Awaken Love
‘Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing…’ (Heb. 10:25)
Having ascended to heaven, Jesus reunites with Father in joyful communion. The first fruit of their feast? Loosing heavenly energy to earth endowed with power to permeate and make all things new! From the Dynamic Duo flows the Holy Spirit like sweetest rain—sweet yes, but penetrating too, co-mingling with our human essence and awakening us to the One who loves us more and more nearly than any creature ever could.
This gift of love and the many smaller gifts of the Spirit that all members of Christ can impart to each other build up the Body (1 Cor. 12): that is why we must gather. Simply put, the Holy Spirit wells up in Jesus’ people who know they’ve a gift to give and who hunger for the many gifts that await them in the assembly.
Holy Spirit gift-giving has profound psychological implications. God made us unfit to be alone. The Spirit of Love-in-Truth invites us to come together in our ache for this love—the most profound need we share. We become more human in our self-giving, one to another. And we discover the Divine in our brother or sister. We resist the temptation to make our fellows idols; rather, we honor them as icons–beautiful, flawed mediators of the One who heals and saves us.
Yet the human mediation matters—it is how He made us—fiercely, frustratingly human—and we share a common responsibility to receive and give the gift. Gathering to impart, we grow spiritually and psychologically into our Head.
That is Living Waters! That is the life-giving stream that wells up in what could be the desert of shame and fear-based isolationism. We know the latter through sin’s exile—we mastered ‘social distancing’ long before Covid-19!
Jesus will not have it. He created us to connect with our fellows. As we forge creative links, we become conduits of His lifegiving Spirit to one another.
Now a deadly virus lurks. Stay home, open a screen, zoom community. Not bad. Certainly, we all have benefited from tech-Church and may feel it to be our only option. Others may admit that homey confines are addictive and overly convenient. Maybe we want an excuse to not venture out much anymore.
I exhort you; rouse yourselves. Don’t defy conscience—mask and distance—ok! But find constructive and lifegiving ways to commune. You get only a fraction of community on the flat screen. God made you to offer your whole gift through immersion in the current of gathered believers.
My small group from Living Waters carefully gathered a couple weeks ago. A feast of human proportions! None of us realized how starved we were for honest, merciful disclosure, one to another—facial, vocal, and bodily nuances that mediated many gifts. ‘He ascended on high…He gave gifts to men…that He might fill all things’ (Eph. 4:8-10).
In the Spirit of Ascension, we are boldly, and with care, proceeding on with our Living Waters Training in Kansas City, June 20th-26th. We can do this safely and dynamically to fulfill our mission in this 40th year. After much prayerful refinement, the DSM staff believes this will be the best training ever for the few, the brave, the pioneers who will venture out ‘to know what are the riches of glory in His inheritance among the holy ones,’ ‘the surpassing greatness of His power for those who believe…’ (Eph. 1:18, 19)
Join us. Let’s awaken love together.
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