Bridges… We now have a bridge across our ditch. It’s not a deep ditch, but sometimes it stands in water. Sometimes it looks a little snake-y with all the leaves and such that gather there. Now I won’t have to wade or jump to cross.
God didn’t need to build bridges to cross over wet places. He caused the water to part and the bottom of the body of water to appear. Dry…not mushy and muddy. People just walked right thru. And snakes…well, he put them on their belly! (Gen. 3:14…wonder if they walked or flew before then…hummm…..)
Joshua 3 & 4 tells an amazing story of the water of a river piling up instead of running downstream. Exodus 14 tells another story of such an incidence. I encourage you to read them for yourself. Check to see if your Bible tells it like mine does.
No.. God didn’t need a bridge to get across something. He just made a way through. (After all…He IS God….He IS in charge….He DID create every single thing that is reality to us..)
It is you and me who need the bridge…a way to get back to Him…like it was in the beginning…in the garden.
I am not like God. You aren’t either. And no thing we do enables us to cross the gap that is between us and Him. We can’t un-do the sinful condition we are in. We can’t press thru it, can’t swim it, can’t stop it’s force.
I couldn’t roll back the waves of sin and guilt that engulfed me. I couldn’t manage to stop the rush of it, it just kept coming over me. No matter how hard I tried, and believe me I did try….it just kept happening. The more I identified sin, the more sin I saw in myself !
I am in good company…my brother Paul had the same issue.
“The law…. started out as an excellent piece of work. What happened, though, was that sin found a way to pervert the command into a temptation, making a piece of "forbidden fruit" out of it. …..The very command that was supposed to guide me into life was cleverly used to trip me up….
But the law code itself is God's good and common sense, each command sane and holy counsel.…. "Does that mean I can't even trust what is good [that is, the law]? Is good just as dangerous as evil?"
No again! Sin simply did what sin is so famous for doing: using the good as a cover to tempt me to do what would finally destroy me. …...
What I don't understand about myself is that I decide one way, but then I act another, doing things I absolutely despise.
So if I can't be trusted to figure out what is best for myself and then do it, it becomes obvious that God's command is necessary. But I need something more!
For if I know the law but still can't keep it, and if the power of sin within me keeps sabotaging my best intentions, I obviously need help!
I realize that I don't have what it takes. I can will it….. but I can't do it.
I decide to do good…. but I don't really do it.
I decide not to do bad, but then I do it anyway.
My decisions, such as they are, don't result in actions.
Something has gone wrong deep within me and gets the better of me every time.
It happens so regularly that it's predictable.
The moment I decide to do good, sin is there to trip me up.
I truly delight in God's commands, but it's pretty obvious that not all of me joins in that delight. Parts of me covertly rebel, and just when I least expect it, they take charge.
I've tried everything and nothing helps. I'm at the end of my rope. Is there no one who can do anything for me? Isn't that the real question?” ( misc. Romans 7, The Message)
…Praise God, there’s been a bridge built to allow us to Passover this horrible problem we humans all have….
“The answer, thank God, is that Jesus Christ can and does. He acted to set things right in this life of contradictions where I want to serve God with all my heart and mind, but am pulled by the influence of sin to do something totally different.” (Romans 7:25 The Message)
Won’t you choose that path? It’s a glorious path !
