The Special of the Day… From the Orange Moon Cafe…
"Enlarged Hearts"
"I will run the way of Thy commandments, when Thou shalt enlarge my heart" (Psalm 119:32).
The New Testament fulfillment of the Psalmist's desire for an enlarged heart involves the indwelling Spirit of the Lord Jesus Christ.
"And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying Abba Father" (Galatians 4:6).
How could God make bigger the hearts of of born again believers in the Lord Jesus Christ than to make them His dwelling place? Or how could He more make possible our running the way of His commandments than to take active residence in our spirits through the presence of the involved and active Holy Spirit? He made and redeemed us for this, that is, to serve as "the habitation of God through the Spirit" (Ephesians 2:22). Somehow, an infinite God made a way to live within finite beings, constituting those who believe as the spiritual scene of His presence and working. "I will dwell in them and walk in them" (II Corinthians 6:16).
The fact of our Lord's indwelling must be accompanied by our realization thereof. "Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?" (I Corinthians 3:16). Note the Apostle Paul affirmed the Holy Spirit's presence to a church he identified as "carnal." "Are ye not carnal, and walk as men?" (I Corinthians 3:3). Despite being "in the Spirit," the Corinthians lived after the flesh (Romans 8:9). The Corinthians, possessed of spirits enlarged by the Spirit of Christ, nevertheless through ignorance lived as if they were merely fleshly beings devoid of the wondrous gift that makes possible a walking and running faithfulness to God. Indeed, believers can live as if we are merely ourselves, as opposed to the truth that we are ourselves as inhabited and empowered by the living God. We can "walk as men" rather than as His sons and daughters graced with Christ as the very Life of our lives.
Can a greater tragedy be imagined, especially when we remember the price that made possible God's freely given grace of the Holy Spirit's indwelling presence and working? "For 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). To live as if alone, while inhabited by the Christ forsaken so that we might never be alone, surely constitutes a sad neglect we must seek to avoid at all costs.
Paul calls us to "be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might." He furthermore identifies such enabling as far more vital and present than we often realize. "Now unto Him that is able to do exceeding, abundantly above all we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us" (Ephesians 6:10; 3:20; emphasis added). Yes, the hearts of believers teem with an enlarging reality that will result in our running in the way of righteousness as we realize we "live through Him," and that our Father calls us to…
"Run with patience, the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith."
(Hebrews 12:1-2)
Weekly Memory Verse
I will run the way of Thy commandments, when Thou shalt enlarge my heart.
(Psalm 119:32)
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