Monday, February 20, 2012

Story: Restored Connection (pt7)


(What you are about to read is a selection from a retreat I spoke about a year ago.  It is a continuation from Part 1 (The Dawn of Creation), Part 2 (The Separation) ,  Part 3 (The Desperation), Part 4 (The Ability to Connect),  Part 5 (The Reconnect), and Part 6 (the Deeper Connection). It is based on the discussion of our connection with God and comes from Galatians 5)


This connection comes from our understanding our brokenness, understanding the crisis that we come to without God’s Spirit working in us. Seeking a trip to Heaven as the total Christian experience is shallow and ineffective. It is unfulfilling, unfruitful, and disheartening. There is no power in a Christian life that has no connection. When we come to a place of understanding how ineffective it is for us to try to live this Christian life on our own abilities, the better. 


However, what does a life look like that is connected, a life that understands…truly understands, God is doing the work through us? This is where we see the power, the change, and the true connection. This is where we see victory; this is where we find the beauty in God’s plan because He reveals it to us. He reveals it to us, because we understand He must do it. This is where we begin to learn and see how powerful trusting God is, this is the place where we see faith come alive and realize there is so much depth to what faith is. This is where we see a glimpse of the life that God wants for us.


This connected lifestyle is where we feel the presence of God surrounding us, and even though we go through tough times, we truly feel that He is there; because He is, but now we experience it. This is the place where your relationship with God is not just positional but experiential, this is the place where you don’t just call yourself a Christian, you are living with God living through you…you experience Him in your life. With this is great power.


Imagine approximately one hundred and twenty people experiencing this power, which is the number of followers Christ left behind, and from that the world has known of Christ for centuries. What could He do with thirty people in our area? I don’t want to become cliché, but what if thirty peoples heart broke for what breaks God’s heart? They banded together to be the change? What would that look like? What if we lived our life as a sermon to those around us, not by the neat ideas we could come up with but we lived our lives connected to God’s Spirit and let Him live the life through us? 


What would a group believers look like that came together realizing, I mean really realizing, that if God wanted to, He could change the world through them. Do you believe that? The world? Nothing is impossible with God. What if we were hungry for that? I imagine, a group of students that had this hungry, God led desire, could do so much damage to mediocrity and all that the enemy tries to attack us with that we would see lives changed by the hundreds, dare I say thousands? Millions? Who knows, but do we really believe that God, through a connected life could do that?


I have resolved to do continually work towards this connection. I believe God can take me, and all my mess, and blow my mind as I continually seek to be connected and live my life given to Him. I believe that is what he wants from you. I believe He wants to be connected to you, work through you, for His glory. I believe He would love to blow your mind with all that he has planned for you. I believe He wants you to not live your Christian life by the pre-conceived notions, but He wants you to allow Him to live His life through you. 


I believe In God’s power, and I believe in God’s power through you.


When the connection that God intended to have with mankind is restored in a person’s life, look out, because there is no telling what God might do through them.


That, my friend is so exciting…I don’t have human words for it.