Relational Bridges

 THE PERSEVERANCE OF FAITH Following Jesus Christ as Lord of life will mean giving up what we'll eventually lose to receive something imperishable and assured - eternal Life in Him. Luke 14:27 " And if you do not carry your own cross and follow me, you cannot be My disciple."   This is self-surrender that perseveres in following Jesus Christ because His promises give us absolute assurance and certainty that what we are looking for is going to happen. He has promised that, having begun to do a good work in us, causing us to live into the salvation and Life He has given to us AND is now living out within us, HE will bring that good work to completion by the Day of Christ.  Believing God and acting on His Word, faith, is the confidence that what we hope for will actually happen; it gives us assurance of things we cannot now see. (Hebrews 11:1) Our hope is grounded in the Word of God. Faith is the response of, "Yes!" to the promises of God. That's why Paul stat...

 WHAT IS THE WORLD'S SIN? The world's sin in simply this: it refuses to believe in Jesus Christ. The only hope of being made right with God comes because Jesus Christ died our death, bore the full wrath of God against our rebellion and unbelief, rose from the grave in complete victory over sin, death, hell and the grave. Judgement is real because Satan has been judged, cast down in utter defeat. The world continues in its sin of unbelief because it has embraced satanic lies and the doctrines of demons.

 AM I IN THE LIGHT WHEN ALL SEEMS DARK TO ME AT THIS MOMENT? It is the experience of believers in Jesus Christ that they sometimes come into a time, as they follow Him, a time of what can only be described as a kind of darkness. It is a moment or a season where their conscious awareness of the Lord's presence with them is gone. Note: it is not that the Lord's Presence is gone, only the conscious awareness of His Presence. Some have called such a season as "the dark night of the soul."  All sorts of thoughts merged the other day as I read the Words of Jesus in John 8:12 , " When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said,  “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” I asked Him what this meant if I felt I was "in the dark". What came to mind was the 23rd Psalm. The LORD is my Shepherd. I am NOT my own shepherd. I don't lead myself if I am His sheep. He feeds me by His Word, waters me b...

 WHAT HAS YOU IN ITS THRALL?  Traditions, new and old, that are not grounded in and growing out of the Word of God written may seem spiritual, but can actually be a distraction, a diversion, even a kind of delusion that ultimately dilutes the one sure focus of the believer's heart from Christ Jesus. We are to fix our eyes on Jesus, the One upon Whom our faith depends from start to finish, not to some experience or alternative mediation. A blessing you receive from the Lord is never to be the stencil you overlay on the lives of others, trying to impose on others your experience of God's grace given to you in your time of need. The story goes that a man fell into a deep hole from which he could not rescue himself. He cried out for help to any who might hear. Exhausted, he cried out to the Lord to somehow send someone to pull him out of his predicament. In a moment, an angel from the Lord lowered a shining ladder into the pit and the man climbed out to safety. As he emerged from ...

 WHEN GOD SPEAKS   "And God said, 'Let there be light!' and there was light."   Genesis 1:3 What God says, what He speaks, happens. God's Word always does what it has declared.  Isaiah 55:10-11 " As the rain   and the snow  come down from heaven,  and do not return to it  without watering the earth  and making it bud and flourish,    so that it yields seed for the sower, and bread for the eater,    so is my word   that goes out from my mouth:    It will not return to me empty,  but will accomplish what I desire  and achieve the purpose for which I sent it."   When the Lord God speaks, what He says comes into being. His Word does what it says. God is utterly and eternally faithful and reliable. Lord, we cry out to You, that You would speak Your Word in us. Speak Your Word and cause it to saturate and fill us, every part of us, every nook and cranny! Speak Your Word in us and cause it...

WHAT "WELL" DO YOU DRAW FROM? You cannot draw life from death. You cannot harvest wholeness from brokenness. You cannot draw healing from the sickness of sin. It is only because we are saved by grace through faith that we can NOW experience being transformed and changed. Thus, we experience that God's salvation is ongoing in us because we are His.  We can draw life and peace from the wells of God's salvation because we belong to Him. We wouldn't be changed and transformed in any ongoing way unless we are already His. Because we have become His sons and daughters, that we can grow up and be conformed to the Image of Jesus Christ. As oxygen and hydrogen combined in exact proportions result in water, so His Spirit and Truth combined in working out His salvation in us are the source of the Living Water of the Holy Spirit springing up within us.  We don't need to draw from the poisonous wells of the world. We have an everlasting artesian Spring of the water of Life...

 WHAT DO YOU WORSHIP? Did you know that you can subtly begin to worship your worship. Worshiping God is that place where our thoughts and affections are refocused, not on how we feel at the moment, but on the Lord, Himself. Worship can never save us. It is the One we worship Who is the Lord of Life, our salvation, and He alone is worthy of our worship. He alone is worthy of praise and obedience. If our focus in worship is the performance of our liturgy, whatever that form may be, then our worship has become an idol and not a means of seeking the Face of the Lord simply because of Who He is. In worship, we are washed by His Word, our vision is lifted beyond ourselves, and the Holy Spirit does His work of life-change as we are brought by grace into His Presence to bless and adore Him Who has loved us out of our death and brought us into His Life. Worshipping well requires no vestments, no hymnody or praise team, no buildings (though they may assist us in refocusing our hearts). What ...

 REAL LIFE You will never discover or find true and lasting life in anything or anyone other than Jesus Christ. Everything and everyone else is finite and fatefully flawed. He alone is able to untangle a life twisted and contorted by self-reliance, selfishness, unbelief, shame, sorrow, the hard-heartedness of sin. Jesus Christ alone is the sole and eternal source of salvation, peace, wholeness of life and hope.

SATISFACTION Your soul will never be "satisfied" by sin. Sin never "fills up", it steals, kills and destroys. Sin deletes and empties. Jesus Christ alone can fill, satisfy, heal, enlarge and renew life. It is when He becomes Life within you that you begin to become fully human again.

 FOLLOWING Following Jesus Christ as Lord of your life entails much more than just SAYING "Yes" to Him. It is the DOING of the "Yes" in the power and grace of the Holy Spirit.

 TRUST Psalm 25:15-18 "My eyes are ever on the Lord, for only He will release my feet from the snare. Turn to me and be gracious to me, for I am lonely and afflicted. Relieve the troubles of my heart and free me from my anguish. Look on my affliction and my distress and take away all my sins." King David learned and embraced the Truth that God alone can save, redeem, rescue and restore us from those things stronger than we are. Sin is a tyrant and a cheat, promising to comfort and sustain when it is a thief, a torturer and a slaughterer. Understanding that salvation, human flourishing, wholeness of life, clear direction, true comfort and goodness only come from God is what Holy Scripture calls "the fear of the Lord." Nothing in this world can satisfy the longing for home, identity, and peace but the Lord Jesus. He alone has done for humanity that which humanity could never approach by human effort or prowess. Only Jesus Christ can take that which is essentially, spi...

 BEWARE It's not saints who have gone before who hear our prayers. It's not Mary who bore the Messiah who answers our cries. That is because they cannot save a soul. That is not their purpose. Examples of believing God and taking Him at His Word, yes; Hebrews chapter 11 makes that clear. But remember, there was no other person who ever walked the earth that was sinless save Jesus Christ of Nazaeth, the Holy One of Israel. No prophet, no Apostle, no pastor or teacher, and none of those who followed Jesus Christ during His Incarnate mission of redemption were sinless, not even His earthly Mother, Mary. Jesus Christ died and rose again to redeem even His earthly Mother. For ALL had sinned and fallen short of the Lord's glory and the Lord, God the Father, laid on Jesus the inequity of us all on the cross. There He died our deserved death so that, by the Holy Spirit, we might be born from above, forgiven of all our sin and rebellion. Salvation come from the Holy Trinity alone. G...