Relational Bridges

 GOD'S WORD The secret to knowing the Lord God is understanding that He is the One Who reveals Himself to us. He has revealed His character, nature, His will, His purposes, and plans through His Word. His actions are never separated from His Word. What He has said, He eternally does. That is the essence of integrity: the Word and the deeds match perfectly. It makes perfect sense that the key to knowing God is found in delighting in His Word. In knowing His Word, we learn to seek Him with our whole heart, with the whole of life. Since it is HIS Word, I need Him to teach me what it means. That is what Jesus Christ promised that the Holy Spirit would do as we seek Him. The Holy Spirit makes the Word of God what it is to us: alive, active, penetrating, discerning, convicting, encouraging, faithful, and life transforming. Tim Keller wrote that we become fiercely devoted to Scripture because we identify the Word with its Author. Isaiah 55:6-11 Seek the  LORD  while...

 CHRIST THE KING On this Christ the King Sunday, we must remember that there is no competing power opposing God. Michael the Arch Angel is Satan’s opposite. Both angelic beings are created beings. God alone, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, is Eternal, Everlasting, no beginning, and no end, Omnipotent, Omnipresent, and Omniscient. There is none like Him. Here is an encouraging and life-focusing exhortation from St. Theresa of Avila from the 16 th century: “ Let nothing disturb you, let nothing frighten you, all things will pass away. God never changes; patience obtains all things, whoever has God lacks nothing. God alone suffices. Amen. ” Where is your life rooted? Do you have an immovable foundation of hope for your life? Is there one thing that is the ground of reality that defines life for you? Truth be told, there is only one thing that defines life itself and it is found in one thing alone: the Life, death, Resurrection, and Ascension of Jesus Christ. He is the center ...

  PSALM 119:132 “Turn to me and have mercy on me, as You always do to those who love Your Name.” Here is the cry of an understanding heart. The Psalmist is acknowledging that life in all its fullness, the life God intends for us to live out here on earth is only found by God’s pursuit of us, His turning to us that we might turn to Him. The Psalmist knows that “Salvation is of the Lord.” He cries out for the Lord’s mercy to cover Him. He acknowledges that those who know the Lord, those who are known by Him and who love His Name, always find God’s mercy and grace to live out the life that God commands. God provides the wherewithal to do what He has commanded. He gives us the indwelling Power and Person of the Holy Spirit to BE Life within us. It is the Holy Spirit who conforms us to the Image of Christ Jesus. It is the Holy Spirit who perfects in us the obedience of Jesus. It is the Holy Spirit who makes God’s will be done on earth as it is in heaven. He enables us to cooperate w...

  LITURGY…THE WORK OF THE PEOPLE OF GOD Timothy Patitsis, in his outstanding book "The Ethics of Beauty," makes the case that the only two alternatives for us as human beings living in this world are 1) liturgy or 2) war. At first, this may seem odd or confusing because most people, after all, would normally juxtapose the phenomenon of war with peace. That is, peace is what happens in the absence of war. But not so for Patitsas. The “default” condition of human existence, according to God’s plan, is not peace but liturgy. Not simply liturgy as something that happens for us in the Church on Sunday mornings or other feast days, but liturgy as the default state of the entire cosmos in harmony with itself by virtue of the way it offers up to the Holy Trinity its everlasting praise. Patitsas’ point is that it is worship which brings about peace and harmony among the human race and with the earth itself. As the Bible says, “Glory to God in the highest” is the only way for “peac...

  DISAPPOINTMENT WITH GOD 1 Peter 4:12-14 “Dear friends, don’t be surprised at the fiery trials you are going through, as if something strange were happening to you. Instead, be very glad—for these trials make you partners with Christ in His suffering, so that you will have the wonderful joy of seeing His glory when it is revealed to all the world. If you are insulted because you bear the name of Christ, you will be blessed, for the glorious Spirit of God rests upon you.” James 1:2-4 “Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles of any kind come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy.   For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow.   So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing. ” It seems that we sometimes forget that we live in a broken world. We get destabilized when things don’t go the way we want them to. We have strange expectations that bec...

 Bitterness No matter the injustice done to you, do not harbor bitterness in your heart. Harboring bitterness is like letting pirates drop anchor in your bay. Pirates do not remain on board their ship. They come ashore to rob, kill and destroy…just as the devil does. Pray for those who have mistreated and injured you. Pray for them everything you would want someone to pray over you as blessing. Leave the results with God. He is faithful to heal you and even redeem them.

  HUMAN HISTORY The brokenness of pride has held as slaves so many to think that they don't need God and the Life He offers as a gift of grace. They don't realize that when one is spiritually dead, there is no internal remedy to be discovered in the human heart that will ever reverse the death that is at work within them. There is no one more ineffective at changing their circumstance than a dead person. There must be intervention from outside. There is no human being that can restore themself from being dead to being truly alive and fully human. That is why God intervened in human history. That is why the Eternal Son of God became fully human while remaining fully God. It's called the Incarnation. He alone could reverse the inevitable consequence of sin that corrupts the human existence. Spirit, mind, will, emotion and body have all been infected by sin and there is no mere human remedy for this fatal condition. Only God, Himself, acting on behalf of humanity to bear the s...

  WISDOM   What the world’s system calls “wisdom” is anything BUT wisdom. It is fueled by the envy, self-centeredness, power-hungry malevolent evil of the fallen angel known as Satan. It is not wisdom at all. James 3:13-16 “ If you are wise and understand God’s ways, prove it by living an honorable life, doing good works with the humility that comes from wisdom.   But if you are bitterly jealous and there is selfish ambition in your heart, do not cover up the truth with boasting and lying.   For jealousy and selfishness are not God’s kind of wisdom. Such things are earthly, unspiritual, and demonic.   For wherever there is jealousy and selfish ambition, there you will find disorder and evil of every kind. ” There is nothing even close to humility is what the world calls wisdom. There is arrogance jealousy, envy, and even violent attempts to silence any opposing action or ideological frame of reference. In fact, righteousness has been “tagged” as dangerou...

RIGHTEOUSNESS Righteousness is always a threat to the ungodly. They killed the prophets, crucified the Son of God, stoned Stephen, and slaughtered all the Apostles save for John who died in exile on the Isle of Patmos because for some reason, they couldn't kill him. The pagans (those who worship anyone or anything other than the Eternal Trinity) are not actually anti-religion, because the spirit that is at work in them is not anti-religious. Satan has inspired a plethora of religions. The ungodly, like their master (who has them deceived into thinking that they act on their own initiative) is anti-Christ, anti-Jesus Christ, anti-The Word of God Incarnate and the only Savior of humanity. This is not about politics. This is spiritual warfare of the 1st order. This battle is not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, powers, and rulers of spiritual darkness in high places. The world's system will always see God as a threat because He alone can save, salvage, redeem, ...