Tuesday, May 30, 2017

Walk in the Spirit - 5

We have seen that sin does not destroy our relationship with the Father, but it does disrupt our fellowship. It disrupts our connection to the Father, the flow of love and grace, and therefore, our ability to live like Jesus, in the way we were designed.

One reason, Jesus live the way he did was because sin never disrupted his connection to the Father. We won’t be so lucky. We won’t be able to say that sin will never disrupt our connection. We should be able to restore fellowship (and the flow of love and grace) by confession and repentance. And we should have stonger cores, when fellowship and the connection is restored. And our character should grow; we should grow in obedience; we should shrink in the practice of sin.

Sin will disrupt the connection, and hinder our ability to live like Jesus. Walking in righteousness will increase our ability to walk like Jesus. But is that the whole thing?

Jesus never lost connection with the Father, and the Spirit. And he never lost contact. The presence of the Father, and the Spirit, was always before him. From the time he got out of bed in the morning, the fact the he was rubbing shoulder with the Spirit was an apparent, obvious fact.

Every day, we rub shoulders with the Spirit. He is eternally present. (Meaning: God gives each one of his children 100%, focused attention.) He is ready, willing, and able to act in any endeavor that restores his kingdom, and brings him glory. He promises to do anything we ask in his name.

Yet, how many of us live as if God is eternally present? We mostly live as if he is not. We need to live in a way that does not offend God, but we also need to live in a way that is aware of his presence. We need to give him attention in a way that mimics his attention of us … given we are physically unable to imitate his 100%, focused attention. It is this awareness that puts us into position to draw on his resources. It is our usual, normal, lack of awareness, that puts us in a position where we depend on our personal abilities, knowledge, and wisdom.

Jesus’ story of the vine and branches indicates, if nothing else, that Christianity is not just a moral code. It is a relationship and fellowship with the Creator of the Universe. It is rational, reasonable, logical, wise, and philosophically complete. But it is also has a mystical side. As his children, we need to embrace the rational, and the mystical. We need to connect into the vine, to receive grace, love and divine nutrition, to produce fruit, and glorify the Father. But if we do not even recognize that we are connected, we will receive nothing from the Father. The connection relies on the focus of our hearts.

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