Nintendo has defeated the odds.  How does a smaller gaming company, with considerably less quality graphics, find itself unable to keep up with the demand for its product?  While the “big boys” X-box and Playstation stand stacked around the Wii’s barren shelves.

$57 million dollars of market research showed that video gaming, even online, was no longer meeting the needs of the gamer.  The decision was made to sacrifice the quality of graphics and processing power to make room for the dynamic interaction that Wii offered.  It was more fun to play together.

We are created to be connected.  It is God’s design for our lives to live in connection with him and experience that interdependency.

In the bible, Galatians 2:20 reads, “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”

Paul, the author of Galatians, is expressing what it means to be connected with God.  It is a wonderful picture of how each of us comes to faith individually, showing our uniqueness and individuality with which we were created.  Then, through faith, we retain our individualism while living for Christ.

We are designed for this relationship with God.  We are designed to be connected to our creator.  But, we are also designed to be in relationship with each other.

John 15 perhaps completes the picture of this “dynamic inter-connection.”  John recorded Jesus as He said, “Remain in me, and I will remain in you.”  Again, we have an example of a connection with God.  But, soon after this Jesus says, “This is my command: Love each other.”

Love each other.  How profound that phrase actually is.  Christ doesn’t ask us to simply connect with Him, to be one with Him, to do good things and be held accountable to Him alone.  He asks us to love each other, to live in connection together, to be a part of a community.

It’s no wonder when Jesus was asked what the greatest commandment was that he gave it in two parts.  “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.  Love your neighbor as yourself.”  (Matthew 22:37-38)

Connecting is really about body health.  Your individual body, and the health of the body of Christ.

I know of many people who have left churches because when personal tragedy struck their life, the church wasn’t there to help them.  The truth is not that we didn’t care.  I would hope and expect the body of Christ would respond appropriately.  It’s simply because we did not know…because the people were not connected.

Getting connected can mean risky work, but it’s how we were meant to live.  “If man remains in me… I will remain in Him; he will bear much fruit. Apart from me you can do nothing.”  John 15:5

Wii… I love how being connected is suggested just in its name.

Get connected!  Live like you were created!

Pastor Blake Caldwell