How’s your Christ-connection?
1) Is Christ freely flowing from your heart like “rivers of living water”?
2) Is Christ continually showing in your lifestyle — in the things you say and do?
3) Are you growing closer and more obedient to Christ everyday?
(If not, you may have faulty spiritual wiring.)
–“Christ, the Eternal Son, shining into the open heart, causes that heart to grow and to bloom, and it overflows with all the inward powers, with joy and sweetness. –John Ruysbroeck (1293-1391)

If your Christ-connection is not in tip-top shape, it’s time to be a first responder!

First responders
Rush to God’s fire
And let Him blaze brilliantly
In their hearts.

You can’t heal the hurt in your heart. The living, resurrected Jesus Christ can.

The living, resurrected Jesus Christ connects with us when we “walk in the light.”
–If people are not permitted to share what God puts on their heart when we meet together for worship, how can we learn to “walk in the light” with one another?
“If we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.” –John the Beloved (a disciple of Jesus)

The New Testament calls this walking in the light in order to connect with Christ — ekklesia.

“Ekklesia”
We gather here to hear
The voice of God so near
And then to say and do
The things He tells us to.
–“I will build my ekklesia.” –Jesus Christ

People say that ekklesia won’t work; that there is no order in it. They said the same thing when George Fox and the early Quakers set aside a central sermon and began to let the living Christ lead their meetings.  Fox put it this way:

“It is said by the professors: ‘There is no order among you,’ but I say the order of God is a mystery. Its order will stand when all of theirs is gone. The cry is: ‘There is no government amongst you!’ Is there not? Yes, the government of Christ.”