Connectedness

If every person within the body of Christ needs to fulfil their role and complete the race, it is our responsibility to hook in next to each other and to say that no one person entrusted to me will fall by the wayside and not complete the race.

Hi everyone. I'm Schalk Reyneke, and I would love to share with you what I have in my heart, the word that the Lord shared with me regarding this year and this time that we are in. He has been sharing it with me since November last year, but I felt the time is ready now to share this. The word is one word only, and that is connectedness.

Now, that is a loaded word, and it refers to many dimensions within it. I will give you an overview of the components it relates to, and then flesh out more detail on each one. At the end I will summarise again, just to touch on the important aspects.

Firstly, connectedness is about relationships. That is by default what we were created for and by, and that is relationship – relationship with God and relationship with people. That is the first component of connectedness.

The second component of connectedness is to be in tune. That refers to sensitivity – sensitivity for the voice of the Holy Spirit, and sensitivity for the needs of people.

Number three in terms of connectedness is focus or priority: can we put the body of Christ first, be connected with what is required within the body and what is required from us within the body? Which is actually number four in terms of connectedness: can we stay true to what our individual calling and function is within the body of Christ?

So the first aspect of connectedness, if I can jump straight into that, is connectedness with God.

I'm going to expand on connectedness with God a little bit. One aspect I've touched on already is sensitivity to the Holy Spirit. When the Lord started sharing this word with me during November last year, one of the first things He shared with me, and that I could experience immediately, was that sensitivity to the Holy Spirit. We often think it's about the big things, but often it is just that small, still voice, and our ability to function in precision through listening to the Holy Spirit's voice that we hear every single day.

The Lord is speaking to us continuously. It's about our ability to be sensitive to that voice. In terms of sensitivity to the Holy Spirit and relationship with God, we can say it's firstly about the amount of time we spend with Him, and yes, that is true to some extent. But if I can throw the cat among the pigeons, I think there is something more important in terms of our connectedness with God than time.

I'm not saying time is not important, I'm not saying we shouldn't spend time with the Lord – obviously we should. But I think there is a more important aspect, and that is obedience. There is no sense in us hearing the voice of the Lord perfectly, clearly and continuously, but doing nothing about it. To function in faith means to actually do, to respond to it. So faith is doing – or if I can put it this way, I would like to replace faith with the aspect of manifesting reality, because we come from a kingdom, we function in a spiritual reality and kingdom. So functioning in faith is to manifest reality, and to manifest reality is something we should be doing.

You probably know the parable of the two sons in Matthew 21 very well, where both of them responded in a certain way when their father asked them to work in the vineyard. The one said yes, but he didn't do it. The other one said no, but he actually went and did it. Then the question is, who did the will of the father? It's not about everything we say and all our intentions, but about actually doing.

That connectedness with God is all about sensitivity to the Spirit, hearing His voice continuously. That's why we need to spend time with Him – to be able to recognise His voice, to hear Him, to respond to that – but with the purpose of then actually going and doing what He shares with us.

If we want to define success, success would be to listen to the voice of the Holy Spirit and then actually go and do everything specific that He tells us to do. As I said, in the first week that the Lord shared this with me, I could experience, on a daily basis, in the very small things, how He wanted to teach me that sensitivity, and I think that is relevant for all of us. We often think it's in the big things, the spectacular or the loud things. But more so, our functioning within the kingdom and our relevance in this world is our ability to actually respond to the small things at the right time, to the right person, and through that make the difference.

The second component relating to connectedness with God, I clearly heard the Lord saying to me, "Do you trust Me?" It's maybe something we hear often, and we say, yes, obviously we trust God, but it requires something different. The specific component that came up in my heart relating to that is: how do we function in general? Do we truly function from a place where we trust God, as opposed to thinking it's totally up to us to do the right thing, to sort it out, to attend to whatever aspect it is in your life that you are standing in faith for – that it's totally dependent on me?

We need to function from a place, if we are connected with God, where we can truly say, "Lord, I give this to You," and where my actions reflect that I trust Him. That is a required component here, specifically on my heart – whether our actions reflect that I trust God, or whether I pray in the morning and say I trust God, but when I go out I take back the responsibility and try to sort it out in my own powers.

Then the second component I want to touch on relating to connectedness is connectedness with people. This is the actual aspect we have been called for; the reason we are still on this earth is about people. That is what we have been called for. It is for people, and we need to realise that in terms of what our priorities are and what we spend our time on.

That is our first and foremost responsibility. We love God by loving people. God sent us to this earth because He doesn't want anybody to go to hell. He wants every person to be saved, and that is why we are here. We are going to worship God in heaven as well – I'm not saying we don't have to do it here, obviously; to manifest His presence and His ability through us, we need to do it here as well. But the aspect that requires us to function on earth, the aspect we cannot do in heaven, is to actually touch people's lives, to lead people to Christ and to touch them.

So that connectedness is with people, and it takes a concerted effort. In my heart, this word from the Lord speaks about being more attentive to the needs of people. It's a concerted effort to set aside time, to make it a priority in your life, before everything else absorbs all the time and you don't get to that specific aspect. It's about being sensitive to the needs of others, and again, the doing aspect – not just being aware of it, but actually responding to it.

That's where the connectivity also comes in, between connectedness with the Holy Spirit – hearing His voice – and sensitivity to the needs of others. As we turn our focus and willingness to be available as an instrument, and we are sensitive to the needs of others, the Holy Spirit will make us attentive to the very specific things that person requires right now, or has a need for. And as an instrument, we respond to that, and the person actually experiences the presence of God through that.

We make God a reality to that person by responding regarding the right aspect at the right time, because of our sensitivity and connectedness with the Spirit, and our willingness to be focused on the needs of other people and make them a priority. We have been called, yes, to spread the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Good News. So there is a strong evangelical responsibility and function for us on this earth, and we acknowledge and recognise that.

But there is also a component when Jesus spoke to Peter, and I would assume that's one of the more significant things on the heart of Jesus, because that was after the resurrection. He spoke to Peter, and three times He said to Peter, "If you love Me," the result of that is, "Feed My sheep." So although there is the evangelical component of leading somebody into connectedness with God, into relationship with God, being born again, receiving this life form of God inside of them – although, yes, that's where it starts – there is a continuous process of Jesus saying, "Feed My sheep."

There is a component of taking care of people, and that connectedness within the body of Christ – which I'll get to just now – but our responsibility is to physically connect with people, to be able to understand what is happening in their lives, and to be able to respond to it and physically make a difference, to take care of them. That is the function of the body of Christ as it is explained in Acts. They lived together, they supported one another, they sorted one another out, because their focus was just different.

I believe this is a core aspect in this time we have been called for: relationships with people, to build deep, meaningful relationships that will yield results within the body of Christ, and to make it our focus. It's deep, it's personal, it's intimate, it's one-on-one. It's not just, "Yes, I'm part of a thousand people within this faith community that I'm in." It is individual people that the Lord will place on your heart, and you focus in a smaller way – the sniper approach that came up in my heart in this time, and it's very much relevant for the time, and also for practical reasons.

This will have the result that people will experience the miraculous. We often have this expectation that the miraculous is the spectacular. But I believe the miraculous now will not be the spectacular. The miraculous will be our connectedness and our sensitivity, starting with the Spirit, but our connectedness and sensitivity to the needs of people. In responding at the right time as the Spirit leads us, we will be able to touch people at the place where their current desire or challenge or their outcry is.

Because of our relevance and perfect timing, through that people will experience God as a reality, and they will experience the miraculous; through that sensitivity we will make God real to people. It might even be people who are not born again, but through that response they will say, "Truly, I cried out last night, and when you found me now, or you visited me, it was the exact time for the exact reason of what I need in my life right now." So it's very specific.

Then number three in terms of connectedness is connectedness within the body of Christ. I started touching on that, and it refers to being connected with the body of Christ, meaning I need to be an active part within the body. It's called a body because it is like a physical body with all its different components, and all the different components need to function in order to make it a successful body within this earth.

We know it speaks about that in Ephesians, that we are working towards growing unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ within this earth, so that people can experience that. Being connected means we don't just function in isolation; we need to tie in somewhere. We need to be part of a faith community where we belong and where all the different aspects of what God created us for come to fruition, and we are able to manifest that within the body and then expand beyond the body into the physical world as well.

So we need to be an active part within the body of Christ, functioning within the gifts God gave us, within the office He gave us, within the calling, and we need that environment where we can actually do that. When we are connected to the body of Christ, we realise that the body of Christ is actually our focus – our first priority, not my own needs, not my own little kingdom, but the body of Christ.

When that is my focus, I will actually nourish the body through what I have to give. We come firstly with, what is it that I have to give? We might not feel adequate; we're not always going to feel that we're on top of it, that we know what we need to do and have everything sorted out. No, we might not feel that way. You might have challenges in your own life. But if we wait until the day we've sorted out all the challenges in our own lives, we're never going to get to doing what we need to do in the body.

So we come to the body even within our brokenness, but we come to serve, we come to nourish. As we give, as we nourish the body of Christ, we create a healthy body, a healthy ecosystem, if I can call it that, which flourishes, which provides – and that will then provide to me as an individual component, like this thumb within the body. The thumb will receive everything it should if the body is healthy.

So that is why we first need to give and focus on the body of Christ. That is connectedness number three: to focus on the body of Christ and to function within the calling we have been given, and to make that a priority.

This requires a few aspects, things I've spoken about in the past as well, but it's worth touching on again: what is required from me functioning within the body of Christ? I strongly believe that one of the first things, and one of the biggest shortcomings in seeing the success and the results intended through the body of Christ, is accountability.

Number one is accountability, because we need to realise we don't belong to ourselves. We've been bought at a price through the blood of Jesus Christ. I belong to the body of Christ now, and that should be my focus. I should realise that I've died to myself and that I belong to the body of Christ now, and that I should be accountable within that. I don't want to elaborate too much for the sake of time, but you need to find one or two people you see as spiritually mature, and you need to make yourself accountable to them.

We cannot just do what we want, whenever we want. We have a responsibility, and we need to hold ourselves accountable in that regard. Once you've established your accountability group, it means you check major decisions with those people, because remember, I'm talking about people you trust spiritually, in terms of their connectedness with the Holy Spirit and their ability to hear His voice. Because you trust that, you use them as a soundboard, as a safety net, so that if you make major decisions in your life, you check with your accountability group.

Once you've established that accountability group, it is important – and this is where many people lack – that you adhere to the counsel of those within your accountability group. That is why the Word of God says, many times in Proverbs, that it speaks about the significance of a multitude of counsellors. You can go and read that in Proverbs, how it speaks about people who do not have counsellors coming to a fall, while those with many counsellors are wise and will remain standing, and their plans will be a success.

So firstly, my responsibility within the body of Christ, the way I function there, is accountability – submitting to the guidance and counsel of wise counsellors around me.

Secondly, it's transparency. It doesn't help that we continue to pretend everything is fine, and we continue in this fictitious world, if I can call it that, creating this perception to the outside world. When we function within the body of Christ, we need to strip ourselves of all pretentiousness, all our own ambitions and egos, and whatever else. We need to function from a place where we are totally transparent. We need to be able to ask for help when we need help. We need to be able to acknowledge when we are struggling.

It doesn't help that we have this facade, pretending, and not being real about what we are going through. It's only once we actually share what's going on in our lives, share our challenges – physically, financially, emotionally, spiritually, whatever it is – that we create the opportunity to become connected to the answer that is within the body of Christ.

But it is often our responsibility, firstly, to take that first step to be transparent and to actually share about what we are going through, and to obtain the answer that way. The body of Christ is there, and its primary function is for us to take care of one another. That is the Acts church as it is described. We need to be able to take care of one another, but we need to be transparent in order to do that.

The third component, in terms of my responsibility functioning within the body of Christ, is communication. I need to be able and willing to communicate, to interact with others.

I need to be willing to share with others what is happening in my heart and in my life, so that they can respond to it. And I also need to take up the responsibility to follow up with people. Often people are waiting for somebody to follow up with them so that they can share what is going on in their lives, and that is critical for us – that communication, that interaction both ways, sharing from a perspective of transparency, as well as taking up the responsibility to take care of others.

The fourth and last aspect in terms of connectedness relates to focus, or priority. What is it that we are focusing on? From a connectedness point of view, what is the reason for our existence? What are we focused on? What drives us? For us, although it seems obvious, it is firstly – I have already spoken about the body of Christ, but in this aspect I want to touch on focusing on the kingdom first.

When we put the kingdom first, that changes everything in our lives – how we apply our resources, how we function, what we focus on, and so forth. So being connected in terms of focus and priority means we put the kingdom first. It is that dying-to-ourselves component that is inevitable if we make Jesus not only our Saviour, but Lord of our lives. There is a component of realising: I am dying to myself, I am putting the kingdom first, and everything in my life follows that.

If you think about the parable of the sower, Jesus said, “If you don’t understand this parable, how will you understand the other parables?” It was the foundation, the important aspect. It explained that the seed was the Word of God, and how we responded to the Word, what we did with it. If you look at the four things that happened to the seed, they all relate to some component of what significance and importance the world had in your life versus the significance of the Word in your life, and therefore the kingdom and the reality we need to manifest in this earth.

The first seed fell by the wayside – people who were just not interested; they had other things they were busy with, and it was not that important to them. The second seed fell on the rocks, and there it says that when temptation came, they fell away – again, the things of the world drew them away from the things of the kingdom. The third seed fell among thorns, and that speaks of the cares, riches and pleasures of life becoming priority. Same principle: distinguishing what our priority is, what our focus is.

Lastly, it speaks of the seed that fell on fertile ground – the willing and ready heart to submit to what God has called us for and to function according to that. That seed bears fruit through patience. So that speaks to our connectedness in terms of our focus, our priority, and being in tune with what it is really all about.

It is important for us to determine what is priority, because what is priority in our lives is what we will focus on, or, if I can use the word, what we will be connected with. If we make it priority, if we express that desire – not because we can do everything right and everything is just in place, but simply that desire to say, “Lord, I can’t do it through myself” – you will already see how all of this connectedness fits together, and I’ll summarise that shortly. We can express that desire: “Lord, I have the desire. Even though I keep messing it up, I have that desire; please help me.” Within that expression of desire, it becomes priority for us, and we keep focusing on that.

If we are connected, if our priority is kingdom, is God, is people, our mindset will be different in a variety of ways. From a worldly perspective there is only one winner. The world, in every aspect, only has one winner – there has to be somebody who is first, because the other person is second, another is third, and the rest pretty much don’t matter.

But we have a different mindset in the kingdom. We need to understand that for us to come to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, every part does its share. That means there is not one person who is not significant within the body of Christ. When we take up that responsibility of connectedness, our mindset changes: every person within the body of Christ needs to fulfil their role, they need to complete the race. It is our responsibility to hook in next to each other and say that no person entrusted to me will fall by the wayside and not complete the race, because we all pay the price if one person doesn’t complete the race. That is a different mindset from what the world has.

Speaking about mindsets, I think it is important that we continuously help each other and remind one another that our mindset is not on how big the problem is, how big the challenge is. It may be relevant in the times we are in now – it is not about how big the conspiracy is, what is behind everything that is happening, the virus, the vaccinations, the One World Order, and all of that. Whatever the situation is, and whatever is behind it, it doesn’t really matter for us, other than that we need to be focused on the solution, not the problem.

That is a general mindset we need to encourage in each other through our connectedness: our mindset is solution-orientated. We decide – it is a decision every day. We can decide to focus on the issues, on what we speak about, on what we spend our time on – all the conspiracy theories and challenges and whatever. Whether it is valid or not valid is not my point; either way, we should not be focusing on that. We should be focusing on the solution. That is our mindset. We chase away darkness by manifesting the light, not by focusing on the darkness.

In our connectedness we support one another, and that is just one of the things that flows from it – we continue to help one another. That is why we need to be teachable. We need to be receptive to the guidance and counsel of others. That is what the Bible describes as wisdom: our willingness to be taught, our willingness to allow others to speak into our lives and to tell us when we are going astray.

That is also from an accountability perspective. If there is something I want to change in my life – if I have this continuous issue with focusing on the challenge and the issue, and being carried away by all the things the world speaks about and what is a challenge for the world – then my accountability group is there to help me come back onto the path I want to be on. Many people, if not most, know exactly what the right thing to do is, but to actually do it is a different story, and that is why we need this connectedness, to be able to stay true to what we know in our heart is what we want to do and what we have been called for.

The last aspect relating to focus is that we need to continuously understand that we are from a kingdom, from a reality that exists – a spiritual reality far superior to this physical reality – and we need to continue to be connected with that reality. That reality is what the word aletheios means: truth, reality. God is a Spirit, and He pre-existed the physical world. That is why the spiritual world is the authoritative world.

Our connectedness with that spiritual world and that reality is a requirement, and that is why all of these other things fit together with it, so that we can continuously manifest that reality, which is His kingdom, and see the results of that in this earth.

To summarise, in terms of this word that is relevant for us now regarding connectedness – I know there are various aspects, and you might want to listen to it again – it is firstly about sensitivity: sensitivity to the voice of the Holy Spirit, sensitivity to the needs of others. When we are sensitive to the voice of the Holy Spirit, we will become sensitive to the needs of others, and we will respond at the right time, in the right place, to the needs of others. Through that, you will become the miracle. You will become the miraculous. You will become the instrument that makes God real to people, and that is what people need.

They need to experience that God is real, that He is relevant, that He knows about them. And that is why this connectedness is very much personal. It is intimate. It is up close in terms of our relationship with the Spirit, but also our relationship with people – to be there, to be present, to be relevant, to be connected, to be in tune, as I mentioned earlier. And because of that, to be able to express the hand of God, the love of God, in people’s lives, and to impact them that way.

It is not a side thing; it is the important thing. As I said already, Jesus said, “Feed My sheep.” That is our responsibility. We tend to think the evangelical component is all that it is about, and that is maybe the starting point, to get people connected with our Father and their Creator. But then there is a responsibility after that, to function together and take care of one another. It is important to understand that we hear, and we are connected, so that we can do something about it.

There is an action that is required, a response that is required. It doesn’t help that we hear the voice of the Lord but do nothing about it. We need to be there. We need to be present. If I can summarise what I experienced this year in terms of connectedness: it is up close, it is personal, it is intimate, it is being there. Do not go astray. Be close. Be personal. Be present. Be relevant, so as to experience that intimacy with the Father. Have those relationships with the people God will entrust to you, because there are specific people – not everybody is your responsibility, not everybody is meant to be among the people who surround you. There are specific people meant to surround you, and specific people you are meant to take care of.

May God bless you. May this truly be a time and a year of connectedness for you. May you experience that intimacy. May you be relevant in the kingdom. May you impact many lives, to be the miracle, to be the miraculous, in the lives of many.