Connections

My phone is going to die. So is my laptop, and my watch. Why? Because they need a steady stream of energy to keep going, and, by their nature, they get disconnected, and used while disconnected, from their power sources. In the same way, we’re meant to be connected. In the beginning, we were made in God’s image, in His likeness, and we walked with Him in the Garden that He made for us. Then, when He saw Adam, alone, said that it was “not good” for him to be alone, and he made Him a helpmeet after his own likeness, Eve.

On the day they disobeyed the voice of God, and sin entered in to their lives, and through them, the world, they lost their connections to both God and one another. Though they were created naked and unashamed and literally made for one another, the first thing Adam and Eve did when their eyes were opened was hide from one another, and the very next was to hide from God when He showed up on the scene. They did not die right away, but they began to. Their connection to their source and to one another was broken.

In many respects, people nowadays are looking for a connection to keep them going, and the Enemy of our souls has taken a tool and found a way to keep us from connecting to the Source of life. He has substituted relationship with God and one another through social media and our phones. In always being connected to that tool in hands, or the computer or tv screens, or even works of fiction and academia, we have substituted real relationship for something artificial, and God wants us, through His Son Jesus Christ, to have life and have it abundantly. The Cross restores those relationships that we need to have life. First, and most important, it restores our relationship with the Source of Life; through the blood of Jesus Christ, we are reconciled to the Father for our many sins and rebellions against Him. That blood also unites us with other believers, making us, not a single individual floating around in cyberspace, but connected to others through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, the body of Christ connected with Jesus as our head.

We will die, forever, if we do not stay connected to our Source. Someday, Jesus will call everyone to account, and we will either be found in Him, or be sent to the outer darkness where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth, and where the fire does not end, and the worm does not consume the dead. It’s not a threat, nor an ultimatum of “love Me, or go to hell,” no, it’s a lifeline, God rescuing us from our destructive nature, and seeking to draw us back to Him. Jesus is calling. Repent. Turn from sin and to Him. Follow Jesus, be born again. He’s seeking to connect with you.

Revelation 3:14-22

“And to the angel of the church in Laodicea write: ‘The words of the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of God’s creation.

“‘I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were either cold or hot! So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth. For you say, I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing, not realizing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked. I counsel you to buy from me gold refined by fire, so that you may be rich, and white garments so that you may clothe yourself and the shame of your nakedness may not be seen, and salve to anoint your eyes, so that you may see. Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline, so be zealous and repent. Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me. The one who conquers, I will grant him to sit with me on my throne, as I also conquered and sat down with my Father on his throne. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.’”

Galatians 5:13-26

For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” But if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another.

But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.

If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another.

2 Corinthians 2:6-16

Yet among the mature we do impart wisdom, although it is not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are doomed to pass away. But we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glory. None of the rulers of this age understood this, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. But, as it is written,

“What no eye has seen, nor ear heard,

nor the heart of man imagined,

what God has prepared for those who love him”

these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. For who knows a person's thoughts except the spirit of that person, which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God. And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual.

The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one. “For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ.