Please come into your Lord's presence, by faith. Then PRAY these passages. As you PRAY them, the Holy Spirit will open your eyes to His ways and His power. As you take up the yoke of Christ, He makes it easy. Please ask God to multiply your faith as you read. Subchapter 1.2 explains how to PRAY scripture.
Christ is in us. The Father is in us. The Holy Spirit is in us. The one who spoke the universe into existence is being formed in us.
The Indwelling Christ
Christ Lives In Me:
- "I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me" (Galatians 2:20).
Prayerful Observations:
In this verse, the apostle Paul is speaking. Though speaking of himself, in the context it is clear that he is using himself as an example to reveal the universal condition of all believers. Upon our conversion, our old self was crucified (killed) with Christ. We have new life as the resurrected Christ lives in us. So, "it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me." We are a "new creation" as 2 Corinthians 5:17 states, "Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old things have passed away. Behold all things have become new."
As Post-Pentecost believers, we are not the same species as Pre-Pentecost believers. Today, all believers have continuous access to an intimacy and power that our predecessors only dreamed of. But an even greater state of intimacy will exist in the eternal paradise of the New Jerusalem in an age to come as the Song of Solomon proclaims. So, we live in the present age, with a foretaste of the ecstasy to come.
You may read more about this intimacy in micro-subchapter 4.3j which presents the Endorsed Prayer for Intimacy. A more thorough presentation of the future euphoric state is made in subchapter 6.1 titled "The Eternal State in Paradise: The New Jerusalem."
Spirit of Christ:
- "But you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if it is so that the Spirit of God dwells in you. But if any man doesn't have the Spirit of Christ, he is not his" (Romans 8:9).
Prayerful Observations:
If the Spirit of Christ dwells in us, we are "in the Spirit", not "in the flesh". This is evident from the first sentence in Romans 8:9. From the second sentence we see that all who belong to Him "have the Spirit of Christ". So, all who belong to God have the "Spirit of Christ" living within.
Paul's Focus... Christ In You:
- "24 ... which is the assembly, 25 of which I was made a servant according to the stewardship of God which was given me toward you to fulfill the word of God, 26 the mystery which has been hidden for ages and generations. But now it has been revealed to his saints, 27 to whom God was pleased to make known what are the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory." (Colossians 1:24-27).
Prayerful Observations:
In verses 25 and 26 we see that the reason for which Paul was "made a servant" was to "fulfill the word of God" ... to fulfill "the mystery". So, Paul was made a minister of the church for the purpose of fulfilling "the mystery". And what is "this mystery"? Verse 27 tells us. "This mystery" is "Christ in you"! The savior, creator and ruler of the universe has condescended to live within every believer in the present age!
When an Old Testament believer prayed, he prayed to God outside of himself. God was in the heavens. But we, as Post-Pentecost believers, pray to God who is WITHIN US! As one age follows another, God is bringing His children in each age into progressively deeper stages of intimacy with himself. Glory to God!
Until Christ is Formed in You:
- "My little children, of whom I am again in travail until Christ is formed in you" (Galatians 4:19).
Prayerful Observations:
From previous verses we know that Christ is in us. In this verse we see a growth process towards the person of Christ being fully formed in us. The disciple maker works towards this end in others.
We are His body. We are to grow into Him in faith, love and suffering... to reign with Him "forever and ever" ( Revelation 22:5). Ephesians 4:15 states, "but speaking truth in love, we may grow up in all things into Him who is the head, Christ..."
The Indwelling Father
- "There is one body and one Spirit, even as you also were called in one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all, and in us all" (Ephesians 4:4-6).
The Indwelling Holy Spirit
Temple of the Holy Spirit:
- "Or don't you know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God? You are not your own" (1 Corinthians 6:19).
Prayerful Observations:
After God delivered Israel from Egypt in the Exodus, the Spirit of God dwelt in the Temple at Jerusalem (Exodus 25:8, 40:34-35). The Temple was destroyed by the Romans in 70 AD. But in the current age, we are the temple of God. The Holy Spirit lives in us. If you are lonely, afraid or discouraged, you know where to find God. He is within you!
The Holy Spirit is not mute or paralyzed. This is revealed by the scriptures presented in chapter 3 titled, "Fellowship with God Through the Holy Spirit". The indwelling of the Holy Spirit within God's children during the Post-Pentecost era is a supernatural event. He is alive and behaves like He is alive!
The above scripture states, "You are not your own". We were slaves to sin (Romans 6:6-20), bought with His blood (Revelation 5:9), freed from sin and became slaves of God (Romans 6:22), His name on our foreheads (Revelation 22:4), to be slaves of Christ (1 Corinthians 7:22-23, Ephesians 6:6). We will be adopted as sons (Ephesians 1:5) to inherit kingdoms (Daniel 7:27; Matthew 25:34) & reign forever (Revelation 22:5), with Christ, on His throne (Revelation 3:21; 2: 26-27; 20:4-6; 5:9-10). In the eternal state of Paradise in the New Jerusalem, the Saint will be a slave-son-king, administering the authority of the King of Kings, for the glory of the King of Kings.
As for now, we are His and He dwells within us!
Inner Witness:
- "...we know that he remains in us, by the Spirit which he gave us" (1 John 3:24).
Prayerful Observations:
The believer has an internal witness that God is within.
The New State After Pentecost:
For the remainder of this subchapter, I will present below what was already revealed in the Introduction to this little book.
Before Passover, just before Jesus was arrested and crucified, Jesus had a long conversation with His disciples in what is called The Upper Room Discourse (John 13-17). Jesus said,
- "I will pray to the Father, and he will give you another Counselor... You know him, for he lives with you, and will be in you... But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things, and will remind you of all that I said to you" (John 14:16-26).
Jesus was telling the disciples that something new was going to happen in their future. Jesus was going to pray to the Father and ask the Father to send a counselor to them. The counselor of which He spoke was the Holy Spirit. As a counselor, the Holy Spirit would teach them "all things" and "remind" them of all that Jesus had told them.
Jesus said that these things would occur in their future because those things were not occurring in their present. In their future, this counselor, the Holy Spirit, would live inside of them. The scripture said, "he lives with you, and will be in you". He was telling them that something was about to change. With the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in all believers, all believers would have intimate two way communication with God.
At the very end of the above passage Jesus said that the Holy Spirit would remind them of "all that I said to you". It said, "all". Jesus had spent three years with the disciples, training them to be fishers of men... to make disciples of all nations. Jesus was very active in His time on the earth as the savior of the world. As the Son of God, He had a lot to say. John 21:25 reveals, "Now there are also many other things that Jesus did. Were every one of them to be written, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written." So, when Jesus said that the Holy Spirit would remind them of "all that I said to you", that is a large amount of information to remind them of.
This is communication in the spiritual realm of large volumes of information from an indwelling spirit to a person of flesh and faith. This is spiritual communication on a grand scale. With so many thoughts appearing in their minds from the Holy Spirit, it is a wonder that their minds had room for anything else.
They were at the threshold of a new age, the age of the Holy Spirit... which began at Pentecost in Acts 2:1. They were about to exit the Age of the Law and enter into the Age of the Spirit "as servants of a new covenant, not of the letter, but of the Spirit" (2 Corinthians 3:6-8). The Holy Spirit would be IN THEM and therefore they would be fundamentally different from Pre-Pentecost believers... they would be "clothed with power from on high" (2 Corinthians 5:17, Luke 24:49). Power...
There are roughly 900 pages in the Old Testament of the Bible. The phrase "Holy Spirit" occurs only three times in those 900 pages. That's basically one occurrence for every three hundred pages. But in the New Testament, the phrase "Holy Spirit" occurs 93 times. That's one occurrence for every three pages. One occurrence in every three pages is far greater than one occurrence for every three hundred pages. To be exact, the phrase 'Holy Spirit" is one hundred times more likely to occur in the New Testament than in the Old. One might say that the role of the Holy Spirit in the lives of believers is 100 times greater after Pentecost.
After Pentecost, fellowship with God moved to a new level. The Holy Spirit was in them, taught them "all things" and reminded them of "all" that Jesus had told them. 1 John 2:27 says, "his anointing teaches you concerning all things." Now "his anointing" is the Holy Spirit. And 1 John was addressed to the church at large. So, this spiritual communication regarding "all things" extended to the church at large. It was not limited to the twelve disciples. When believers read scripture or hear the preaching from a minster of the gospel, it is the Holy Spirit who opens the heart to understand. It is the Holy Spirit who reminds us of the words of God.
So, after Pentecost, fellowship with God is far more dynamic and interactive. Fellowship with God is very different from simply living by a moral code. It is powerful, personal, pervasive, intimate and conversational. The numerous scriptures presented in this book describe this fellowship with God" in intricate detail.
To engage in this fellowship with the living God, the heart must touch what the eye cannot see. It all depends on what happens in one particular moment... in that very second when we come into contact with the words of God.
That moment is the foundation of this book. It is from that moment that this fellowship with God unfolds. In chapter One we entered into that moment.