Personal Holiness: Connectivity

 

‘Jacob’s Ladder’ is a weekly Sunday Blog post; blog history is at dreliatjacobsladder.blogpost.com

This is a Fellowship of the Spirit. It is not a church construct; it involves neither mission, fund raising, nor religious participation. God desires our participation in all of life, and not via misleading  ‘gospel’ notions proposed by corporate and cultural sources. Jacob’s Ladder pursues Christian growth as human growth. It works to complete social holiness and fulfill personal holiness in our lives. As God wills community for all, Jacob’s Ladder will keep on!

This week: The Connectivity of Personal Holiness

Recap and review: Read Mar 10th 2025 post on John 15.

Deary Beloved,

The scriptures I’ve focused on this first year of JL work represent the formative elements of what it means to be Christian, and my view is somewhat different from the trad view but true to what the text of scripture says, essentially the work of biblical theology; as the textual work of Jacob’s Ladder progresses we read, learn and apply what works for each of us.  Reading through the Blog posts will help you see the differences between JL and the traditional way these ideas have been presented and taught! Next week I will do a summary of what is essential reading in the Bible and what is pertinent and can be useful. After that, a few months going through all that Jesus said and what it means for now, beginning with Mark.

What it means to be Christian is built around 2 distinct elements of holiness – the social and the personal, both pointing to a particular way of life. Both flesh out what Jesus called the 2 greatest Commandments.  The social aspect of holiness brings us to Jesus throwing moneychangers out of the temple; or a Samaritan helping an injured Jew. The personal aspect of holiness is in Jesus’ words in John 15. I am the vine; you are the branches. Abide in me, and I will abide in you. Without me you can do nothing. 

This means Jesus and me going forward together as companions on a journey here on this earth, a journey that takes us into varying aspects of the Kingdom of God.  Those who stay connected are branches that bear fruit, and the fruit of the Spirit includes love, joy, peace; and extends into everything we encounter! Hence the ‘ask, and you will receive.’ Just stay close. A loving Father never denies children in need. So it is with the Lord. Except that in God’s created world, cause and effect created by our choices have consequences that we must deal with. And not blame anyone.

This ‘staying close’ is what we turn towards in personal holiness. It is connectivity! And it is a linear path. As Jesus said to the woman taken in adultery – where are those who condemn you? Those who are sinless, let them cast the 1^st stone! No one did. They left, quietly. Jesus said to her, go, sin no more. We must learn from our errors and move on ahead. We do not want to get caught up in a repetitive cycle of sin and forgiveness. Think of a loving father or mother. Do we berate our children all the time for every little thing? No, we tell them once or twice and encourage them to move onwards, not wanting their errors to slow them down. We are all forgiven sinners. That is enough. We make mistakes, we fix the mistakes, we move on. And the Lord accepts us as we are, warts and all, and if we walk with Him, we find the strength to fix what we can and should fix!

Acceptance of the Christian faith, if not done right, very easily makes forgiven sinners who often faithfully stay that way,  limited by our sinfulness; but happy in being forgiven sinners. That is not the way of the Lord. Jesus calls us into abundant life and joyful living, into the growth possibility of Psalm 8 now! And only the Christ who walks with us can take us into the real personal holiness that creates social holiness, without which it becomes no more than social action. The greatest obstacle to Christian growth may well be the notion that we are sinners who will never get too far on the road into the Kingdom i.e. the one that manifests power now! But this is wrong. This is precisely where real faith and belief kick in!! Every day and all of the time.

To walk with Jesus is primarily a matter of trusting in the Lord. It is this trust that enables us to go forward. This is where faith comes in. 2 sides of the same coin. In doing so we put our relationship with the Lord to the strength test of the reality that is ours.

It begins and goes forward for each of us in different ways. So we must work out what is best. Some things to bear in mind –

1.      How do we differentiate between mind and spirit? Our minds are our own. We can and must take responsibility for what the mind can do. And we haven’ t really begun on this! We will work through this in the days to come.

2.      And our spirits? This is where feeling comes in. Yet it is not enough to rigidly conclude that feeling is spiritual while logic is more a mental effort. While the spirit touches both, spirit is much more and is best seen in our ability to supersede logic and feeling. It is in the interface of mind and spirit that we must find our true selves. The experience is just hard to describe.  We are struggling with terminology, and the terms of discourse of much Christian teaching are inadequate. Too often what is called Christian has been borrowed from here, from there and from somewhere else. The terms run from being oversimplified and literal to being obtuse and specialized! You push them a little, you end up in academic theological distinctions and differences; push that further and you end up in the underlying academic philosophies that theology is based on. Doesn’t help. Might sound impressive, but the key is – WHAT DIFFERENCE DOES IT MAKE FOR ME?

3.      We must learn to think with the spirit, in the spirit, through the spirit, and connect to the Spirit of God with our spirits. This is the work of the body temple, which enables you to transcend the body! As we do this habitually, it will seem like a part of your mind is what and where the spirit works from, and you will learn to distinguish between the two as you need to. And it gets stronger with time. Many of you know this.

4.      You go through the day thinking through stuff with the Lord, sharing issues, feelings, struggles, concerns, aspirations and apprehensions.

5.      Then you listen carefully for what the answers might be. And they will come. Sometimes like a logical conclusion. Sometimes like a light bulb that is suddenly switched on in a dark room! It depends. A bit like thinking with the spirit that IS YOU and realizing what it is when God gives the answer.

6.      And you will feel the affirmation of it. This is why I speak of mind and feeling and more.

7.      Some of you may think but that’s our prayer time, no? No. If you will, this is engaging in a constantly ongoing prayer time! A daily ongoing dialogue with the Lord Jesus. This is the closeness that the Lord asks of us.     

But this is why I am always unimpressed with worship and prayer that depend on loudness or strong emotion or good music and so on and so forth. For me, it is godly action and ability that speaks for itself. All else is vanity.

 This all begins with faith and trust. And then it all morphs into a strong desire of wanting to be close to the Lord. You practice seeking the kingdom first, and it grows into a seek ye first the Lord of the Kingdom. Could just as well work the other way around. But therein is peace and comfort. The hand of God that holds your hand. Always there. A presence within you that brings strength and courage together with the kindness of love. It is never a matter of saying I believe in the presence of Jesus. It is real presence. Not believing that it is real or trying to convince ourselves. But knowing the reality of it. Be careful of the traps that religious trends can set before us. Perhaps we could say that faith = sincerity, and belief = trust. Not abstracts but working motivation towards concrete results in the here and now.

Or you could also say, well it’s not that difficult to figure out. It’s how we walk each day of our lives with the people closest to us that we care most for! Is that not so? Well then, it is not that hard, surely. The Lord welcomes us into his presence daily. The difference is that this is a Spiritual presence, and so you must approach Him in spirit, with mind and body in tow. And the walk is your walk in this life! Your thoughts, your intentions, your actions. Not accurate for some to say ‘when I speak, it is the Lord speaking through me’. That does not happen. Rather, God leads us into conclusions of what should be said and done, and we move accordingly in His will and His blessing.

Then you take control of what you can and do it well. Start with personal and simple issues that can be a struggle, like going back to sleep after getting up, for whatever reason, at night. Or bucking the age-old adage that as you get older, you go to sleep earlier (maybe) and wake up earlier (maybe!). Work on what is best for you and learn control of mind and  body through spirit. Then you are ready to pray for others and see results! What you cannot control the Lord will control so that you are able to address it in your life. This I have experienced.

Hence, towards the end of it all, I am led into the writing of Jacob’s Ladder to show comparisons for spiritual reality.  I expect I will live for some time yet because of the Lord’s strange and sometimes weird (to me) presence in my life. Where I was born, it was a small country where the leadership was slowly taking tight control of the people’s lives and gaining from it to their own advantage.  I saw what needed to be said and done. But then I was invited here. Then prevented from returning. Most fascinating. And now I am in the midst of a people where half cannot clearly tell right from wrong, misinterpretation is rampant and folk are easily misled, times are harder, families struggle more, and so there is much work to do. I was quite happy to leave all of this aside and mind my own business. But I leave it in the Lord’s hands. The 23^rd Psalm and the presence of the Lord have never failed. I have always been willing to die whenever. But since it is the will of the Lord to keep me working, I welcome it. I remain, for my age, fast, clear, and capable. But the line between witness and boasting is a thin one and  I just try to stay whom I am and let that speak. Follow the Lord closely and the Lord will always be there for you, your children, and your grandchildren. This I know and have experienced.

All of this comes down to our stewardship of God’s gift of life-changing love to us in Christ Jesus. Those who take it lightly, remain blithe spirits, I guess. Those who take it with utter seriousness, are amazed, time and time again. Like the amazement that the Gospel of Mark is always talking about! Why? Because God’s difference in your life need not be talked about. It will emerge in concrete action and result, seen for itself and the difference it makes. May such amazement be yours always in Christ our Lord. Grace and peace, G.