archery term “hamartia”. It means “missing the mark”. There are things that are ...

  There is an ancient Greek word, "Sozo", found in the New Testament that is translated salvation. It is a huge word, full of meaning and insight beyond a one-word translation Sozo is one of those ancient words so full of concepts that the layers of meaning have long sense been differentiated by us, sadly, into disconnected terms. It means to heal a body, to redeem and restore one’s whole life, to transform a community, to eliminate an addiction, and to deliver from danger. It's very much like the Hebrew word "Shalom". Shalom means so much more than mere peace. It describes peace with God, peace with others, peace with self, internal and external peace and safety, it means moving forward in life, making good and right decisions, soundness of reason and wholeness in life. It describes human flourishing that is only found as the gift of God that it is. Sozo — salvation - describes the process of bringing an individual or a community to wholeness. Jesus ...

  There are seasons in life. Things are not always the same. The only constant is God, Himself and His unstoppable, everlasting, ever-present, unchanging love for us. He doesn't expect the energy of an 18-year-old in a 70-year-old. He doesn't expect the deep wisdom of a 70-year-old who has followed Him for decades to be found resident in an 18-year-old...yet! What God wants to do it to reveal His vision to you for whatever season in life you find yourself. It is not always summer. Autumn has a beginning and an end. Winter has its boundaries. Spring is glorious but not unending. When God reveals His vision so that it becomes your vision, you can trust Him for the anointing and power to live into what He has prepared for you to live into. His will, His vision, is only ever accomplished by His grace and power. God has given you gifts and as you exercise them, like muscles, they get stronger. I am cheering you on. I am praying blessings over you. I am trusting that He who began a ...

  Great perspective from Oswald Chambers. Still Human! …whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. 1 CORINTHIANS 10:31 In the Scriptures, the great miracle of the incarnation slips into the ordinary life of a child; the great miracle of the transfiguration fades into the demon-possessed valley below; the glory of the resurrection descends into a breakfast on the seashore. This is not an anticlimax, but a great revelation of God. We have a tendency to look for wonder in our experience, and we mistake heroic actions for real heroes. It’s one thing to go through a crisis grandly, yet quite another to go through every day glorifying God when there is no witness, no limelight, and no one paying even the remotest attention to us. If we are not looking for halos, we at least want something that will make people say, “What a wonderful man of prayer he is!” or, “What a great woman of devotion she is!” If you are properly devoted to the Lord Jesus, you have reached the lofty height where ...

  Here's a bit of counsel. If the Holy Spirit wants to convict you of something that needs to be changed, altered, abandoned or forsaken, He will be specific. Confession is never general. It is specific. Repentance is empowered by God, since our salvation depends upon Him from start to finish. If something is brought to you that is not specific, no matter how spiritually it may be couched and presented, beware. That is how condemnation and accusation comes from Satan. It comes as a vague miasma, a sense of ontological "yuck" that you can't put your finger on. That sense of guilt and condemnation is actually casting aspersions on the character of God, that He can't keep you, or is not working in you as He promised He would or that you've blown it beyond grace. That is a spiritual attack. The enemy attacks because he sees us trusting God even when we cannot see. Satan hates the grace of God working in us so he tries to deceive and condemn. Remember, guilt in sea...

Hope, living hope, is not located in any given circumstance; it is located in a Person, Jesus Christ. Many times, what people call hope is simply wishful thinking, wanting things to turn out in some specific way that is thought to bring happiness or fulfillment. Living Hope is grounded in the eternal faithfulness of God, Himself. Back in Genesis chapter three, God made a promise that there would be born on the earth, one day, a specific child, a miraculous child in that He would be called “the Seed of woman”. Since a woman does not possess the seed that would fertilize the ova in her body, it was believed that a miraculous conception and birth would one day take place. That “Seed” would crush the serpent’s head. That was a picture of the defeat of satanic power and dominion on the earth that has been unleashed by Adam’s and Eve’s believing and acting on the devil’s lie. Churches that are historically liturgical celebrate this coming Sunday as “Christ the King” Sunday, the last Sunday i...

  Today, I saw the picture below posted. The problem with it, is that it isn't even close to being sound biblically . FAITH will always give birth to the good works that God has foreordained His followers to live into and to do with their whole heart. We are saved by grace through faith and that is the work of God, who reconciled us to Himself by the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Going into all the world to make disciples (not converts) is going to take effort, cooperating with the Holy Spirit. Making disciples is good, sound, hard work enabled by the power of His life at work in and through us. Human works can never redeem anyone. It's what God has done, not what we do. But, being redeemed, His life and ministry, His works should flow as a matter of course even as apple trees produce apples. SOUND DOCTRINE, if it is truly biblical will never deny signs and wonder; will never call them the "world's lies", for Jesus plainly stated that those who would fol...

  1 Peter 1:3-4 “ 3  All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is by His great mercy that we have been born again, because God raised Jesus Christ from the dead. Now we live with great expectation,   4  and we have a priceless inheritance—an inheritance that is kept in heaven for you, pure and undefiled, beyond the reach of change and decay. ” When Adam and Eve embraced the satanic lie that humanity needed more than what God had already provided, they essentially, spiritually, they died. That death undid in them all the goodness that God had given them. In their act of rebellion against God’s clear and loving warning, they lost everything, not just somethings. Their spiritual DNA has been passed on to every human being that has ever lived, save One…Jesus Christ. Identity, worth, purpose, intimacy, honesty, truth; it was all lost. Blame-shifting became the norm. Adam blamed God for giving him Eve; Eve blamed the serpent. Scarcity, j ealousy, envy...

  When people in your life have had the tendency to wound your soul, it’s probable that such behavior is one of habit because there is some unmended broken place in them. When you, with the power of God’s grace, forgive them, you open yourself to the Holy Spirit for healing. Being healed, you no longer have a bleeding wound, but a glorified scar. Now, if you happen to find yourself in the orbit of the one who wounded you and they hit the place of the old wound, understand, it will hurt. You can bump an unwounded spot and there’s not much pain. Bump a scar with the same force and you will find it really hurts. Being hurt in the same place doesn’t mean you haven’t forgiven. The healed scar has a memory. Don’t let the enemy condemn you into thinking you haven’t forgiven the past. Just forgive the present and consider the source of the new bruise. Unhealed, wounded people tend to wound others much like a “fear-biter” dog will attacked even when there in no threat. When you forgive, the...