The Power of Divine Connections (2)

A person’s life is made up of a series of connections and disconnections.

Everything that God has created is connected to something or someone else. Nothing God has made stands alone, there is no such thing as a self-made man.

Disconnections lead to malfunction. When there are disconnections things will not work the way they’re meant to work.

Ps. 68:6

“God sets the solitary in families, he brings out those who are bound into prosperity; but the rebellious dwell in a dry land”

From this passage of scripture we can deduce that if in disobedience to God’s word, you stand alone in isolation, you will dry up and eventually die. This is why people who interfere with and dishonour what God has joined together (whether it’s marriage or family) are referred to adulterers. So, what do you think someone who interferes with the spiritual connection between himself and his church should be called?

When child’s conception results from the fertilisation of the egg of the mother by the seed of the father, after this the fertilised egg connects itself to the side of the mother’s womb. This is the healthy process, but if it becomes disconnected from the uterus before its due time it suffers what’s known as abortion/miscarriage. This is the same way many people are aborting their destinies by arbitrarily disconnecting themselves from the churches God has planted them.

Like we see with the plant that God created to be connected to the earth, it flourishes when it’s connected to its original source. But when it is disconnected from its source it withers and dies, even if it’s sustained in a new environment by non-natural means it ends up not reaching its full potential. This principle applies to one’s spiritual planting as well, it is where God has planted you that you are sustained, nourished and provided for to reach your full potentials. If you uproot yourself and move somewhere else you either begin to wither and die or at best cut short your own potential for the best you can be.

God is telling us He is the source of all wisdom and He has created everything with a purpose and that for us to be as productive as He wants us to be we need to remain connected to our divinely ordained sources. On the flip side, once we disconnect from our divinely ordained source, we begin to shrivel up and die.

Man’s ability to thrive, be productive, potent and live up to his potential is dependent on remaining connected to his source – God.

Gen 2:18

Creation is God putting things into order, into the places they ought to be. First God created the earth, then He commanded the earth to bring forth. He did the same with the seas and the skies. This shows us that God is separating things and putting them in order.

What we see here is that the things that are produced by the earth area meant to stay connected to the earth from which they originated. The same goes for the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, for them to be productive and functional, they must stay connected to the source God created them from.

A disconnected devil (who knows he can’t get back at God directly, has chosen to attack man – the object of God’s love) has poisoned the world by infusing his penchant for disconnection and non-commitment into the lives of people in the world – even in the Church. Mankind has been poisoned with a spirit of disconnection, rejecting loyalty, commitment and discipline. These days, the cool thing is people to not be connected to anything or anyone, but for them to have the freedom to live their lives as they please without any “entanglements or encumbrances” as they tend to say.

Why is it that man seeks his own independence so fiercely and doesn’t want to be under the control of anyone?

When the seeds (male and female) are connected, a life is born. After this the fertilised egg is connected to the womb, then after 9 months a disconnection from the womb occurs (remember I said earlier that life is a series of connections and disconnections), then the child has to reconnect to the mother in another form (breastfeeding), then another disconnection occurs – weaning. Then a new connection takes place in the form of a mother – child relationship. Until the child grows to maturity and steps into a new connection for himself/herself – marriage.

There’s a right way to both connect and disconnect. And every disconnection comes with a particular level of pain. For instance, if you have to leave your church because you are relocating to another country (in this case, God would have spoken to both parties involved because in the case of things that affect divine connections He never speaks to just one person), but if someone decides on his/her own to leave and chooses to frame it as God having instructed him/her to do so without God having confirmed this to the other party, then you’ve broken the connection in a wrong way.

It is also when most people have decided to break a divine connection that they now want to speak to the other person to explain their decision, this is not right. God doesn’t give you the option of altering the terms and nature of a divine connection, if you are having problems in the relationship the right thing to do is to sit with the other person and talk it out and not for you to walk out and break the connection. A person like this is deemed to be unfaithful and ends up becoming someone nobody wants to be connected to.

Looking at marriages as a form of divine connection, you won’t find a marriage that is without its own share of trouble and conflicts, but these problems are meant to be worked on and resolved through communication, patience & perseverance and not by walking out when things get tough. That’s how marriages (and by extension, divine connections are preserved).

Man was designed and shaped to live in a community, husband – wife, father – son, employer – employee, friends, neighbourhood association borne relationships; even on the bad side you have cults, gangs and prisons these are all some form of relationship/connection or the other. Whether positive or negative, people live in communities and not independently of every other person. That’s how man was created, but the devil is trying to stop people from connecting to others and ensure they live in isolation.

The American Medical Association recently declared that loneliness/social disconnect is not just a psychological ailment, but a medical one as well, one they say that’s worse than heart disease, obesity and smoking. This means loneliness will make one physically sick.

Eph. 4:11

Jesus gave the five-fold gifts of ministry to us, but even those who function in any aspect of these ministries ought to have someone s/he submits to (Gal. 2:1)

Ps. 92:12-14

“¹²The righteous shall flourish like the palm tree, he shall grow like cedars in Lebanon. ¹³Those who are planted in the house of God shall flourish in the courts of our God. ¹⁴They shall still bear fruit in old age; they shall be fresh and flourishing”

The righteous person has a God-ordained place to flourish, imagine what would happen if the righteous moves away from this place that God has ordained for him to flourish in.

There are two things that are necessary for us to be what we want to be:

1. You have to be planted
2. There is a right place to be planted

For you to flourish, you need to trust the wisdom of the Master planter/gardener. You can’t plant yourself, only God can plant you; so trust in His wisdom.

There’s a difference between being planted and just growing. Planting connotes a sense of purpose, it is deliberate. But growing happens by chance and it isn’t regulated by anyone. It also has a large measure of risk in that a plant that grew where it wasn’t planted can be uprooted at any point in time.

Going further from being planted, there is a particular place above every other place where a person will thrive best. Like the Cedar is native to and thrives best Lebanon (as quoted on the passage we just read – Ps. 92:12-14), so a person will thrive best in the place that God has ordained for him/her to be planted. Don’t let anything whatsoever uproot you from the place God has planted you.

There are certain conditions God has made to favour each of His creations, there’s a thing as the proper connections to the right soil/place

Those who are planted have a sense of divine connection. They know that’s the place that God has planted them, they are members and not just attendees. Connected people don’t truly ever leave, even if they are physically removed from the church by legitimate reasons, they will stay in touch and keep tabs on whatever is going on there. Members have a sense of responsibility, commitment and then a sense of divine connection.

Divine connections shouldn’t be taken trivially and/or broken. Even when disagreements and conflicts occur, they should be worked on and worked out, because you know if you are to leave that relationship where you’re planted and connected you are on the way to destroying yourself.

Just like you have it in marriage, if one disconnects himself from a divine-ordained relationship (like a Church) at will and enters into other relationships trivially, he’s an adulterer.

Adam (Man) fell because he didn’t know how to treat divine things as divine. We saw this with Achan (Joshua 7) as well, he touched what God said no one should touch, and he treated the divine trivially. We see this happening in the Church with people disconnecting from church at will and withholding their tithe.

Truly committed people who are members of the church (those who have a sense of divine planting), take up the challenge of building their church.

Remain connected

There are 3 ways people can be disconnected:

1. Overtly
   • Someone in open disconnection & disagreement with the church
2. Covertly
   • Someone who’s not involved & uninterested in anything that’s going on, who gradually withdraws from what’s going on in the relationship/church.
   • These people are found in a circle of friends who are of a similar disposition to themselves, they have friends who are living in open rebellion to the standards of God & the Church.
3. Surreptitiously

1 Sam. 22:19-23

1. Abiathar was the remnant of his family and he connected divinely with David.
2. As he stayed connected with David, he rose up in rank with David till he became the national priest of Israel.
   • When God wants to bless you He sends you a person who will help lead you along God’s pathway to His predetermined destination for you. Your destiny helper.
   • When the devil wants to mislead you, He sends you a person who will side-track you and move you out of your path to God’s predetermined destination for you.
   • We see this with Abiathar, who even after he’d risen through the ranks with David eventually disconnected from him because he sought out his own agenda
   • 1 Sam. 2:30-36 shows us that Abiathar’s lineage was under a curse and he only escaped the effects of that curse while he divinely connected to David. But once he broke the connection, he was ousted from his position in line with God’s word spoken against his family.

Each one of us at any point in time is either a beneficiary (someone seeking the help of others) or a benefactor (one who’s providing for the needs of others)