The Bridge of Hearts: A Letter to the Reader
Dear Reader,
I am not a minister in the strictest sense of the word, nor do I hold a degree in theology, but I’ve spent most of my life studying the Bible. I am seventy years old at the completion of this writing and have studied the Bible almost daily, hours before the sun, even when I didn’t follow its counsel and did things my way.
I was not called to go to a seminary, but I was called to study. The apostle John told us the Spirit of God is our teacher (see 1 John 3:27); the apostle Paul told Timothy to study and show himself approved unto God, to become a laborer who rightly divides the word of truth (see 2 Timothy 3:15). So I took Paul’s counsel to heart and began to study.
When I sought a private tutor in my midtwenties, my goal was to glean what he had learned and build from there. Having served the church as a pastor and teacher since he was sixteen years old, Pastor Archie Smith had studied and taught the Bible for more than seventy-five years. I learned many good things from my gentle friend and his wife, a very notable one being, “There are a lot of good books in the world, and you can’t read them all, so only read the best.” Following his line of thinking, I have endeavored to write the best book I could write about building spiritual connections between God and others and what Christ has done to make it our reality.
The Bridge of Hearts may challenge some long-standing religious traditions, but I have documented its claims with biblical chapters and verses as references. My intent is to tell you, not to sell you and to provide you, the reader, with a basic insight into God’s most significant goals for humankind so you can make informed decisions about your goals. I hope to provide a clear vision of the Bible’s most fundamental truths, which are: God loves us with a perfect love that’s always just, always merciful, always grace filled and, even more important, always focused on us. In turn, his objective is to teach us how to return his love from a heart that’s always just, always merciful, always grace filled and, even more important, always focused on him.
The goal is unity—spiritual unity—that we may be made one with God and our neighbor through the same Spirit—the Holy Spirit. To accomplish this highest goal, our Father has provided us with two immensely powerful tools for building spiritual connections—the first is his Ten Commandments that define the goal, and the second is his simple diagram for meeting the goal—the pattern.
The pattern God gave us through Moses on Mount Sinai is the heart and soul of this book. It is God’s blueprint for building spiritual bridges from heart to heart, and it’s the only diagram he ever gave to show all men how to approach the holiest place of his heart and the hearts of those he’s made in his image.
God’s pattern charts our course to the holiest place of God by showing us how to follow the narrow way that leads to life in God. It’s the way Jesus walked from the garden of Gethsemane, where he yielded his will, to God’s holiest in the heavens where he surrendered his all to reconcile man’s heart with God’s. Jesus’s journey from the natural to the spiritual is the way we must go to follow him. And as we shall see in the coming chapters, there has never been a man who could stay its course to the holiest of God without faith in Jesus the Christ—our forerunner and atoning sacrifice—God’s covenant Lamb.
This book has a few short stories about my personal experiences for illustrative reasons, but it’s written to be a tribute to the works of God through Christ. It’s about what Jesus has done to build our spiritual connection with God, how he has done it, and why he has done it for us. It’s about how Jesus the Rock was broken for us, to make us all of one Spirit, God in us, and us in God.
This book is about hope. I hope everyone reading this book will gain a deeper insight into God’s incredible promises submerged in Scripture and fill their hearts with hope. It may require some time and work—perhaps a lot of work, but please, let patience have its perfect work. The Bible has promised God will reward all of those who diligently seek him.
I also hope you enjoy reading The Bridge of Hearts and find it rewarding. If you do, please visit your favorite book site and post a review, or visit my website and leave a comment at consecratedpress.com. And even if you don’t, I hope you’ll send me an email and let me know your thoughts.
About the Author
Johnny L. Dudley was born in Louisville, Kentucky, raised in Florida, and served in the Marine Corps as a machine gunner in Vietnam. He is the father of three sons and is presently engaged as a real estate developer.
