How Can I Stay Connected?

There are five things that every Christian needs to do in order to stay well-connected to our Source. The quality of our new life in Christ depends upon it! Jesus Himself warned us about the danger of getting disconnected. He even went so far as to say that apart from Him we can "do nothing." The great thing is that Jesus in you loves doing these five things--He did them all the time when He walked the earth. Now He wants to help each of us enter into the same power and pleasure of doing what He did to stay well-connected to the Father. So, think of them as delights, not duties. We don't do them to "get" saved or to get God to love us. We do them because if you keep them in good repair, they will keep you powered up and rescue you when you aren’t.

I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. John 15:5

Jesus said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life.” John 14:6

All scripture citations are from the English Standard Version (ESV) unless otherwise noted.

Keep These "Safety Nets" In Play!

Jesus is our entry point to both eternal life in heaven and new life on earth. He is the source of it all! It is therefore of tremendous, life-saving and life-enhancing importance that we stay connected to the One who is the Way we now live, the Truth we now live by, and the Life we want to experience!

Since Jesus says that we can "do nothing" without Him, staying connected is the name of the game![1] Don't believe me? You have an enemy who never doubts it for a moment. He is relentlessly seeking to get you "disconnected"![2]  To help us in this struggle our God of All Grace has provided five grace-based ways of keeping connected to Himself. He doesn't do them for us, but He will do them with us—and work supernaturally through them to keep the connection working.

They are not magical. They do not work "automatically." You have to work with them to keep you connected, or they will just become another thing on your list to do, or worse, a source of spiritual pride. They can become rituals or routine if you let them, but beware: All life will seem to go out of them if that’s your approach. God isn’t going to love you less if you don’t do them and He won’t love more if you do. You aren’t doing these things to please or placate God: You do them because you want to stay vitally connected to Jesus! 

Why We All Need to Do the “Big Five”

We do the Big Five Connecters for three excellent reasons:

1) Our Life in Christ Depends upon Them

This is how we get connected, stay connected and increase the connection to our Source of peace, joy and confidence for living. Just as a battery needs continual recharging to stay powered up, so too we need to stay “plugged in” to our power source. Our new life streams into us from a Source outside of and beyond our own understanding and abilities.

2) They Are Our Meeting Place with Jesus

Jesus did all of these 5 things when He walked the earth. They were His lifeline to the Father and to His true purpose on earth. He still loves to do them. That is why they work so well as connecters. He is inside of us now by His Spirit wanting us to gain the graced-pleasure of doing the Big Five with Him and through Him. These aren’t duties—they’re delights!

3) They Lead Us into Our Destiny

None of us is smart enough to figure out why we're here. That's one of the reasons why we need a Savior! There definitely is a big reason why each of us is on the planet. In fact, there are two reasons: two assignments and two purposes that go right along with them. The Big Five will draw us into our assignments and keep us flowing in those pathways of purpose!

The Danger of Not Doing the “Big Five”

The important thing to keep in mind is that we are not given these connecters for God's benefit, but for our own. Don't shoot yourself in the foot by ignoring your Big Five lifeline to the Lord. Think of them as safety nets. They won't always be in tip top repair. Sometimes you may neglect one or more of them for fair reasons or foul. When that happens, always be quick to mend them before any size-able holes develop. You don't want to fall past the "do's" into the "don'ts"!

I have worked with men with addictions for years and have never yet seen someone fall back into the addiction who was faithfully working these five do's. The men, however, almost universally think that the problem was doing the don'ts. Yes, of course we don't want to do the don'ts, but the do's keep us from the don'ts!

Keep Growing!

If you need help remembering them, try this: “Big Pigs Wear Fancy Shoes” as a way of remembering the acronym (BPWFS) formed from Bible, Prayer, Worship, Fellowship and Service. Let's take a closer look at each one:

The Bible  Think of the Bible as Jesus in written form. He is the Word—God’s eternal counsel—made flesh.[3] The Bible is much more than a mere book. It is the living Word of God.[4] Jesus spoke the words that brought all of creation into being. If His spoken Word can do that, think what His written Word can do for you, to bring you fully to life.

Prayer  We are promised that all who call on His Name will be saved.[5] Prayer is calling on God for mercy, for help or for fellowship. He delights in listening—no request is too small. Learn to let your need drive you to Him every time: You cannot wear out the welcome mat and He has promised to always answer us.[6] Prayer brings us through communication into communion.

Worship  Worship is that higher form of our conversation with the Lord where we are not petitioning Him for what we need but thanking and praising Him for who He is and what He has already done. This brings us speedily into close communion with Him.[7] We can worship with others in church, in our quiet times, and simply by doing all that we do as a love gift to Him.[8]

Fellowship  Jesus, God the Father and the Holy Spirit are always in perfect love and fellowship with One Another. They are now working through the gospel to draw us out of our self-focus into genuine fellowship with one another and with God.[9] By intentionally seeking out friends in the Lord who are seeking to grow in Spirit and in truth, we stay refreshed and strengthened.[10]

Service  Serving others leads us out of ourselves into living more like Jesus does—selflessly. Almost everyone has work that they need to do for their own survival, which, nevertheless, benefits other people (if it is honest work!). Service takes us into the realm where we learn to give ourselves, expecting nothing in return, simply because it is the right and loving thing to do.[11] God always rewards those who follow Jesus in laying down their lives for others.

Prayer

Father, thank you for giving me these lifelines! I may not be able to do all of them very well at first, but I can easily do them. And I can certainly learn how to do them better as I go along, especially with you teaching me and helping me from within by the Holy Spirit. I ask that You also help motivate me every day to use these grace-filled means of staying well-connected to Jesus, my Source of new life. It is such a relief to know that there is something I can do to not only keep growing, but to stay united to You.

On to the Next Question!

How can I stop sinning?  Just wanting an answer to this question is a tremendous step in the right direction and it is a clear sign that God is with you. The Holy Spirit in us wants to clean house. Sin, however, wants to flood through us like water through a colander, but we can learn how to close the holes and turn the flow down to a trickle.

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