The Special of the Day… From the Orange Moon Cafe…
"Our Hearts, His Home"
When we consider the indwelling Holy Spirit, bestowed as a free gift of grace to all who trust the Lord Jesus Christ as Savior, we often rightly focus on the heart and life-changing wonder of His presence and power.
"Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?" (I Corinthians 3:16).
"The fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness and righteousness and truth" (Ephesians 5:9).
Certainly we do well to rejoice in the Holy Spirit's enabling us to walk in faith and faithfulness. However, another blessed truth presents itself to our hearts when considering the indwelling Spirit, namely, that God loves human hearts so dearly He desires to dwell not merely with them, but within them. "I will dwell in them and walk in them" (II Corinthians 6:16). Our Lord drew nearer to us than our minds can fathom when we trusted Him as our Savior. We mean that much to Him, a challenging truth to presently comprehend, but one which we must embrace with great determination and confidence. This makes the matter personal to the most profound degree. God made our hearts His home when we believed, inhabiting us to such degree that "the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit which is given unto us" (Romans 5:5).
As I wrote the preceding words, the thought came to me regarding how monumentally large a truth, but how limited my awareness and comprehension of such grace. It must presently be this way, of course, as the limitations of our flesh challenge the wonder of our spirits inhabited by the living Christ. However, we can all know more than we do of our Lord's vibrant and risen life as we determine to believe a truth that often seems unlikely, but forever abides as the irrevocable gift of God to our hearts. "Hereby know we that we dwell in Him, and He in us, because he hath given us of His Spirit" (I John 4:13).
A final thought. The gift of God's abiding presence in us came to us by way of the Lord Jesus suffering abandonment by His Father and the Holy Spirit when He died on the cross of Calvary. "My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?" (Matthew 27:46). To the degree He suffered and died alone to atone for our sins, the Spirit of God will never leave nor forsake us (Hebrews 13:5). Such is the grace of our Heavenly Father, and such is the wonder of how much we mean to Him. Again, let us make it personal: He loves your heart and mine that dearly, so much so that the Psalmist declared, "The Lord taketh pleasure in His people" (Psalm 149:4).
"Because ye are sons, God hath sent for the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying Abba Father."
(Galatians 4:6)
Weekly Memory Verse
"The fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness and righteousness and truth."
(Ephesians 5:9)
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