In St. Paul’s Letter to the Romans we hear, “What then are we to say about these things? If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not withhold his own Son, but gave him up for all of us, will he not with him also give us everything else? Who will bring charges against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? It is Christ Jesus, who died, yes, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who intercedes for us. Who will separate us from the love of Christ?” (Romans 8:31-39).
Christ Jesus is our confidence. Even the strongest of men will experience a sense of failure from time to time. We tend to condemn ourselves when we come up short. The evil one is thrilled when we join in with those that judge us. Forgiving ourselves is most important. If we do not forgive others and ourselves we deny God’s sacrifice of His Son on the cross for our sin.
We tend to protect our privacy and this is sometimes a shield against the love from others and the love of Christ. Several years ago a family was moving into my friend’s neighborhood. As was customary, many people offered assistance and greeted them by taking things like cakes and pies and cookies to welcome them into the community.
The newcomer husband and father said to one of the helpful gift bearers, “What’s wrong with you people? We’ve got plenty of food and we know how to unpack. We’re trying to get moved in here. We can’t answer the door every five minutes!”
We must intercede for others and seek and accept intercession from our brothers and sisters, and ultimately from Christ Jesus who is at the right hand of God. The term ‘network’ has various meanings to us in our world. It is generally applied to any ‘netlike’ grouping of things or conduits that have a commonality and support each other.
It is our mission to plug into the network of God, Son, and Holy Spirit on a daily basis so that we might be supported by and through God’s holy network. In doing this we must open ourselves up to the Spirit. We cannot let the resistance of maintaining our privacy keep us from sharing in God’s ‘life net.’
Always seeking privacy in our lives limits the ebb and the flow of the spirit as it wants to go into us and then out to others. Networking in the natural world has a positive connotation in that it assumes a positive outcome.
God wants to network with us through His Son Jesus and the Holy Spirit. He has chosen these to reveal Himself to us and through Christ’s death to remove any encumbrance to our networking with Him. Thanks be to God.