We wait. and we wait. Our lives turn into waiting games.
How long will it take us to realize what is in us? If you have the Spirit of God indwelling, this is the question of your life. Could it be that we’ve missed out on the most important part of our Christian life? The reason God in the flesh could say he was leaving and sending the Holy Spirit, and that with great joy, was because Jesus knew the Glory that was to be revealed in the saints through their understanding of what was in them.
If only we knew the hope of glory that resides in us. The exceedingly great reward. The wisdom of God and the direct fellowship with his son Jesus. But we say, “that’s not for me”, or we say “I’m just not in that place with God.” But Paul would beg to differ.
God had given Paul a secret. and also a key to unlocking that secret. Only through knowing Christ Jesus was that secret unlocked, and he expressed it by saying:
“I have become [Christ's] servant by the commission God gave me to present to you the word of God in its fullness— the mystery that has been kept hidden for ages and generations, but is now disclosed to the Lord’s people. To them God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.” – paul (Colossians 1)
Is it not mind numbing that God’s wisdom is to put Christ in us? Think about it. Jesus is a man. Constrained by a body, which he is still in, by the way. Jesus did not turn into a heavenly amoeba when he ascended, he is still Jesus Christ in a resurrected body, living forever at the right hand of God, interceding for us, in a real body. But just as he entered heaven so as to commune forever with the Godhead, he sent the fullness of his Spirit to inhabit our mortal bodies, in order “that [our] love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless until the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ–to the glory and praise of God.”
In other words, that we might commune fully with him. And be fully filled by him. Moreover, knowing the Spirit is the only gateway to understanding revelation from the Spirit, as 1 Corinthians 2:14 states, Paul saying:
“The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned.”
There is a deep expectation of us that we would be a spiritually discerning people, yet it does not seem the case. It seems more that people are confused about everything, and are being battered around their theological helm by every wave of new teaching. Do we know the Spirit?
God is looking for a people who will commit to knowing the greatness that lives within them, that is, the Spirit of God. He is looking for a people who will rise up due to a quickened understanding of what “Christ in me” means. He is looking for the fellowship of those who will devote themselves to prayer and fasting, and “acknowledging the Lord in all their ways,” becoming a people who know God.
I can almost guarantee you that any resurrected saint in Christ (in heaven) would presently say, “Compared to what I now know of His glory residing within me, I would have given so much more, endured so much more, and preached his Kingdom with greater fury had I sought Him out then.”
I say this concerning us, because the Lord says this to us:
“Arise, shine, for your light has come,
and the glory of the Lord rises upon you.
See, darkness covers the earth
and thick darkness is over the peoples,
but the Lord rises upon you
and his glory appears over you.”
Our light has already come. And he has now given us the Spirit, to know, to cherish, to honor, to obey, to live by, and to die by. Do you know the Spirit? His desires, his unction, his power, his peace, and his great love?
Oh, that we would know the Spirit! Let us devote ourselves to this great undertaking. Come Holy Spirit.
