For Those In Christ Jesus

For those in Christ Jesus we are not condemned
For the judgement of sin is where it all stemmed
Christ paid the price, He paid it in full
He cleansed our heart making it white as wool

For those in Christ Jesus we are now set free
From the bondage of sin that put Christ on a tree
We are no longer in bondage, a slave to our sin
When we open our hearts and let Christ Jesus in

He’s the Author of faith Beginning and End
We’re not alone the Holy Spirit He did send
He convicts us of sin, He guides our way
He provides us with light on our darkest day

For those in Christ Jesus we have forgiveness of sin
He is the hope that we live our life in
He provides us grace to walk in His ways
Studying His Word is where I want to stay

ROMANS 8:1-4
There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. 2. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. 3. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, 4. In order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.

© Copyright By Bart Hickey, All Rights Reserved, 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2014

The Birth Of Our Savior

Twas the star filled night in the early morn
In a manger in Bethlehem our Savior is born

He was conceived by Gods Spirit born in the flesh
Came to this earth to redeem man from death

Guided by the Star wise men they traveled
Bringing gifts to this King whose stable was His castle

He was born as a baby, He is Gods gift to mankind
He came with a message, His purpose was by design

Hand picked by the Savior twelve men were sought
To walk daily with Jesus so they may be taught

The message was clear, there was no room for doubt
Jesus is the Savior, He’s the only way out

He was rejected and denied and found without sin
But sentenced to death on a cross before men

While on the cross He thought not of Himself
He bore all the sins of everyone else

After three days He arose from the grave
To secure a new life for all who are saved

© Copyright By Bart Hickey, All Rights Reserved, 2011, 2012 and 2013

It’s Only You Who I Find Hope In

Living in a world that’s broken
It’s through Your Word that’s spoken
It’s You Who I Find Hope In

When I try to hide my pain
And my tears fall like rain
It’s You Who I Find Hope In

Living in a world that’s fallen
It’s your voice that I hear calling
It’s You Who I Find Hope In

When I am lost in shame
And have only me to blame
It’s You Who I Find Hope In

Living in a world that lost it’s way
From your Word I do not sway
It’s You Who I Find Hope In

When I find I’m lost in doubt
I pull my hair and want to shout
It’s You Who I Find Hope In

Living in a world that does not care
It’s your Word I’m called to share
It’s You Who I Find Hope In

When I find I’m lost in sin
It’s your forgiveness that draws me in
It’s Only You Who I Find Hope In

© Copyright By Bart Hickey, All Rights Reserved, 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2014

By His Wounds

By His wounds we are healed
With His Spirit we are sealed

From the cross we have life
In His strength we fight strife

He conquered death from the grave
It’s the lost He came to save

It started with his birth
As a man He walked on earth

Fully God man in the flesh
He gives life to start afresh

It’s in His strength we can fight
All because He is the Light

From the cross to the grave
If you ask it’s you He’ll save

If you believe He’s raised to life
In Him you have eternal life

© Copyright By Bart Hickey, All Rights Reserved, 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2014

Christ Is The Reason

Christ is the reason
For every Christmas season

Whether you’re a girl or boy
Christmas is the season of joy

But we teach our girls and boys
To look to santa to get some toys

We get gifts from under a tree
OH BOY is there a gift for me?!

The message of Christmas is misunderstood
To get a gift you must have been good?

Bad or good is the way
To get a gift on Christmas day?

The reason for Christmas is eschewed
The reason for Christmas must be renewed

God gave us a gift you see
He didn’t come from under a tree

The gift God gave is His Son
His free gift to everyone

Christ is the reason
For every Christmas season

Who Will Be Your Rescue

Do you have a refuge
When times are going rough
Who will be your rescue
When you’re all alone or feeling gruff

Who will be your refuge
When you’re living in despair
Do you have a rescue
When you’re pulling out your hair

Do you have a refuge
When sin’s nipping at your heels
Who will be your rescue
When you haven’t got a meal

Who will be your refuge
When life is full of pain
Who will be your rescue
When your tears turn in to rain

Christ will be your refuge
When life just seems too tough
Christ will be your rescue
When you flat out had enough

© Copyright By Bart Hickey, All Rights Reserved, 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2014

Who Will Be My Rescue

Have you ever needed to be rescued? Myself, I haven’t, yet I have. I do not claim to have ever been in a tragic situation where I had to rescued by emergency personnel, but I have needed to be rescued from an addiction to methamphetmines that I was in for a great number of years. With Christmas nipping at our heals, it seems a perfect time to write about Who Will Be My Rescue.

2 Timothy 1:9-10
He has saved us and called us to a holy life-not because of anything we have done but because of his own purpose and grace. This grace was given to us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time, 10. but it has now been revealed through the appearing of our Savior, Christ Jesus, who has destroyed death and has brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.

As I was praying, and searching, and asking to be led to a topic to write about, these verse’s just about leaped off the page. My spirit cried out with thanksgiving to have been rescued, not only from a life in addiction, but most importantly from my life’s choices to be separated from God all because choosing to live in sin. With the addiction came sexual immorality in various forms. A life that now I think about it must have just broke Gods heart. You might ask why I say that. To be honest I got saved as a youth and walked away because I thought God wasn’t hearing or answering my prayers. I had a wish list of things in my life that I wanted God to fix and when he didn’t perform like I thought he should I decided I could do a better job with my life and walked away. But throughout life I still considered myself to be a Christian. At that young age I really wanted God in my life but I wanted for him to fix all my problems too. Throughout life when ever I got in hot water if you will I would seek out a church to attend, or a Bible Study to go to, or just pray for God to get me out of whatever situation that I seemed to have gotten myself in to. A long story short, in 2005 my girlfriend had lost custody of her youngest son in a court battle to her ex-husband. As we were grieving the loss of her son and as I was missing him, I knew she needed spiritual guidance that I couldn’t give her. This was all my thinking. So I heard this voice go to church and there happened to be one just around the corner from her house. And we started attending. Two years later in a rather hot conversation I said if she would just go to church more and her response was that her and God had a relationship that maybe He wasn’t looking for her but instead He was looking for me and the she kicked me out and that’s when I needed to be rescued the most. I was completely broken, nowhere to go and had no one that I could call on. This was now 2009 in Portland, Oregon at the beginning of winter. That is when I knew that Christ is my only hope. I happened to be lost in unforgiveness between a lost relationship between my earthly father and me. I was at my mothers in Dallas, Texas and in the middle of the night one night as I was praying God spoke to my heart that I needed to forgive my dad. I didn’t see how because he was dead, God softly spoke how can I forgive you if you can’t forgive him. I hit my knees crying asking for God to help me forgive my dad. Today I stand forgiven and free not only from the bondage of unforgiveness but also free from the chains of addiction. But I didn’t do it completely on my own, God led me to the ministry of Celebrate Recovery. With their help and the help of the 12 steps and 8 principles Christ has freed me from unfogiveness and addiction and is in the process of healing me. Today with Christ and the help of CR I am learning to make better more healthier choices. I am learning to live a life that is pleasing to God.

If you are broken or hurting or are in bondage to life’s hurts habits and hang-ups please seek Christ as your Rescue. Please don’t go through this Christmas Season alone or broken, thinking you have to go it all alone or that you have to carry the weight of life’s burdens all on your own shoulders. Pray and ask God to reveal Himself to you, to help you seek a relationship with Him and to help you seek Him to heal from the brokenness that is in your heart and your life then confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead you will be saved. Romans 10:9

In Christ
Bart

Are We In Christ

I have a purpose with this write and it’s to get into your head. Chances are I already have. You have read the title or first sentence and are pondering what’s this guy got to say that interests me. My sole aim is to stimulate thought. If nothing else you read the title and walk away and think about what does it mean to be In Christ. But in order to know what it does mean we have to discover what it doesn’t mean.

What do you think if you are asked, Are You In Christ? Or what is your thoughts when let’s say you’re at a Bible Study and your discussing what it means to be In Christ? Here is what I think, and these are just my thoughts based on how Scripture affects me as I read Scripture. My initial thoughts when you ask me if I’m In Christ are; well I go to church on Sunday, I serve in Awana, I go to prayer meeting, or maybe I even sing in the choir, maybe I help out with the youth, or I’m a deacon, or I lead a Bible Study. You get the picture. Don’t get me wrong these are great things to do and ways to serve and are helpful and even necessary to build and grow Gods Kingdom, But are they really what it means to be In Christ. Now personally I believe they are components of being In Christ and serving is in a big way a component of being In Christ.

Here is my thoughts now as I write and discover and as I take the time to dig a little deeper. New Creation or New Creature: as in 2 Corinthians 5:17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here. Called or Calling: as in Romans 1:6 And you also are among those Gentiles who are called to belong to Jesus Christ., 1 Corinthians 1:9 God is faithful, who has called you into fellowship with his Son, Jesus Christ or Lord., 1 Corinthians 1:26-31 Brothers and sisters, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards: not many were influential: not many were of noble birth. 27 But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise: God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. 28 God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things-and the things that are not-to nullify the things that are, 29 so that no one may boast before him. 30 It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God-that is, our righteousness, holiness, and redemption. 31 Therefore, as it is written; “Let the one who boasts boast in the Lord.” Chose or chosen: John 15:16-17 Jesus speaking says “ You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit-fruit that will last-and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you. 17 This is my command; Love each other.”,
1 Peter 2:9 But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. In Christ says I have a Purpose: Romans 8:28 And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.

We could go on like Bear Fruit, Set Apart. We are to live different than anyone in the world so that if someone sees how we are, how we live and how we treat others that our actions and speech draws them to want to know what makes us separate or different from others. People want to know why we are the way we are. That opens the door for us to share the hope that we have inside us.

Ephesians 2:10 says: For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works. Which God prepared in advance for us to do.
Philippians 2:13 for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose.

Somehow in my mind I think that In Christ is more than just serving. It has to do with how we treat and speak to others, how we react to a difficult or certain circumstance or situation. It has to do with Love, How we love our neighbor. In Christ is our identity, it’s who we are and how we identify with the world. He lives in us now let’s live In Him.

Bart
© Copyright By Bart Hickey, All Rights Reserved, 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2014

Redemption Came Through The Cross

Once upon a time
There was a man that could rhyme
He was a man of God
But he liked the applaud
Though he didn’t like to be in a crowd
He would cover his head with a shroud
He would stand or sit in the back
For fear that he would be attacked
He was too anxious to speak out loud
For fear that people would think he was proud
His body was covered with art
That told a story of his heart
He lived in bondage and chains
To an addiction that hardened his veins
He found freedom on two wheels
But the addiction always nipped at his heels
He would give in every time
Followed by guilt and shame they would chime
He had a heart of gold
From him that wouldn’t be told
His life he lived in the dark
Which cast a shadow over his heart
Though life he lived in the night
The shadow would soon be covered with light
The addiction he had to admit
To Christ he soon would submit
This man knew he lived lost
Redemption came through the Cross
Christ softened his heart
Allowing Grace to give him a new start

© Copyright By Bart Hickey, All Rights Reserved, 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2014