Relational Bridges

 FROM START TO FINISH Hebrews 12:1-2 “As for us, we have this large crowd of witnesses around us. So then, let us rid ourselves of everything that gets in the way, and of the sin which holds on to us so tightly, and let us run with determination the race that lies before us.  Let us keep our eyes fixed on Jesus, upon Whom our faith depends from start to finish.”  My faith depends upon Jesus Christ from start to finish. Faith is a gift from God; salvation is a gift from God and depends upon God for “salvation is from the Lord. Since my faith and living this new life is by the grace of God in the Holy Spirit’s power, it has little or nothing to do with the way I feel at any one moment. My faith is grounded solely in Jesus Christ and He is the One Who has grounded me in Himself. It is because Jesus Christ is utterly faithful that I am now living in faith, hope, and confidence. It is only because of all He had already accomplished and is bringing to competition in me by...

 LIFE OR DEATH The world-system attempts to function with a broken moral compass. It has not and will never give any human being a directionally “True North” to guide it into wholeness. Rather than putting the pieces of broken humanity back together, it is dismantling life continually and relentlessly. The world’s way of “living” is living out of flawed instincts manifested in pride, excess and distortion. It walks in the footsteps of Cain, letting envy and jealousy work toward the destruction of anything that confronts its selfishness. It uses deceit, thinly veiling its avarice with “causes” to extort money to try and satisfy its lust to accumulate stuff in a vain attempt to validate its worth. The world’s way rages against and denies God’s authority over all of creation thus giving birth to moral decay and inhumanity rather than peace. It rejects the only things that will make for life because it despises humility, rejecting true virtue while replacing it with “virtue-signali...

 DENY YOURSELF Luke 9:23 Then He said to them all, “If anyone desires to come after me. Let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow Me.” In the days of Jesus’ earthy mission, if you saw someone carrying a cross surrounded by Roman soldiers, you knew that person was not coming back. Death was assured. Jesus knew He was to be crucified and rise again. He was telling His followers, that means us, too, that we are to be willing to have earthly life taken from us for His and the Gospel’s sake. The other aspect of His Words, “Let him deny himself…” is just as profound and risky. Denying myself, at its heart, means that I must die daily to the illusion that I can fix myself. My faith depends on Jesus Christ from start to finish. Apart from Him, there is no hope for humanity to become all God created us to know. Salvation is of the Lord alone. Human beings have been trying to reverse the consequences of Adam’s fall ever sin he fell from grace in Eden. To follow Jesus, thou...

 VITAL AND GREEN Psalm 92:12-15 12   But the godly will flourish like palm trees   and grow strong like the cedars of Lebanon. 13  For they are transplanted to the  Lord ’s own house.   They flourish in the courts of our God. 14  Even in old age they will still produce fruit;   they will remain vital and green. 15  They will declare, “The  Lord  is just!   He is my rock!   There is no evil in him!”   I am in my 73 rd year and have been following Jesus Christ as Lord of my life since August 28, 1970. He had made Himself real to me at the age of seven but there wasn’t strong grounding beneath me due to a lack of available discipleship in 1958. At 19 Jesus became more than “fire insurance” and at a coffee house outreach named The Well near the University of Texas campus in Austin I had a group of godly men pour their lives into me and disciple me well. The Rev. Dick Pickens, who is celebrating his first birthday ...

 NO CONTRADICTIONS IN GOD There are some who are confused when they are presented with the character of God as He has revealed it in Holy Scripture. I must remind myself and anyone reading this that as a finite being, trying to examine the Infinite, Eternal, Triune God is WAY above my “pay-grade.” But what I do know and understand thus far in my earthly pilgrimage has been revealed by God. My limited understanding takes nothing away from the perfections of Who He is, has been, and ever will be. The truth is, human beings have been ruined by sin by trying to put ourselves in the place of God and our moral compass is so completely devastated that only God’s grace can mend us and reorient us to what being fully human is. We struggle with what our confusion has defined as seemingly contradictory aspects of God’s character revealed on the pages of the Bible; things like mercy and wrath, grace and justice, kindness and judgement, righteousness and peace, forgiveness and condemnation, j...

 HEARING FROM GOD Seeing eyes and hearing ears are from the Lord. He makes the deaf to hear. It is not their struggle that enables them to hear. asking God to speak to you, asking Him to give you ears to hear, praying through His Word and asking the Holy Spirit to teach you is asking the Lord to do for you what He has already determined to do. Sometimes it's how we expect to hear Him that makes us deaf to His speaking to us. Lord however You choose to speak to me, give me the ears to hear you and to not limit how You may wish to cause me to hear you. It's never our striving, but His grace in wanting His children to grow in discerning His voice confirmed by His Word written. The Lord will never speak a Word that is in any conflict with His Word written because the Holy Spirit will not contradict Himself.

 THE FRUIT OF THE HOLY SPIRIT 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 “ Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud   or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged.   It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out.   Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance. ” Galatians 5:22-23 “ But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,   gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things! ” As I read and meditate on these two passages written by the Apostle Paul under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit what seems clearer to me is the definition of what real love, God’s Love, is according to the Word of God. The fruit of the Spirit, the reality of life in the Spirit as He lives out the Life of Jesus Christ in a believer is de...

 DEAD TO SIN...ALIVE TO GOD 1 Peter 2:21-25 “ For God called you to do good, even if it means suffering, just as Christ suffered for you. He is your example, and you must follow in His steps. He never sinned,   nor ever deceived anyone. He did not retaliate when He was insulted,   nor threaten revenge when He suffered. He left His case in the hands of God,   Who always judges fairly. He personally carried our sins   in His body on the cross  so that we can be dead to sin   and live for what is right . By His wounds   you are healed. Once you were like sheep   who wandered away. But now you have turned to your Shepherd,   the Guardian of your souls.” Think about the perfect Lamb of God, God Incarnate, Eternal God, the Son, becoming fully human while remaining uncompromised and fully God. Jesus Christ was the only sinless person that has ever lived on the face of the Earth. Being Infinite God, He was able to take to Himself...

 IN BETWEEN...THE SAME A dear brother in Christ said this morning, “We are in the ‘in-between.’” We are in between the first coming of Jesus Christ and His second coming. On this Feast of the Transfiguration, we need to be reminded that the glory of the Lord is still meant to break through, continuing the work of the Lord in the here-and-now. Remember that Jesus said that the things He was doing, His disciples, His followers, His church would continue to do. He said that even greater works were to be done through us. Signs and wonders have not ceased to be manifested through His followers. That is because Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever. The Holy Spirit continues to do through the followers of Jesus Christ what He did through Jesus Christ’s ministry on earth. Remember, the church is the Body of Christ, and one should expect that He will continue to live through the church what He lived out through Jesus during His Incarnational, earthly ministry. If we are t...

 MY NEED TO "RANT" Please have mercy, but I’m going to “sound off” for a few moments. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard preachers talk about how lonely Adam was in the garden before God created Eve. This happens most during wedding sermons. The truth is, biblically, that simply is not the case. Adam was created in the image and likeness of God. He was in perfect, unhindered fellowship with the Holy Trinity. He was not lonely. When God stated that “It is not good for the man to be alone” He was stating that, to reflect the image, the character and nature of God, there had to be community. God said, “It is not ‘TOV’ that man should be alone. TOV is Hebrew for “good” and for God’s goodness to be revealed through the crown of His creation, there had to be community. So, God created the community of mankind. The word translated “rib” is the Hebrew word ‘tsele’ meaning something that circumscribes or contains something like the ribs of a boat or a cell of a jail. We ...

 God “God does not need you. He needs nothing because He lacks nothing.” That is a true statement, but it is not the whole story. God sees you as you are. He sees that apart from Him you have nothing complete, nothing lasting. He knows you can never undo your brokenness on your own. He knows you need Him. That is why, because He loved the world so completely, that He gave His only begotten Son to die a death we deserved and to take the full penalty of our sin upon Himself so that we could be set free from our condition of utter alienation from Life. Jesus Christ rose from the dead that we might be delivered from the dominion of darkness and be brought into the very Life of God, His Kingdom, through the shed blood of Jesus the Messiah. God knows we need Him. God knows that we could never get beyond being spiritually dead. His eternal love has made a way for us to begin again, be born into a radically new kind of living. That New Life will be His Life being lived in us, replacing...