Our faith is not only believing that Christ died for us, but also to believe that Christ now lives in us. It is like being possessed by Love. He wants us to be in him as He is in the Father and the father is in him and so we must be in the father and Christ is also in us. What?
It is interesting that when Jesus stopped Paul on the road to Damascus, Jesus said, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?” Paul said, “Who are you Lord?” “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.”
Literally, Saul was persecuting the Christ followers, but since Christ dwells in His people, what you do to his people, you do to Christ. Christ is in us!
I was taught as a child that I should invite Jesus into my heart. That He is a still small voice, a gentleman not forcing himself on anybody. Then there are the images of the devil on one shoulder and the angel on the other. They look like equals. I don’t teach my children that Jesus is hiding in their hearts whispering to them. No, He is the dynamic part of the trinity that created the heavens and the earth. He came to the earth in the form of a man to show us how he wants us to live. He knew that in our sinful nature, he was asking too much to live like him, so he promised a helper to come and mentor us and guide us into truth, to expose our sinfulness to ourselves. He also invited us to live in Him as He lives in the Father.
Christ is power, his words are flesh. Having Jesus live in us is not simply a life insurance plan that gets us into heaven after our life on earth. Having Christ in us allows us to take part in the kingdom of God right now, as well! Christ came to show us grace, his grace and sacrifice allowed for the impossible to happen—for ordinary people to be joined into the loving relationship that is God. Grace is having Jesus live in us, it is having access to the power of God even though we did nothing to deserve it. Grace is having the Holy Spirit live and thrive in us showing us the way to live, speaking to us. We can stand before the father and being in his presents without dying. That is Grace.
It is like in the isolation units at the hospital. You can’t just walk in in your street clothes, you might bring your street germs in there and do some damage to the patient. Although it is opposite with being in God’s present, we would be in danger, because we cannot handle His Goodness. In the ICU you have to put on a whole suit just to go in and be in the presents of that patient. To be in God’s presence, we need to put on Jesus, or go under Jesus authority, in order to safely go before the Father and live. Jesus did that for us. He offered himself as the solution to our separation from God. Because God wants to be in relationship with us, so we need Jesus to cover us. God loves us as he loves Jesus. We are in their beautiful, loving relationship.
John 14:20, “In that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you.
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John 17:22-23, “I have given them the glory you gave me, so they may be one as we are one. I am in them and you are in me. May they experience such perfect unity that the world will know that you sent me and that you love them as much as you love me. Father, I want these whom you have given me to be with me where I am, Then they can see all the glory you gave me because you loved me even before the world began.”
All in all, the only way I can wrap my heard around living beyond the natural boundaries of this world is to know and believe that Jesus is living in me possessing me with His Power. Not controlling me like an evil spirit but filling me with his life-giving power. And if it is His power, it must be His will, and if it is His will, but we are commanding it, He must be in us commanding alongside of us. We have to allow His goodness and authority to rise up in us. Surrendering and dying to our old self so that He can have His way.
Romans 8:10, “And Christ lives within you, so even though your body will die because of sin, the Spirit gives you life because you have been made right with God. The Spirit of God who raises Jesus from the dead, lives in you. And just as God raised Christ Jesus from the dead, he will give life to your mortal bodies by this same Spirit living within you. “
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Galatians 2:20, “I have been crucified with Christ: and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.”
I’m getting a very Zombie-esk image in my head. With a dead person being alive by another spirit. But in a way, that is how we are taught to address our sinful ways. Kill them off, they died with Christ. We now have access deep within our being to the life-giving Spirit of God, and not the death giving spirit of the world. So unlike Zombies, we come more alive as we die to ourselves and connect with the Creator of life. Just as Jesus taught us to pray that “His Kingdom would come and His will be done on earth as it is in Heaven.” When we live in Jesus, we will experience relationship with the father, just like it is in the Kingdom.