Staying Connected to Jesus

A message from Robert Holmes

Staying Connected to Jesus

Robert Holmes



Our heart is like a tree, which grows and brings forth good or bad fruit depending on its nature. In John 15:5 Jesus said He is the vine and we are the branches – our lives should be permanently attached to Him. We should be drawing our source of life, and the sustenance for our souls from Him alone. He is, universally speaking, the source of all life, and sustains all things by the power of His word (Hebrews 1:3). But He calls us to abide in Him, to consciously choose Him at all times.

However there are many sources we can turn to. We are offered all sorts of alternatives. We are tempted away from his presence by other lovers, and other intimacy. Life presses in on us, and cuts us off from his abiding presence. Pressure, urgency, demands press us, and we turn to other things as our source of life. We lose our conscious connection to him, we slide slowly away from the light of His beautiful countenance, and become distracted by other things.

As prophetic people, this is particularly important. For we are sources of information, revelation, insight, light from the Father (or we should be). But it is altogether too easy to be distracted, and to offer people something less than the Father's counsel. We sometimes speak to the desires and needs of a person's own heart (see Ezekiel 13), soul reading, responding to body language or financial pressure (see Balaam) or speak from our unenlightened minds, sharing our own futile dreams (Jeremiah 23:26-28).



Connecting to the love of Jesus

Peter McHugh, after years of harrowing ministry, climbing through the jungle of success and chasing the ministry dream came to discover a precious truth. The most important thing to be connected to, the only thing to seek and chase after and remain connected to, is the Love of Christ. We must have the active, living, life giving, sustaining love of God – (in Greek, the agape), which only comes from heaven. (1)

The authors of the New Testament reiterated this point again and again:

* "Building yourself up on your most holy faith… keeping yourself in the love of God" (Jude 1:20,21).

* "I have declared your name to them… that the love with which you love me may be in them" (John 17:26).

We speak of the love of God, we preach about the love of God… but does it come out of us? Do our neighbours feel, see or experience that love? Could they tell from what we write, how we speak or act, that the agape love of God dwells in our hearts? If they were interviewed by God, would they truly testify that His love had manifested through you to them? These are hard questions. Harder still, do our enemies experience that love – the way we (as His enemies) experienced his love on the cross?

My mind jumps to many self-justifications, but the sad truth is that we rarely manifest such love – such unconditional, amazing, self-sacrificing love toward others as we have received from Him. In many ways and at many times we have manifested anything but that love. During a hard time, when pressed – what comes out? What is the source, the sap running in your vine's veins?

I had a dreadful night's sleep one evening, before I had to leave at 4am the next day. We have two dogs in our back yard, who barked at the sky; Then our youngest daughter woke up crying; then one of my sons wet his bed, and just as I was falling asleep again one of my daughters vomited. I got little sleep – but more to the point I grew more and more frustrated and angry. Sad to say that under pressure the love of Christ did not manifest. It was a wake up call.

Feeling bad about it, being remorseful will never do. Even repentance will only go so far. No we must first have a revelation of our need, then have that revelation connect us back to the love of God. Dwelling in that connection will fill our hearts with love – but the true test of the love will only be found in the place where we are asked to manifest it.



From revelation to application

Brian Medway teaches about moving from the revelation space to the application space (2). By way of example, he explains, Moses had a revelation of God and his higher calling at the burning bush. From there he had to leave the wilderness, go to Egypt and express the will and heart of God: to Israel and Pharaoh, "Let my people go". That burning bush, that burning love would then be tested ten times, with Pharaoh rejecting him again and again. Moses took the revelation that God wanted to deliver his people, and had to apply it in Pharaoh's space! It had to manifest, through many difficulties.

We first need a revelation of the love of Christ before we express that love to others. The revelation needs to take root in our heart, and change us as people. The agape love of God needs to really enter in, and then it needs to motivate us to action. An encounter without an outworking results in self indulgence. Working without an encounter results in dry religious works. Together they produce the work of the Father.

John offered a very simple way to determine if that love is truly resident in our heart. He said, "There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out all fear… we love Him because he first loved us" (1 John 4:18). Is fear present in our lives? Do we manifest fear in our relationships, correspondence, confrontation, interactions with others? Then that agape love is not fully resident in our hearts! Fear is the tag, the marker, the sign that love is absent. It should then be the trigger to go to the Father and seek more of His great love.

That love sometimes enters in through a divine encounter of the Spirit, but more often it comes through an embrace of the cross. Who we really are on the inside, comes out during times of pressure. Suffering, brokenness, a loss of self strength brings us to our knees, and a revelation of our desperate need of God. We hit the wall (3), we face the process of the prodigal son, and we wake up to the reality of our pig pods and stinking, heartless life. The challenge is to get up, humble ourselves and return home to the Father's embrace.



Remembering your story

It is really important to have a record of our journey with God. We develop a long standing history of God's faithfulness, and the expression of his life and love. But in the time of pressure we are apt to forget what he has done for us. When we journal our dream life, and take the time to try and understand them, then time will tell us what they mean. We can read back over decades of dreams and see God has been speaking to us about who we are, where we are at, and what is needed. Hindsight can be a painful faculty at times – but hopefully it will give us strength to believe our instinct and intuition next time!

Keeping a diary or journal of what God has been saying – a record of our prophecies and Bible promises can be invaluable. I have found that writing down my journey with God for my children has helped them in pressing times. We can remind them of what God said to us about their birth, their name, their calling and destiny. When they act in accordance with what God told us, we can encourage them: they are manifesting their destiny! It came initially from us, but by the time our kids were eight or nine, they wanted to record it themselves. They developed a prayer life, and a hunger to talk to Him themselves.

When hard times come, and come they surely will (just ask any awkward, harassed, peer-pressured teen about it), they can fall back on their record with God. A journal of this kind reminds us of His faithfulness, and infuses love into our hearts. Jesus said to the disciples, "Do you not remember" (Mark 8:13-21).



Conclusion…

How is the state of your heart? Are you strongly connected to the love of Jesus? Are you experiencing fear? Then let it lead you into God's presence again. Be connected to, and experience a revelation of that love for you. But more that that – take the revelation and apply it into your life – make an application space. Act on your convictions, walk out your love. If you do not already, start to journal your dreams, revelations, Bible promises as a record to remind you of the faithfulness of God.