Orange Moon "To Dwell Within Us" Part 4 - God's View. Our View.

"To Dwell Within Us"

Part 4 - God's View.  Our View.

      

   What is God's perspective regarding His Spirit's presence within born again believers in the Lord Jesus Christ?  We must find the answer and embrace it as our own view, our own conviction of faith.

    "Ye are the temple of God, and the Spirit of God dwelleth in you" (I Corinthians 3:16).

    I shared with a dear friend yesterday that 99.99% of the Bible involves God's revelation and glorification of the Lord Jesus Christ.  We exist to know Him, and to find in such holy light the reality, reason, and ramifications of our existence (John 17:3).  The Holy Spirit who indwells us ever works to reveal and glorify the Lord Jesus (John 15:28; 16:14).  However, I also mentioned to my friend that a .01% place exists for the believer's self-knowledge and awareness.  To know God means we will know ourselves in the context of Christ, as it were.  "Ye are in Christ Jesus… He that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit" (I Corinthians 1:30; 6:17).  Of all that God sees of us, we can be sure this is first and this is primary.  Indeed, how can it not be so when we consider…

    "He hath made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him" (II Corinthians 5:21).

      If God gave His Son to the cross to make possible and actual His giving of the Holy Spirit to our hearts, could it be that He sees us with any other essential focus?  If He poured out His wrath on the Lord Jesus so that He might pour out the Spirit into our spirits, will He ever overlook this "hope of glory, which is Christ in you?"  And if He left His beloved Lord Jesus to die alone in utter abandonment to make possible His presence within us, will He ever take leave of seeing us in terms less than "Ye are the temple of the living God?" (II Corinthians 6:16).

   Find the most faithful believer on the planet in this moment, and you will find one viewed by God as united to the Spirit of His Son.  Find the most failing believer on the planet in this moment, and you will find one viewed by God as united to the Spirit of His Son.  Too much was sacrificed for the Divine gaze upon us to be other or less.  Certainly, our faithful or failing response to Him matters much, and He works to enhance the former, and correct the latter.  However, God's first gaze ever sees us in  light of the cross, the empty tomb, and the Spirit of the crucified and risen Christ within us.  We must see ourselves accordingly.  "In Thy light shall we see light" (Psalm 36:9).  

    This is the .o1% - how we view ourselves - based on the 99.99% - how we view God.  But how important it is.  To share God's view of Christ in us and ourselves in Christ will go far in motivating and empowering a corresponding life of faith and faithfulness.  Moreover, our Savior suffered agonized abandonment on the cross to bestow such grace upon and within us.  We will never throughout eternity, or in this lifetime, live a moment apart from the Holy Spirit's abiding and empowering presence within us.  Yes, God gave Himself to dwell within our hearts when we believed.  He will not leave.  This is how He views us.  This is how we must view ourselves.

"I am with you always… I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee."

(Matthew 28:20; Hebrews 13:5)

"Reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord."

(Romans 6:11)

Weekly Memory Verse

    He that abideth in Me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit."

 (John 15:5)

    

   

  

   

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