MEND THE GAP

Have you thanked Him?

Have you praised Him?

Have you made it your priority to agree and cooperate with Him today?

Have you taken that deep breath and listened for what He has for you today?

1 Timothy 2:1 (The Message)

^1-3The first thing I want you to do is pray. Pray every way you know how, for everyone you know.

Not many folks who know me now or get the DISPATCH know about the period in my life when I traveled a ton. When I say a ton, I had one year in my career when I was “somewhere other than home” 270 days out of 365. So I have seen a few airports and the inside of my share of hotel rooms.

But something from those travels came to mind yesterday when Pastor Anna was delivering her poignant, albeit abbreviated, Sunday talk.

It was the phrase “MIND THE GAP”.

"MIND the GAP" is a warning to train passengers to take caution while crossing the gap between the train door and the station platform. It was introduced in 1969 on the London Underground and that is where I first saw and heard the expression. I used the underground extensively on my trips to London.

You needed to be “mindful of the gap” or you could subject yourself to some pretty severe injury possibilities.

But as Anna was sharing yesterday about JESUS being a bridge for us to the FATHER, this little phrase popped back into my mind but in a different way.

GOD knew of the “deadliness of the GAP” for us. He knew our sin “separated” from Him and as a result we couldn’t experience eternity with Him. And while the sacrifices, priests and rituals served their purpose, those methods still kept us at an arm’s length from a personal relationship with Him.

That is when GOD decided to “MEND THE GAP” with the giving of His Son.

Ephesians 2

It wasn’t so long ago that you were mired in that old stagnant life of sin. You let the world, which doesn’t know the first thing about living, tell you how to live. You filled your lungs with polluted unbelief, and then exhaled disobedience. We all did it, all of us doing what we felt like doing, when we felt like doing it, all of us in the same boat. It’s a wonder God didn’t lose his temper and do away with the whole lot of us. Instead, immense in mercy and with an incredible love, he embraced us. He took our sin-dead lives and made us alive in Christ. He did all this on his own, with no help from us! Then he picked us up and set us down in highest heaven in company with Jesus, our Messiah.

Now God has us where he wants us, with all the time in this world and the next to shower grace and kindness upon us in Christ Jesus. Saving is all his idea, and all his work. All we do is trust him enough to let him do it. It’s God’s gift from start to finish!

Thanks to GOD’s amazing compassion for each one of us and HIS desire that none of us perish, GOD MENDED THE GAP between us and Him that our sin and disobedience had created.

How awesome is that?

We didn’t deserve it.

GOD could have easily left the old inadequate covenant in place. But instead GOD mended that relationship and for those in CHRIST, that MEND can’t be broken or severed ever again.

Romans 8:38-39

Yes, I am sure that nothing can separate us from God’s love—not death, life, angels, or ruling spirits. I am sure that nothing now, nothing in the future, no powers, nothing above us or nothing below us—nothing in the whole created world—will ever be able to separate us from the love God has shown us in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Thank GOD today for "MENDING the GAP!"

I love you all!

Freedom Church

Pastor GDelaney