WORD TREASURES 6/18/23
I have an address. I live on a certain road in New York State. Unless you are homeless (if so, that is tragic and you are in my prayers) you, too, have an address--a place you call home. My address is my home. I sleep there, live there; wherever I go, to that address I return. I rest there, get my mail there, even junk mail! I store my stuff there, park my cars there, calculate all travel from there and back again. I mow it, paint it, repair it, improve it, insure it, and protect it. My family calls it home for them too. That's where my family and I belong.
Did you know that God has an address--a place He calls home? And He takes care of His home far better than we care for ours! We are in a series about the Holy Spirit. Did you know that for every Christian--you are Jesus' address. Though God is everywhere at the same time--He has said that His dwelling place is with Christians (Rev. 21:3). Perhaps you are a new believer, or new at this church thing, and this idea of Jesus living in you, though intriguing, is more than you can fathom. Perhaps you aren't all that new but this Holy Spirit thing, you are still not too sure about. How does it work anyway? What does the Holy Spirit do or say? And how do I know for sure God is in me, God is speaking to or leading me? What's it like when He convicts, helps, or comforts? This is too strange and too hard to measure or calculate--I certainly can't control it. By the way, you weren't meant to--He is the Lord and in charge if you are a true Christian! He is to control us and NOT the other way around.
In fact, Jesus living within the believer is God's plan & HE is the ONLY WAY through this dangerous and challenging life He has called us to live. Once believed & practiced, the Spirit-filled life is as normal as can be. Normal is not measured by our earthly standards. For sinful humans, it is normal to try to live without God's continual help. That is common, disastrous, and normal for humans! But God's normal is how God sees & wants things--His normal is living inside the believer (His address)--His way of doing Christianity, and God gets to be God!
"Judas (not Iscariot) said to Him, 'Lord, how is it that You will manifest yourself to us, and not to the world?' Jesus answered him, 'If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.' " (Jn. 14:22-23)
Jesus was explaining the closest connection disciples have with God and God with them. Jesus had come to establish this connection. The disciples were to be 'orphans' no longer (Jn.14:18) (more on this next week). These disciples would discover some things about God and their new life in Christ. They would find out that Father God and Christ were so unified that they were actually ONE! God was in Christ and Christ in God, and Christ was to be in them! That relationship, that unity, that oneness, is exactly what Christ was introducing to them. They were to be radically different from the rest of the unbelieving world because they would have Jesus (God Almighty) living within when the world did not--could not--would not. Christian, you are God's home, His ADDRESS!!
They would discover the true definition of loving God=obeying His commands. We must be careful here lest we think we can earn Jesus' love and acceptance by obeying Him. All must realize that the lead command to obey starts with believing/trust (Jn. 6:25-29). Placing faith in Christ starts a person in a lifestyle of following and obeying. How can a person believe in Christ and never take one step toward Him and all He commands? It is not possible, and this point is the key to understanding James 2:26, "Faith without works is dead." But it is not works of obedience which come first. Rather, it is full-hearted trust/faith! And hasn't it been exactly like that? Christian, when you truly believed, a major change took place within your heart. You believed in Jesus and immediately your life lined up to trust and follow His lead. His commands mattered--we saw them as vital to life--and we immediately started obeying them as we understood them.
It is not because we perfectly obeyed every command that Jesus chose to live with us. It is because we obeyed by trusting Him. Our faith lines us up to follow His commands. In fact, careful study of the Bible reveals that the Spirit comes to live in believers to aid them in obeying His Word! Because we have become God's address, He lives with us and has brought all His truth to bear in our lives--praise God!
Pastor Mike
