Loving God As Life’s Primary Connection Series

Intro

As we continue in the season of Lent… that remembers te final sacrifice of Christ… and what is referred to as the “Passion” week… referring to his ultimate sacrifice and love… we are focusing on the call into that very love which he knew.

When asked how we can align our lives… Jesus said forts and foremost…

“Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.”

This is our true “first love”… and life’s primary connection.

> And that is our focus this season.

Jesus knows that we have inherited an independence…a disconnection… at every level of our being. Our longings for connection have gotten redirected… and it effects our whole being…our minds, bodies, and hearts…are no longer naturally oriented in relationship to God.

Jesus came to reconcile us…and reorient life back to God.

So what we find is that prayer is both central and challenging… it’s both natural…and not natural….because we are not oriented in relationship to God.

But prayer is the very source of connecting with God… of becoming rooted in His love.

• It has been described as relating “Spirit to spirit.”

• Served well by realizing that we are spiritual beings… just as truly as we are physical beings.

So prayer is our connection to the very power of life itself.

Without maintaining our spiritual connection to God…. we become disconnected from the source of ultimate life…like a car without fuel….a boat with a sail…a mansion without electricity… human bodies rather than living souls.

C.S. Lewis wrote [1]:

If you want to get warm you must stand near the fire: if you want to be wet you must get into the water. If you want joy, power, peace, eternal life, you must get close to, or even into, the thing that has them. They are not a sort of prize which God could, if He chose, hand out to anyone. They are a great fountain of energy and beauty spurting up at the very center of reality. If you are close to it, the spray will wet you: if you are not, you will remain dry. Once a man is united to God, how could he not live forever? Once a man is separated from God, what can he do but wither and die. - C.S. Lewis

Jesus was united in that love….lived out of that love.

Those around him saw that first love.

• He would explain his life saying “I do only … my Father’s will… what my Father is saying and doing.” The Father was his central point of life connection.

I recall watching how when someone would visit us…stay at our house… if they were married

…and their partner was back at home…they often check in with the other every day when possible. Leah and I do the same."

This other being has become a primary reference point… a primary connection. It doesn’t matter of we are connected physically… there is a relationship that roots us… that we naturally desire to stay current with…. and process decisions with.

It is simply a natural part of staying aligned.

Jesus… that’s but echo of our true primary connection.

If we say how much we love someone…but don’t care about what they think….what they want… it’s not love. It may be some idea we like…or idea about transcendence… hope… or companionship…but not love …because love gives itself to another.

As our ultimate “First Love” …our love for God should become our primary reference point in life …and our most consistent point of connection.

There are many ways we could seek to grow… times of study… spiritual retreats…but few will prove more valuable…than a daily pattern.

This past week… Jenna Bush Hager, daughter of 43rd president of the United

States George W. Bush, shared with her TODAY co-hosts Hoda Kotb and Savannah Guthrie on Thursday (March 16, 2023) that her father texts her a Bible verse every morning.

Bush Hager said the tradition actually started with her fraternal twin, Barbara, after she experienced a bad relationship breakup. Since then, Bush hasn’t stopped sending Bible verses and has since begun texting Jenna every morning as well.

“I actually wake up every morning to a text from my dad that’s a different Bible verse,” Bush Hagar revealed. “I wasn’t included at the beginning. It started when my sister had a bad breakup and my dad just started texting her every morning. And it was something really small but something very steady that she’d look up to.” [2]

It’s a connection… every day…that has shaped her life. (The 41-year-old mother of three sometimes shares the verses her father sends her with others, including her co- workers.)

The Power of Daily Patterns

1. Daily patterns have the greatest impact on our spiritual formation.

We live in a world that is given to the stores of heroic epic feats… rather than the formation of such greatness.