Relational Bridges

  We tend to want some sign to confirm what we believe God has said to us. Gideon asked for several; such was his lack of confidence in himself and God’s ability to do far above & beyond what Gideon could ever ask or imagine. The angel of the Lord called him what he would become by the grace of God, a "mighty hero, a man of great valor." The angel of the Lord is used here as descriptive of a Theophany, God appearing in what seems a human form, much like Joshua saw outside Jericho. Gideon asks for a sign, not really knowing Who he was talking to. Food is brought, meat and bread, and set on a rock before the angel of the Lord. The angel touches the food with the end of its staff and flame flared up from the rock consuming the food. Then the angel disappeared! Gideon was terrified having seen the “angel of the Lord face-to-face”, believing he was doomed to have seen the face of God. But God speaks to him, “Do not be afraid. You will not die.” God does not call a person...

  Israel too quickly turned from their singular worship of the Lord God. They looked pragmatically at the pagan gods that seemed to “produce”, when it was the Lord God that had blessed His people. Syncretism: they never totally stopped worshiping the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, they just added idols to the mix. God judged them and sent the pagan Midianites to steal crops and cattle as soon as the fields were ripe. Judges 6:7-10 “When they cried out to the Lord because of Midian, the Lord sent a prophet to the Israelites. He said, ‘This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: I brought you up out of slavery in Egypt. I rescued you from the Egyptians and from all who oppressed you. I drove out your enemies and gave you their land. I told you, ‘I am the Lord your God. You must not worship the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you now live.’ But you have not listened to me.” So, soon after, the angel of the Lord came to a man named Gideon. He was the youngest son of the weake...

  Psalm 131:1-3 “O Lord, my heart is not lifted up; my eyes are not raised too high; I do not occupy myself with things too great and too marvelous for me. But I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with its mother; like a weaned child is my soul within me. O Israel, hope in the Lord from this time forth and forevermore.” A child that is not weaned cries and squalls and grasps, demanding to be fed when in its mother’s arms. It has one focus, and that is on itself, its needs. It is self-centered and its own needs drive it. It has actually not learned that its mother understands its needs and is there to meet them because she loves her child. It has not learned to trust and to rest. A weaned child can rest in its mother’s arms, undemanding, simply basking in the comfort of being held by its mother. It has learned that its needs are known and amply supplied out of its mother’s love. The weaned child has learned that it doesn’t need to whine and cry to have its needs me...

  One more with Joshua and then on to Gideon. The Israelites had crossed the Jordan and were encamped near the fortified city of Jericho. Joshua sees in front of him a Man standing with a drawn sword. He must have looked imposing, but Joshua walked up to Him and said, “Are you for us, or for our enemies?” The Man said, “Neither. I am here as the Captain of the Army Hosts of the Lord. Take off your sandals, Joshua. You are on holy ground.” Joshua didn’t hesitate. He fell on his face in worship, asking the Lord what he was to do. Remember the last time someone was asked to take off their sandals because the ground they were standing on was holy? It was Moses as he stood before the burning bush and God was speaking to him from the flaming plant. God’s Presence made the place holy. No angel ever asked a person to remove their sandals because the ground they stood on was holy. No angel ever allowed a human being to fall down in worship. Only God, Himself, can make a place holy by His P...

  The generation that now traveled with Joshua and Caleb hadn’t seen what God had done in Egypt. They had heard about it because Moses, before he died, went over the whole history of the Exodus in the words recorded in the Book of Deuteronomy. He pled with the people to trust the Lord. Mere “lip service” was not going to cut it. They were entering into a Land that was a gift and their living and prospering there would be dependent on God and them actually living out what they said they believed. They came to the Jordan River. It was springtime and the river was at flood-tide, overflowing its banks. The Lord told the Levites to carry the Ark of the Covenant into the waters! The floodtide did not stop UNTIL their feet touched the water. They actually headed for a hole in the water that wasn’t there so that when they got there, the whole would be. As soon as the feet of the first Levite carrying the Ark touched the Jordan, the waters parted and began to pile up upstream as the waters ...

  Israel could have avoided 40 years of wandering had they believed God when they first got to the Jordon River. 12 Israelite spies had spent 40 days going through the Promised Land to see what it was like. God wanted them to see what He had promised them, what belonged to them because of that promise. Their confidence in taking the land was never to be based on their assessment of their abilities or resources, but simply on what God had said. Their confidence was to be solely grounded in God, Himself. God had shown Himself faithful to provide for them at every turn. He had shown them that He would keep them and cause them to inherit what He had promised. It was always about what God had done and what God will do. All they had to do was to believe Him and follow. The land flowed with milk and honey. That signified the peace and prosperity of the Land, but there were giants in the Land. The cities were large and fortified and the people living there were described as “powerful”. 10 ...

  At some point in life, most of us have had an internalized timeline determining when things should happen if not how they should happen. Our present day demands instant gratification, faster internet speeds, immediate downloads. To quote from an old movie, it's becoming ever-increasing that “Instant gratification takes too long.” The people of God had heard God speak. They understood what He said because He used their language. When God speaks, He always speaks in a way that we can understand. That is why Eternal God, the Son, became incarnate; to show us Who God is in a way that we could comprehend. So…after God speaks and they realize that had already been living contrary to what God made clear was the way they were to live in covenant with Him. The thing that is hard for us is that we think when God gives a command that He expects us to bare down and, by applied “white-knuckling it”, DO that He has commanded. But, inherent in every command of God is a promise. When God says, “...

  The Israelites had been I slavery for 400+ years and had seen pagan worship in its most elaborate form. Egypt had hundreds of gods it “worshipped”. Worship was a means of manipulating the gods to do what you wanted by going through rituals to make them beholden to you. These demonically empowered idols had eyes but couldn’t see. They had mouths, but couldn’t speak. God had shown them to be unworthy of consideration, let alone worship when He decimated them by the 10 judgements/plagues in Egypt.   They had been accustomed to the counterfeit for so long, they had difficulty believing the Real Thing, even though they could hear, see and even tangibly touch the evidence that God was with them…the True God.   Exactly two months after the exodus, God brought them to Sinai. He revealed Himself in glory and power not to terrify them, not to destroy them, but to convince them that the One Who had chosen them in Abraham, the One who had judged their enemies, the One who h...

  After God’s victory over the enemies of His people at the Red Sea (God won the absolute victory over the enemies of humanity when Jesus Christ died and rose again), He led them on toward Mt. Sinai. The Israelites had never been IN God’s presence, even though God’s presence with them was evidenced by the cloud and fire that went before them daily since their exodus from Egypt. God did three things to help the Israelites see that He was for them; He was their Protector, their Provider, their Peace. It’s an amazing thing to think that after all they had seen in God’s judgement of Egypt, God making a way where there was no way through the sea, that they would have put “two and two” together. They came to a place in the wilderness, dying of thirst (they thought) but the water was bitter, poisonous. Here’s a picture of the “water” the world offers to slake our thirst. It is bitter and the end of it is not removing our thirst, but making it more ravenous and ultimately deadly. The peopl...

The crossing of the Red Sea is definitely one of the major historical events that could be categorized as something God is indeed famous for. The economy of Egypt had been devastated by 10 judgements. When the Israelites left Egypt, they were told to ask the Egyptians for gold and silver. The Egyptians were so glad they were leaving, that they emptied their pockets, so to speak, and the Israelite’s plundered Egypt. The last thing Egypt had was its army. The Israelites had gone into the wilderness several days march and were hemmed in between water and mountains on either side. They were caught in what looked like a perfect trap. They saw no way out. They panicked and said stupid things like, “Dang, we should have stayed in Egypt, safely as slaves!” They still didn’t see that all God had done was meant to make it patently clear that He loved them, was caring for them, and was rescuing them. He had NOT brought them out into the wilderness to have them slaughtered by their ancient slave-m...

  It’s so sad when “doing” church begins to eclipse “being church”. Some church-goers seem to have become way too comfortable at the spectator sport that, unfortunately, many church formats and programs seem to foster. I saw a meme the other day of St. Paul starting to write a letter to the church in the USA. He starts out, “Dear Brothers and Sisters, I don’t even know where to begin with you all…”. There is a distinct lack of understanding of what being a part of the Body of Christ actually means. God has given special anointings to enable people to lead and bring order to the work of God's Kingdom. That leadership is meant to equip the SAINTS FOR THE WORK OF MINISTRY. In other words, the mission and ministry of the Body of Christ is actually meant to be lived out, carried out, by its members. A daily living, sharing, and in the Holy Spirit’s power demonstrating the Kingdom of God is the call on each and every one who calls themselves a follower of Jesus Christ. Following Jesus Ch...

  More on the Exodus and what it points to beyond its wonders. The Angel of the Lord passed over Egypt and the firstborn of every Egyptian, both man and beast, died. Only those who had stayed behind doors that were marked with the blood of a lamb or goat were spared. An innocent one died so that God’s people (and those who gathered with them) would be spared, saved from sure death. God didn’t ask about the worthiness of the people in those marked homes. He saw the blood and passed over them. They had believed Him and had acted in simple obedience on His Word and did what He said…and He did what He said He would do. The sacrificial system God set up for the Israelites would from then on point beyond itself to a coming Sacrifice that would take away the sin of the whole world for all time. God was going to give a Gift that had nothing to do with humanity’s worth. In fact, it would from that day forward define the worth God had placed on every human life. This Gift of God has been giv...

  As we continue...from Noah to the Exodus is a huge leap forward in time, but a revelation to ponder. If you have ever read the Book of Exodus in the Bible, you’ll see that God is completely trustworthy. He does what He promises to do. Hundreds of years before, God told His covenant partner, Abraham, that Abraham’s offspring would be “strangers” in a foreign land and would be oppressed as slaves for 400 years, but then God would punish the nation that had enslaved them and they would come out and away from that nation with great wealth. (Genesis 15:14-16) Imagine being enslaved in a pagan culture for 400+ years as slaves. You’d develop a “slave mentality”. The Israelites were enslaved longer than the USA has existed. They were accustomed to hearing about and even being influenced by the gods of Egypt. Please understand, there was spiritual power at work here. The power behind the Egyptian gods was demonic but it was real. The 10 judgements, or 10 plagues that fell upon Egypt, wer...