The Arrival of Advent: Actualizing Connection with God

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Advent season reminds us that God created us for connection. The arrival of the infant Jesus transformed our understanding of the trinity—empowering us to interact with God using our senses and human characteristics. This new way of connecting with God functions as a bridge for grasping our connection with him spiritually. Though important for us to celebrate these events, the first coming of Jesus and the anticipation of his second coming, this podcast focuses on the day-to-day impact of Jesus—provided we pick up our cross each day.

Over the four weeks of advent and the celebration of Jesus’s arrival, we will cover how our connection with God:

• Provides hope that humanity’s broken heart, corrupted at the fall, will be reconnected with God.

• Enables peace as Jesus works to remove corruption and restore our wholeness.

• Empowers joy as we begin to experience life as individuals and in community according to God’s intended design.

• Envelops us in love as we surrender our lives to his plan for us and receive the full measure of his goodness.

• Actualizes our relationship with God, connection with ourselves and engagement with others through Jesus's arrival as a Damascus Man—fully God and fully human.

So let's dive into this final episode of the Advent Podcast series.

Tomorrow marks the Advent, the day we celebrate something extraordinary—God entering humanity as one of us. Not as a distant ruler, but as Immanuel, God with us. Today, we're diving deep into what Jesus's incarnation really means for our connection with the Trinity, and why his method of discipleship should transform how we think about spiritual growth.

THE STRUGGLE OF THE INCARNATION 

Let's start with Jesus's daily struggle growing up. From birth, every moment of his life worked to overcome the corruption separating us from God. And I mean every moment.

Think about it. Living in poverty—check. Surviving Herod's infanticide—check. Hated, beaten, homeless—check, check, check. Mark's Gospel even tells us his own family thought he'd lost his mind. Can you imagine? The Son of God, misunderstood by his own family.

But here's what's crucial: To become our propitiation—the payment equal to our injustice—he had to honor God in the smallest trials. Every distortion embedded in the human nervous system, every iteration of the broken heart, Jesus encountered it. His daily struggles differed from ours, but his consistent choice to stay connected to God instead of reaching for coping mechanisms tested every part of his heart.

Why does this matter? Because Jesus experienced how much corruption affects us, he gets involved with every request we make. God doesn't live in a bottle granting wishes, but he provides and protects us like a perfect father would.

GOD'S PLAN FOR LOVE

 Here's something profound: Though our observations of life register chaos, God sees simplicity. He planned ahead for humanity's fall. He understood that loving someone requires they have a choice—to love or to rebel.

If Adam and Eve had no choice, there'd be no way to demonstrate love to God. The garden would be a controlled environment incapable of expressing love or hate. But choices open the door for consequences, and also the choice to return and express true love.

God knew that entering into trials, specifically suffering, demonstrates love and compassion—something difficult for an unseen, all-powerful God to show humanity. Sending Jesus in a tangible body provided that demonstration. Jesus accepted this mission and completed it with perfection, opening the door for us to choose connection again.

JESUS'S RELATIONAL STRATEGY

 Now let's tackle something that challenges our modern ministry models: how Jesus actually did ministry.

The Pharisees expected a conquering king like David. But Jesus consistently said his kingdom wasn't of this world. We understand Jesus died for our sins, but how did his life and death allow us to reconnect with God and establish his kingdom?

Here's the answer: Jesus actualized connection primarily with the disciples instead of building a vast army. He demonstrated the Father's love at every level, creating a solid cornerstone for them to keep working. He walked them through Scripture, transforming their hearts, souls, minds, and bodies. He needed to forge in them a new worldview: transforming their understanding from a worldly nation rising above others to heavenly believers seeking to save the lost.

When he could see they knew him as God—that their nervous systems were healed and empowered—he knew they were ready to impact Judea, Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. Jesus understood his plan extended for eternity, not just one generation. By his crucifixion and resurrection, the soil was cultivated, seeds planted, and ready for water. With his ascension, the harvest began.

THE LIMITS OF LARGE GROUP MINISTRY 

 Let's talk about crowds. When Jesus fed people, performed miracles, and preached sermons, the crowds sought to make him king. They hoped the Messiah would fix their circumstances.

Even though John the Baptist successfully prepared the way by shifting mindsets through repentance, it fell short of forging an eternal perspective. Why? Because transformation requires time, intimacy, understanding, and correction. In large group events, the sermon feeds the mind, but information alone fails to forge the heart, soul, and body.

This is a tough pill to swallow in our age of mega-churches and viral sermons, and it's being addressed with small groups, but more needs to be done.

THE LAYERS OF DISCIPLESHIP 

  Jesus spent three years in immersive discipleship to train the twelve and rewrite their broken identities. He interwove periods of solitude to reconnect with God with times of teaching, modeling a rhythm of connection, forging, and impact. This immersion taught them to value human diversity and cooperation—essentially the discipline of fellowship.

But he went deeper. Jesus invested heavily in three men who would build his church—James, Peter, and John. These men experienced the transfiguration, Gethsemane, and the healing of Peter's mother. These encounters gave them a front-row seat to the spiritual realm, shifting their understanding of warfare from an earthly kingdom to a heavenly one.

And deeper still—Jesus modeled one-on-one investment. We see him engage individuals to answer questions, refine understanding, and help them grow. He sent people out in pairs, providing opportunities to invest in each other one-on-one.

The pattern is clear: Connection at every level is mandatory to heal the broken heart.

THE 10,000 HOUR PRINCIPLE 

So let's process this idea of immersive discipleship a bit further. If someone desires to be an expert in any aspect of life—a football player, pianist, or doctor—the expected training hours for proficiency exceeds 10,000 hours.

Assuming the disciples spent three years, ten hours per day with Jesus, they'd just exceed the minimum. Since Jesus provided the optimal environment for teaching truth and it took all three years for the disciples to get the basics, how much time do we need to abide with him to truly connect?

This isn't about salvation—that's by grace through faith. But transformation? That takes immersive time with Jesus.

RECLAIMING DOMINION

  Let's circle back to God's plan. The fall broke our hearts. The severing of the image of mud from the Spirit of life left us with an unstable nervous system.

To reattach the Spirit, Jesus had to offset the injustice of Adam's dishonor by perfectly honoring God. During his time on earth, he proved that a human empowered by the Spirit and surrendered to God can overcome fear, corruption, and death. He broke the curse, proved his worth to rule over creation, and took back dominion.

Successfully reclaiming authority opened doors for reconnection with God and restabilization of the nervous system. But transferring dominion to humanity—giving the keys to Peter—and connecting the disciples to the Spirit proved difficult. The disciples had to work through corruption affecting their hearts. Restabilization doesn't transform character.

Forging new behaviors and a biblical worldview requires taking off old patterns and putting on new ones. Bit by bit, hour by hour, the disciples changed. For three long years, dusk to dawn, they took off the old and put on the new.

DAILY TRANSFORMATION 

Each and every day, Jesus modeled a life that followed the Spirit's lead and taught lessons that removed corruption and transformed their hearts. Every misunderstood Scripture had to be removed and a new understanding put in place. Every hope built on false expectations had to be reset. Their emotions needed to be founded on him, not their feelings and perceptions. And they had to distinguish between corruption and purity—beyond what tradition taught and what eternity demands.

Jesus's time with the disciples reveals that his followers must remain in constant contact to overcome the corruption of the world. Every question and concern needs clarification as it happens. To delay allows it to infect deeply, to the core. Forging requires constant resetting and persistent testing of what we think, feel, share, and follow.

Jesus summed it up perfectly: "Whoever does not take up their cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life for my sake will find it."

THE CHOICE BEFORE US

  Here's the reality check: When we seek out and become satisfied with our so-called "life" on earth—what we might call an animated corpse—we stop looking for and connecting with Jesus.

Conversely, when we realize this life truly is a dead life and begin looking to connect with the Trinity according to our original design, our eyes will see, our ears will hear, and we will know that Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life.

To believe that death drives this physical realm actualizes our relationship with God—that's the beginning of wisdom. Connection with our authentic self, free from fear and unbiblical coping strategies, and engagement with others create in us an understanding of God's love as we love. As I survey Christian culture, training designed to awaken the authentic image within individuals must become a priority.

CLOSING 

Through Jesus's arrival as a Damascus Man—fully connected to the Spirit and fully human, the choice to connect to the Spirit so that death—the brokenness and corruption affecting this physical realm—will die, brings restoration and life.

Jesus arrived in human form to demonstrate the process for reconnecting with God, securing dominion, and opening the way for humanity to connect with God. His life demonstrated that we too can live as believers fully connected to God, yet still embodied in flesh.

No longer do we walk the earth as animated corpses, but as empowered sons and daughters of the most high God. We have a choice to love or rebel. Do we go our own way like Adam and disconnect? Or do we surrender everything in this world that clouds our thinking, distorts our feelings, and leads us astray?

Let's agree to abide in the Lord in immersive discipleship and follow him to wholeness. Thanks for listening. We'll see you next time.

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