Getting Connected is All About Faith

[HKHaugan]

Faith is the stand we take in the Spirit. It is the spiritual fortitude to walk in the unseen dimension in every next moment. For us as believers in Jesus, to stand is to be filled with the Spirit (Eph.5:18), to live by the Spirit (Gal.5:16) and to keep in step with the Spirit (Gal.5:25). The secular ideas of standing are to remain motionless, do nothing, remain uncommitted, ready to compromise, ‘it’s none of my business,’ ‘let someone else do it,’ ‘I have too much to lose,’ ‘I’m afraid’ and in the final analysis it’s always best just to be quiet and try to ‘fit in.’

In Jesus we are always on the move the way He was. Even if we are physically standing in one place our mind and our heart are contemplating where we ought to be going in every next moment. This was the witness of Jesus to His Father’s will. When he was physically standing in one place He was praying, teaching and healing. He was never trying to ‘fit in’ or trying to explain Himself or to excuse His words and action. His words were moving words, stimulating thought and action. Personally, I am never satisfied just surviving from one minute to the next. My usual day starts with jogging. While I’m jogging I pray, I sing and I think. When I finish I read Scripture, write and relate. Wherever I am I try to be open to the Spirit. The Spirit is always keeping me alert to see what can’t be seen, to sense the spiritual nature of the activity I see around me. Plays, movies, music, literature, nature, people’s actions are all verbalizing something in the spiritual dimension.

It’s in our personal relationships that the Spirit works most deeply. There is where the reactions we have in relationships measure where we are in the Spirit. How do we feel about whatever is stimulating us at any given moment? Why do we react a certain way when our ‘fail-safe’ buttons are pushed? What happens when someone offends us or touches a subject that feels too close to home? Are we willing at that point to spiritually process where we are (There’s that ‘Where are you?’ question again.)? Here is where Jesus comes in the Spirit to be our Savior and our Lord all in one. This is the real world for each of us, where we live personally and interpersonally.

OK, let’s walk this out in the world. Where am I when I stand in the checkout line and I’m conscious of others around me? Is this a time to say hello to someone or make some pleasant remark to start a conversation? It’s not only there but wherever we are on the way. It’s the spiritual awareness we have been given in the Lord to be spiritual beings right where we are at any given moment.

But there is also another part of the world and it is the one that is literally outside of us. It’s the one in the media, the TV, the community, the nation and everything beyond. It’s also the observation platform made up of the impressions we get as we wander from moment to moment in a sea of unknown people. It’s full of politics, emotional triggers and conclusions about what I see. It’s the ‘world’s-going-to-hell-in-a-hand-basket’ depressiveness. It’s the uncontrollable elements of the society I’m in and the internal frustrations I feel knowing I can’t do anything about them.

Actually then, we live in three worlds: the one in me, the one in my relationships and the one outside. Each is spiritual where invisible motivations rule. You might say it is a one-in-three world in which I am central, the one who thinks, emotes and acts in the context of relationships and structures. “God so loved the world that He gave His One and only Son that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life (Jn.3:16).” If we really think about this the Father sent the Son to live as a self-conscious person in this three part world just like we experience it, personally, relationally and structurally. It is a world of personal choice, relational choice and given structures in which we operate our choices like family, friends, community, profession, nation and the larger universe.

There are five basic needs we have when it comes to understanding our humanity.

First, the difference in our understanding of the world is that within we are, each of us, alone and the Son of God is not. He is one with His Father and the Holy Spirit.

Second, we have to learn about who, what, when, where and why we are from birth. Jesus does not. He is God the Son is eternal.

Thirdly, we are created having a beginning and an end. He is not created. He is the One through whom Creation came and is its beginning and end.

Fourth, while we both live by faith Jesus is faithful by nature and without Him ours is limited by the aloneness sin has brought. Without Him we are vulnerable to whatever awaits us in the evil part of the spiritual dimension.

Fifth, we have needs to grow and mature, He doesn’t. We need Him and all the qualities He has by nature to be truly human like He was when He lived on this planet. We have to understand, having been created in the image of God we have all the built in capacities that an image of God is supplied with at birth but they need to be connected. That’s why we need to be reborn spiritually in mind, heart and spirit. When we ask Jesus to be our personal Savior and Lord He gives us the gift of the Holy Spirit who connects our capacities for faith, love, compassion, hope and all that needs re-inspiring.

Now perhaps we can get a feel for the intensity and inspiration behind Paul’s prayer for the faithful to whom he is writing these words, “15 For this reason, ever since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all God’s people, 16 I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers. 17 I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit[a] of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. 18 I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people, 19 and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is the same as the mighty strength 20 he exerted when he raised Christ from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, 21 far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every name that is invoked, not only in the present age but also in the one to come. 22 And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, 23 which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way (Eph.1:15-23).”