Relational Bridges

 VICTORY PROCESSION 1Corinthians 2:14-16 " But thank God! He has made us His captives and (ALWAYS) continues to lead us along in Christ’s triumphal procession. Now He uses us to spread the knowledge of Christ everywhere, like a sweet perfume. Our lives are a Christ-like fragrance rising up to God. But this fragrance is perceived differently by those who are being saved and by those who are perishing.  To those who are perishing, we are a dreadful smell of death and doom. But to those who are being saved, we are a life-giving perfume. And who is adequate for such a task as this?" The picture St. Paul is paining with words is that of Roman legions parading back through Rome with their prisoners in chains after a military victory. We were once driven along by sin and our old sin nature in spiritual chains, in bondage. Jesus Christ has taken the absolute totality of all sin for all time for the whole human race. He has broken our chains, cancelled the debt we owed by paying for...

  WHAT TO RELY ON Philippians 3:3 " For we who worship by the Spirit of God  are the ones who are truly circumcised. We rely on what Christ Jesus has done for us. We put no confidence in human effort," There is no way that any human being could ever restore their life to wholeness. God makes it clear in His Word that we were dead in our sin and rebellion. DEAD. There is no one more ineffective than a dead person. They cannot change their circumstances. They are powerless to save any one least of all themselves. The beauty and glory of the Gospel is that God has ALREADY done everything for us to be restore to Himself by the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ for the sin of the whole world. Col ossians 2:11-12   " When you came to Christ, you were “circumcised,” but not by a physical procedure. Christ performed a spiritual circumcision—the cutting away of your sinful nature. For you were buried with Christ when you were baptized. And with Him you were raised to new l...

ROMANS 8:1 "There is, therefore, NOW no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus for the law of the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death." Have you ever wondered why, in the Epistles of the Apostles, they never refer to the churches or members of those congregations they are writing as, "You sinners saved by grace." You'll find they write something like this, "I am writing to all of God's holy people in Philippi who belong to Christ Jesus including the elders and deacons." (Philippians 1:1) "I am writing to God's holy people in Ephesus who are faithful followers of Christ Jesus." (Ephesians 1:1b) It seems to me that we can spend anxious time before the Lord in prayer asking for things He has already given to us...that our lives might continue to be transformed into the likeness of the Lord Jesus. The Apostles called all the followers of Jesus Christ as "God's holy people....

 ABIDING Jesus spoke of us as His Father's vineyard. Jesus is the Vine and we are His branches. Except for all Messianic Jews who follow Messiah Jesus as Lord and Savior, the rest of those who follow Jesus were "grafted into the Vine."  Those messianic Jews know that their salvation is just like that of Gentile believers. Salvation is a gift of God to be received in faith because of all He has done and finished in the Incarnation, life, ministry, sacrificial death, physical resurrection and His Ascencion, returning to the Father's Right hand. The only reason I can "abide in Christ Jesus" is that He united me with Himself. I initiated nothing. I received by grace through faith all God has done for me in Jesus. He cut away my old nature ( Colossians 2:11-15 ) and gave me a new heart and a new spirit, a new heredity, a new spiritual DNA. ( Ezekiel 11:19-21 ) God has caused me to stand before Him holy, blameless and beyond reproach. He has forgiven my sin as I b...

 RIVER FLOW An obstacle in a riverbed will be a matter of total indifference to the River of Life that flows steadily through a follower of Jesus Christ. When our focus remains on the Source of this Living Stream within us, we know that He Who began a good work in us WILL bring that work of salvation to perfection and completion. Being justified by grace through faith, we now have PEACE with God by Jesus Christ. We have access, even now, to the grace in which we stand. Ephesians 2:18 " Now all of us can come to the Father through the same Holy Spirit because of what Christ has done for us."   Ephesians 3:12 " Because of Christ and our faith in Him,  we can now come boldly and confidently into God’s presence." Flow, River, flow! Trust His Life being lived in you by the Holy Spirit.

 PSALM 106:24 " Then they despised the pleasant land;  they did not believe His promise." The people of God, those He had delivered from over 400 years of slavery in Egypt, despised the land God had given to them as their inheritance as He had promised Abraham. Why is the world would they refuse to enter in? It was then and it is the same even now...when God's people refuse to believe His promises, they balk at obeying God in the very things that ALONE make for life. He promised to drive out the utterly corrupted pagan nations and to establish Israel in the land that would be named after them. They doubted than God could lay out a banquet in the wilderness and provide for them in ways that would be new to them. They were to learn to trust and obey and to see the salvation of God. They grumbled and wouldn't obey because they trusted MORE in what they could perceive with their own finite understanding than what God had plainly laid out before them.  They saw the pagan ...

 PURPOSE The Law of God given to Israel and the Sermon on the Mount given by Jesus Christ, the Word of God Incarnate, have the same purpose. They both describe Life as it should be lived in order to know God and be reconciled to Him. Both the Law and the Sermon on the Mount, are also like mirrors exposing the true inner character of every human from Eden till now. No one, except for Jesus Christ, has ever lived a life in perfect harmony with the Law of God and Jesus' own sermon. Mankind is NOT "basically good" and any true student of human history would confirm that fact. God's Word makes that crystal clear. Humans can't ever consistently keep God's Law for to be "made righteous" by keeping the Law requires that you never, ever, ever break even one of God's Laws. Even if you kept the Law for 100 years perfectly and on your 101st birthday, you break one Law, it would be as if you never, ever, ever, even kept one of God's Laws. The Sermon on th...

 A LAMP UNTO MY FEET God tells us through the Psalmist that His Word is a "lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path." That described light is not a hand-held halogen flashlight. It was the oil lamp held in the hand that gave enough light to take the next step. People need and want direction for living out their lives. They can spend their lives trying to "make their dreams come true." All the while, God's plans, His "dreams" for you are initiated by, continued by and brought to competition by God's Power, His Presence, and His Provision. The Word of God brings light to one's whole life. Rebell against it, for whatever reason, and the fruit will always be darkness, deception, and delusion about the essence of life. Only in God can your soul be at rest. It is ONLY in Him that you will ever experience God's salvation. Arguing with God about passages you don't want to hear doesn't change the Truth of God for your lie. There is a guara...

 COVERED UP OR COVERING? In the Old Testament, the blood of animals offered as the antidote for sin covered the sin that had been committed. Trying to keep all the regulations of the Law resulted in a sense of futility as the Law couldn't change a person's heart nor give the adherent a new nature. The Law was given to show what real life is meant to be and how human beings are utterly incapable to saving themselves by keeping rules and regulations. The Law was given to drive humanity toward the Grace of God that was surely coming in Jesus Christ. Hebrews 10:11-14 " Under the old covenant, the priest stands and ministers before the altar day after day, offering the same sacrifices again and again, which can never take away sins . But our High Priest (Jesus Christ) offered Himself to God as a single sacrifice for sins, good for all time . Then He sat down in the place of honor at God’s right hand. There He waits until His enemies are humbled and made a footstool under Hi...

 PSALM 23 A sheep doesn't lead itself; it follows the Shepherd. The sheep trusts, submits to, and obeys the Shepherd because it has learned in following that the Shepherd knows best how to tend His sheep. It is in the Shepherd that the sheep will know rest, hope, confidence and peace. It is in believing the Shepherd that we enter into His rest, the rest He has prepared for all who will but believe Him.  The evidence that a sheep believes the Shepherd is seen in the sheep following the Shepherd. Life for a sheep is a changed life. It is a life of surrendered dependance, not some craven relinquishment, but a surrender that comes from confidence in the eternal love and faithfulness of the Shepherd. It is in living dependance upon the Shepherd that the sheep enters into what it actually means to be a sheep, to be fully a sheep in every detail. Wholeness of life is found in believing and then receiving all the provision the Shepherd has in store for the sheep, day by day.  The...

  KINGDOM LOVE What produces Kingdom Love, the Love of God manifest in His people? It comes from a pure heart, one made clean by the Blood of Christ, His forgiveness. He alone can make our hearts clean as He gives us a new heart and a new spirit. He causes us to stand before Him holy, blameless and beyond reproach. A pure heart is marked by singlemindedness in following the Lord Jesus in every detail of life. It comes from a clear conscience, where God's grace in the forgiveness of all our sin sets us free by breaking the power of cancelled sin. God makes our conscience clear because He makes us see that what He has done for us has been done in us and will be brought to its completion when the Lord returns to take us home at last. Our conscience is kept clear through a life of utter dependency upon God, a life of daily repentance and the acceptance of God's forgiveness as fact, not some "legal fiction." It comes from genuine faith. This faith is grounded alone in what...

PRAYER The purpose of prayer is not to get God to give me what I think I want/need, but to get to know the God to Whom my prayers and petitions are directed. Knowing Him, learning to keep my eyes fixed on Him, is the motivating power leading me to seek Him, to surrender to Him. For He, alone, is worthy of my praise, my obedience, and my absolute trust.

WHERE IS MY SECURITY FOUND? We feel most secure when we know what is going on around us and that in knowing, we have some degree of feeling like we are in control. Being "in control" can be synonymous with feeling secure. But then, how "in control" are we actually? I believe that a great part of human anxiety and insecurity come from the tidal wave of information about what is going on worldwide. I think that we were never wired to know EVERYTHING going on behind the closed doors of nations and peoples. We cannot fix the brokenness and madness around us. Most things being reported by news agencies are things traumatic, chaotic, evil and sensational. That's what sells newspapers and fuels viewer statistics from news outlets. The vast majority of "news" postings serve to emphasis how little control we actually have over life-events. We are deceived into thinking IF I know about stuff, I then have greater control over the terrifying "stuff." My ...

 WHAT AM I LOOKING FOR? Am I seeking evidence of God's Kingdom or am I recognizing that, regardless of what I can see or feel, God's absolute sovereign control is eternal, and nothing can alter it. The fact is, God has been there all along, but I could not see His Kingdom at work until I received His very nature for myself. Then life begins to be transformed. Life transformed, sanctification is the theological term, is not my idea of what I want God to do for me. Sanctification is God's idea of what He wants to do in me.

 WHERE GOD SAVES US Psalm 91:15, God declares that He will be with us IN trouble. God saves us IN trouble, not from it. Jesus made it very clear that in this broken and sin infected world, followers of Jesus Christ will have troubles, tribulations, persecutions and the like. We have to face the truth that the world we live in is broken and hates God. So, since we are His, Christian, the troubles aimed at defying Him, the lies spewed out to defame Him, the hatred for the only truth that can save mankind will flow toward us. Jesus told us that this is so and will be our experience as we follow Him and share the Good News of His salvation. The Lord also told us that He has overcome the world. Satan is a defeated foe, and Jesus Christ has given us His authority to dismantle the works of the kingdom of darkness. As His own, we can only lose in our sufferings things that are expendable, for the Kingdom the Holy Spirit lives out in us is eternal and cannot be defeated. The real "you...

 TRUE WEAKNESS There is no one more ineffective than a dead man. There is no hope for change or renovation if it is to be initiated by the dead person. There is no hope of resuscitation. Everyone born of woman, except for the Lord Jesus Christ, is born with the active DNA of sin embedded in them by heritage and inheritance from Adam and Eve. Adam and Eve lost this indwelling Presence when they rebelled against Truth and believed the damning lie that they needed something more than God had already given them to grow into.  Real human life is to have the Life of God uniting us to Himself and filling us, replacing sin and death with forgiveness and the Resurrection Life of Jesus Christ. True humanity is mankind filled with the Life of God, the Power of God for living each day, and an ongoing adventure of being changed, transformed, and conformed to the Image of Jesus. Weakness is not a random circumstance in me, but the real condition of my life in every aspect. Apart from a livi...

 BECAUSE JESUS IN THE MESSIAH Because Jesus is the Messiah, because He is the Word of God made flesh, fully human while remaining Who He has always been, fully God, we can expect (and expectation is not demanding something; it is embracing the truth of who Jesus is) Him to always do what He always does. We can have this expectation that what the Lord did in His ministry on earth as the Incarnate Word He will continue to do because He is the same yesterday, today and forever. He has chosen to do these things, to manifest the power and victory of the Kingdom of God through His present-day disciples, His followers, sons and daughters of God, the Father's own heirs, fellow Christians. Jesus clearly stated that the things He was doing His church would continue to do because He was going to the Father and the Holy Spirit would be poured out on all His people, saturating, anointing, soaking and indelibly dying us with the color of Heaven's glory. He even said that greater things would...

 HIS SHEEP In His Word, God calls us His sheep. Jesus Christ, Eternal God the Son, the Word of God made flesh, is our Good Shepherd. That is true. And so, I can trust Him to lead me through life. The sheep don’t lead, they follow. Trusting that God has both told us and shown us His Good News of rescue and salvation through Jesus Christ alone, we can follow. The real issue of faith is Who is the object of our believing, our faith? The strength of our faith is not in how we feel, but is grounded in the One who has called us by His grace to follow. It is Who we have put our trust in. Only God is worthy of your trust. A disciple is a follower, a learner. Our Savior’s Life and wisdom are infinite. Thus, I am assured that He will teach me, transform me, and lead me by the Holy Spirit. Always being a learner is a great freedom. It’s about Jesus Christ, Who He is and what He has done. I have Life because He is life within me. Adventure is before me! He enables my humility, my obedience, my...

 WHAT A WONDER Meditating in the Word of God today and I am as astounded at this moment as much as I was when Jesus Christ opened my eyes to see what He had done to rescue me from sin, death, hell, and the grave. The Lord saw my conception take place by His ordained plan. He saw my very beginning as well as my last breath here on planet earth. He saw every act of idolatry, rebellion, indifference, lust, hatred, unforgiveness, and everything His holiness revealed as vile and death-deserving. Nothing has ever been hidden from Him. He, faithfully and persistently, pursued me making Himself real to me at the age of seven and again at 19 rescuing me from demonic forces that were encouraging me to commit suicide. He intervened and grabbed ahold of me, bringing me back from the edge of eternal separation from Him. I have deserved nothing that I have received from Him. I can never and will never ever earn His love. I have it as a gift that, once given by His grace, can never be rescinded. ...

 WICKEDNESS The love of wickedness is a cheat. Its pleasure is fleeting because wickedness ends in debauchery, death, and the perversion of humanity. Wickedness mars and seeks to destroy any and all that is good and replace it with the love of lies and the delusion that, once embraced, brings about ultimate destruction. Ezekiel 20:13 "They wouldn't obey my regulations, even though obedience would have given them life."