Day 24 – A Living Connection

As we have already seen in Col 2:6-7, we are to walk in Him. The Living Bible puts it beautifully: “Let your roots grow down into him and draw up nourishment from him. See that you go on growing in the Lord, and become strong and vigorous in the truth you were taught.” This shows the living relationship we are to have with the Lord; not a mechanical, religious service.

Let us remember that we are, in our primary essence, spiritual beings. The body and soul are intricately connected to the spirit, but the spirit is the real you – the real me. As we live on this earth, our spirit, soul and body all need to draw nourishment from something to stay healthy. There are many interesting, attractive, good, fun, enjoyable, or productive things in this world that vie for our attention. We must identify which of these feed the soul, which feed the spirit, and which feed the body.

Since we are finite beings, we have limited resources (time, energy, money, attention, etc.), and if we spend too much of our resources on one thing, others will inevitably suffer. This is why we talk about the importance of prioritising.

Jesus came that we could “have life and have it abundantly” (Jn 10:10). God’s life is limitless in nature and magnitude, but we can only experience a limited amount at a time. There needs to be some regular or continual inflow of spiritual life from Him, or we will become spiritually depleted – burned out.

Unfortunately, there are Christians who live in a state of burnout, and some are unaware of it. One of the problems is that we can try to draw “life” from spiritually lifeless things. While work, hobbies, technology, sports, entertainment, and leisure have their place and can indeed feed the soul and body, they can’t provide the spiritual life we all need.

If we attend too much to these things, we risk becoming detached from God. And there are Christians who go to church, and may pray or read the Bible sometimes, but in reality they are living shallow lives, not consistently connected with the Source of life. So they fill their lives with other things, trying to find something of substance; something that gives them meaning.

And the sad truth is they may think they are doing well. Their spiritual exercises give them some sense of security about their spiritual life. But Jesus gives us a warning about this in Matt 6:23 - If therefore the light that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness!

He also addressed this in His letter to the church at Laodicea (Rev 3:14-22). When He said, “I counsel you to buy from Me…” He is restating what God has stated many times: He is the source of all life, (see also Isaiah 55:1-3, Jn 7:37-39). Let’s be sure we are connected to Him.

Consider:

Do I really have a healthy, living connection with God?