God IN us

Sequel to God with us

It gets even better.
The picture I described in the last post from the tabernacle which shows us the various degrees of access and intimacy we can have with God is all a place that’s inside of us.
It’s a place we can enter through faith but we don’t have to stick with visits.
Even daily visits in his presence are great, yet God invites us to make him our habitation.
When we move in permanently He moves in permanently in our lives.

Our relationship with God is a dance, were one partner responds to the movements of the other and on and on it goes.
He moves, drawing our hearts to him by making us desire him.
We then can move in response by accepting his invitation to draw near.
He then shows up in our lives again and again.
Because He is welcome and wanted.
No such thing as a forced dance.
That’s no dancing.

YOU are most invited to dance with him.
The God of the universe.

How do we move in with God though?
We may have been dating him our whole lives.
We may have married him (accepted his sarifice on our behalf and submitted to him)
but stayed in our own mansion.

Intimacy with God starts with marriage indeed. A covenant.
A commitment we make in turn of his commitment to us.
It’s a two way stream but you can be assured that He is the one holding it together.
Drawing us closer again and again.
It requires a pure heart but He cleanses us first and enables us to be faithfull.
Then, after He enabled us, we get to choose daily wether we keep the covenant and don’t start any affairs. Worship any other gods. Putting our own will above his.
Keeping the passion burning and truly sharing our lives with him.
Every aspect of it.

But it’s his ability in us. You do not have to walk on your toes in order to please some demanding God.
It’s easy because he gives us the Holy Spirit inside of us.
We do have to trust him though.
If we try to stay faithfull to God and try to live holy in our own strenght we will utterly fail and be frustrated all the time.

There is a battle going on in our mind (see also “Lies and Truth”) and the way we move in with God is by putting our continual trust in him.
Staying faithfull is important but no relationship works without trust.
Faith is trust in God, that’s why it’s so important. Without it we cannot have a relationship with him.
Only when we trust him we can stay faithfull and He is not going to move in with someone that has affairs. Even when they are married to him.

God still remains faithfull to us even if we don’t but of course there can’t be much intimacy if we give our heart in part to other things above him or alongside him.
That doesn’t work. No marriage works properly that way.
You might agree to a marriage like that with someone but God never will.
He’s not going to draw close if you are not and are witholding you heart from him.
He doesn’t let himself be mocked. You wouldn’t respect him either if He did.
Now don’t get me wrong He’s not going to abandon you all of a sudden.
When you give your life to him his Holy Spirit comes living inside of you and He doesn’t leave.
But as we have seen in the former article there are different degrees in which we can experience him.

There is an amount of surrender and trust available where the Father himself with Jesus and the Holy Spirit come living in and on you.
A place were you always hear his voice when He speaks. Where you always sense his guiding.
Always are aware of his love. Always are in touch with his presence and power.
A place were you are never sick. A place were you are protected from anything.

(see psalm 91, read also “Saved from what?”)

That may sound like an unreachable utopia but why would God not
be able to let you stay healthy all the time?
Why would He not be able to protect you?
Why would He not want you to hear his voice and feel his love all the time?
Yes He uses all of life’s afflictions (that doesn’t mean He causes them)
to build trust in us since that is what relationships are built upon.
But once we have that trust why would He allow for one second any harm to be done to you?
To trust him basicaly means that you take refuge under his umbrella.
If you don’t get under that umbrella you become wet although that’s not his will or desire for you.
But you choose were to go and hide in the midst of trouble.
Your choice doesn’t influence his love for you but it does impact your life and the protection you have.

To move in with God, to stick with him all the time so that He comes in all his fullness in our lives (and not just mere drops of his presence, a word here or a vision there) comes through abiding in his words.
It comes through believing him all the time and not just now and then.
We tend to believe him one moment but doubt him the next when adversity happens.
But when we trust him in adversity He will actually turn that adversity in such a way that it will work for our good.

It’s still not our own ability though.
Even faith is a gift.
But we can choose wether we receive it or not.
Nothing delights his heart more than when we trust him wholeheartedly.
Don’t you love it when your child trusts you completely and brags about you among their peers?
How strong and big you are? How smart you are etc.?
Don’t you just want to hug them and cover them with kisses when they do that?
God is like that too!
It so delights his heart when we trust him.
That leads to intimacy with God.

That is when He starts running towards you and covers you with his love and presence inside and outside. That’s when He can’t help himself but comes living with you in all his fullness, holding nothing back. That’s when He knows you truly want him. That’s how you give him permission to move in with you.

THAT’S WHEN HEAVEN COMES TO EARTH!!

(In your life anyways but it will affect others around you)