Archive for August, 2010

So today we are going to review the first part of the definition of a relationship and that is a “Connection.”

This is where I will ask you to take a second and think back to when you first saw or spoke to your spouse or the first time that you laid eyes on your newborn infant. How you felt in the depth of your being a love that could not be questioned. That is a connection between you and that person. Do you remember that moment when you made that connection with Jesus?

Do you remember when you meet that girl or guy that made your heart skip a beat? That one that made you forget what you were doing because you couldn’t stop thinking about them? That’s a connection.

When is the last time that you felt that connection to Jesus? When did you lose track of time thinking, praying, or praising Him.

Please look at what David wrote in Psalm 150:

Praise the LORD. Praise God in his sanctuary; praise him in his mighty heavens.
2 Praise him for his acts of power; praise him for his surpassing greatness.
3 Praise him with the sounding of the trumpet, praise him with the harp and lyre,
4 praise him with tambourine and dancing, praise him with the strings and flute,
5 praise him with the clash of cymbals, praise him with resounding cymbals.
6 Let everything that has breath praise the LORD. Praise the LORD.

So, take a second search your heart and make a connection with Him. Take a walk and lose an hour or so of your day just thinking, praying, and worshiping HIM!

God Bless ~ Pastor Tyler

This seems like a truly simple word; doesn’t it? But as we all know it is anything but simple. To begin to truly understand anything you have to begin by defining it. I already did this for you:

Relationship:
a connection, association, or involvement

As I was pastoring in Nebraska I would routinely say to the congregation that Christianity was a relationship not a religion. I said it so much in fact that I have a t-shirt that says it (at least I know that some of them were paying attention.) But what my t-shirt and the statement neglect to do is explain it in a way that makes sense and that is applicable to ones life.

I would like to start by looking at it backwards. So much of our lives here in America do not cultivate healthy relationships. We as a society have adopted such a consumerism type mentality that we are constantly focused on more, more, more. And we have adopted this to the detriment of our relationships. Let me provide an example for you from my own life: I have a cell phone that calls, rings, texts, messengers, Send pictures, receives pictures, tweets, updates, surfs and at one time in my life when I would go on a date with my beautiful wife we could barely exchange a sentence without a buzz, chime, chirp, or ring interrupting. Now, I am an unimportant individual in the grand scheme of things, true I serve a Glorious God and that gives me value. But I am not a heart surgeon or a Governor of State so why do I need to know instantly that my friend 5 states away just got a hot dog at His favorite hot dog stand. However, I am in no way knocking technology…matter of fact for those of you that follow my twitter I am tweeting that I am blogging right now (see what I mean! Look how far it has gone.) But what it did do is put a little bit of seperation between my lovely wife and I as she was telling me about her day and I was telling my friend to make sure that he put relish on it?!? Really…?

So, we a few years back put into place a little agreement that on our dates phones stay put away and only checked to make sure the kids are OK.

At this point then we have to go back to the definition of relationship…a connection…an association…and an involvement. In the next couple of posts we are going to look at what it means to have a “relationship” with Christ. What it means to have a connection with Him, to have an association, and an involvement. And what does the Bible say about each of these and do we as people truly understand what that means?

God Bless
~ Pastor Tyler