Jul 20, 2017
Our God is exceedingly great.
You only have to look up at the stars at night to see how wondrous He is as the Creator. When we view the physical universe, we’re awed by His greatness and beauty. Yet though His magnificence fills us with wonder, God sometimes seems far away from our personal universe.
We know God is real, but as we go about our daily activities and even when we pray, it can seem like He’s distant from us, way up in the heavens. At times we might find ourselves asking, “God, where are You?”
We long to access, to contact, to be close to this Person we’ve believed in. And on God’s side, He wants to be close to us, too. In fact, God wants to live in us and to have an intimate and personal relationship with each one of us. So He did some significant things to make this possible.
First, God created our human spirit.
God never intended to be a distant divine Being worshipped from afar by us. This is why God created man with a very special part—the human spirit. Our human spirit enables us to contact God and even receive Him into us. He made our spirit so He could enter into us to be near to us by dwelling within us.
Next, God became a man.
The eternal, limitless God in heaven became a man on earth, the man Christ Jesus. He was God, and at the same time, a real man, and experienced all the aspects of human life, yet without sin. Because He possessed a body of flesh and blood, Jesus was able to die on the cross for our sins to redeem us and bring us back to God.
Finally, Christ became the life-giving Spirit.
After the Lord Jesus died on the cross for us, He was buried, and after three days, He was resurrected. First Corinthians 15:45 is a tremendous verse: “So also it is written, ‘The first man, Adam, became a living soul’; the last Adam became a life-giving Spirit.”
The last Adam, our Savior Christ, in resurrection became the life-giving Spirit. Now as the Spirit, He can enter into anyone who believes in Him.
When we believed in Jesus Christ, we received Him as the Spirit into our spirit. We were joined to Him, and He as the Spirit came not to temporarily visit us, but to dwell in our spirit forever. Christ lives in us!
So, where does God live today?
For those who believe in Christ, He is not just the Creator who dwells in heaven far away from us. He is also the life-giving Spirit who lives in us, in our human spirit. He entered our personal universe when He entered our very being. He is no longer a faraway God, but our Redeemer and Savior who is near to us because He lives in us. Because He’s so near to us, He’s available to us anytime, anywhere. And He can meet all our needs with Himself.
God is near to us, nearer than anyone could ever be to us. This is a fact. We simply need to focus on our spirit where He is and come to Him there by faith. As we learn how to live and walk by our spirit, contacting Him, talking with Him throughout the day, we’ll enjoy more and more of what God has for us, and of what He wants to be to us in our lives.
We can pray, “Lord Jesus, thank You for coming to live in my spirit. You aren’t far away at all! You are right now in me, in my spirit. You’re so near to me. Lord, I love You, and I want to know your presence in my spirit more and more each day.”