Now we reach what God has been aiming at all along. Forgiveness, cleansing, a heart transplant, and giving us his desires were incredible miracles did in us the moment we placed our faith in Christ. But they were ends in themselves. They were the necessary steps to achieve what he intended all along.
After God said, “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh”—after that, he promised this:
“I will put My Spirit within you.” (Ezekiel 36:27)
Seven simple words, but they mean everything.
What does “I will put My Spirit within you” mean? It means God himself comes to live in us! Because the Holy Spirit is God. God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit—all three come to live in us. We become the place where God lives, forever.
This was God’s plan for humanity all along. It’s what we were designed for. God himself would come to live in us, join us to himself, and become one with us—the closest, most intimate relationship possible. Why? So he could have the closest possible relationship with us, and so he could express his own life through us!
Paul said that this—“Christ in you”—was the very center of the message God called him to preach. Before he went to the cross, Jesus prayed for this very thing: that the Father would make us one with himself, and one with Jesus. One with God! It doesn’t get any closer than that. Years later, Paul explained, “He who joins himself to the Lord becomes one spirit with him.”
Wow. The next time you hear someone say, “You need to get closer to God,” you can think to yourself, “I’m already one spirit with him. How much closer can I get?”
Do you see now why God had to accomplish stages 1-4 of his new arrangement? His objective was to live in us, and become one with us. To accomplish that, we had to be forgiven (Stage 1). If we weren’t, we would have to pay for our sins ourselves, and be separated from him forever. We had to be cleansed (Stage 2). God is perfectly pure. He wasn’t going to come to live permanently in an impure vessel. We had to have a new heart (Stage 3). God absolutely wasn’t going to become one spirit with our old heart. We had to have his desires (Stage 4). God could only express his life through people who wanted the same things he wanted.
Do you see as well why each stage of God’s new arrangement had to be complete, permanent, and unchanging? If he was going to join our spirit to his and become permanently one with us, we couldn’t be forgiven one minute and unforgiven the next. We had to be permanently forgiven. We couldn’t be clean one minute and unclean the next. We had to be permanently clean for him to come live in us. We couldn’t have a new heart one minute, an old heart the next, or both at the same time. We could only have one new creation heart for God to join himself to. Our deep inner being couldn’t want what he wants one minute, and want what he doesn’t the next. Our inner being had to be on the same page as his, permanently.
All of these things God had to accomplish completely and irrevocably. There could be no looking back. That was the only way he could become one with us, live in us, and express himself fully through us.
The most important thing—by far—that God freely gives us is this: he himself comes to live in us. And if the God of the universe comes to live in us, that changes everything.
If you stop and think about it, that makes complete sense. If the God of the universe comes to live in you, hasn’t life’s equation been totally altered? After all, who has the power to pull off the God kind of life—you, or God? The question answers itself.
The Apostle Paul indicated that for someone born of God, God living in them is the overriding reality:
“I have been crucified with Christ [that is, the old Paul is dead; his heart of stone is gone] and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me …” (Galatians 2:20a)
Paul isn’t saying he as a person has ceased to exist; he’s certainly alive, with a new heart. But the one who is really living this life, he says, is Jesus living in him. Paul continues the thought:
“… and the life which I now live in the flesh [that is, in this human body] I live by faith [by trusting] in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.” (Galatians 2:20b)
Paul is saying, “Hey, I’m genuinely alive, and I live in this body, but the one who is really living here is Jesus. I live by trusting him living in me.”
It shouldn’t surprise us that this is what God was aiming at all along. Why? Because this is exactly the way Jesus lived on earth. We see Jesus in the gospels teaching and healing and doing miracles and we think, “Well, of course, he’s God.” But that’s not how Jesus described what was going on. He said to his disciples, “The Father is living in me. The things you see me doing, it’s actually the Father living his life through me.”
In the Gospel of John, Jesus gives his famous illustration of the vine and the branches. He is the vine (the source of the life); we are the branches (through whom the life is visible). The branches can’t produce anything on their own, because the vine is the life, not the branches.
When Jesus was on earth, though, the Father was the vine, and Jesus was the branch. The Father lived his life in and through Jesus. Jesus lived by faith in the Father living in him. The Father produced his works through him.
The Apostle John writes, “As [Jesus] is, so also are we in this world.” We operate exactly the way Jesus did with the Father.
When the Holy Spirit impresses the reality of this upon our heart, life changes. I don’t mean we never have troubling thoughts, or difficult feelings, or bad days. But the whole way we see life changes. It’s not us performing, or making ourselves good enough anymore. We’re simply trusting in Christ, in us.
When we start to live in this reality, we realize that when we walk into a room, God just walked into that room. (I’m not saying we are God; I’m saying what he says, that he is the one living in us.)
If God just walked into the room, that totally takes the spotlight off of us. We don’t have to ask anymore, how am I coming across? What can I get out of this situation? How can these people benefit me? How unworthy do I feel? How am I performing?
All of that becomes irrelevant! God just walked in the room. Instead, we are free to ask, Jesus, how are you living through me right now? We are simply the vessel he is living through. The life is from him. Remember how Jesus said, “I am the life”? This is that reality! When God walks into a room, the question is no longer what would Jesus do? That puts the burden on us to try hard to be like Jesus. Rather, the question is what will Jesus do? After all, he’s living in us. Who is he going to bless? How is he going to love someone right here? How is he going to say something that lifts someone up?
It’s totally natural. It’s totally organic. We aren’t trying hard to pull it off. It just flows. Christ loves through us. Christ serves through us. Christ forgives through us. It’s not hard. It’s natural. This is what our new heart wants to do, and what the One who lives in us is totally able to do. By faith, we step out, trusting him to do it.
This is real living. It takes us completely out of the realm of self-focus, self-doubt, self-condemnation, and selfish living. Those things are swept aside. Life becomes an adventure. God just walked into the room! This is how God designed us to operate all along. It is the answer to life.
Here are some of the places in the Bible where God explains what we just discussed:
Christ in us is the key: “… the mystery which has been hidden from the past ages and generations, but has now been manifested to His saints, to whom God willed to make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you …” (Colossians 1:26-27)
The Holy Spirit comes to live in us: “‘I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever; that is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not see Him or know Him, but you know Him because He abides with you and will be in you.’” (John 14:16-17)
Christ comes to live in us: “‘In that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you.’” (John 14:20)
The Father comes to live in us: “Jesus answered and said to 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 abode with him.’” (John 14:23)
God makes himself one with us: “‘I do not ask on behalf of these alone, but for those also who believe in Me through their word; that they may all be one; even as You, Father, are in Me and I in You, that they also may be in Us …’” (John 17:20-21)
We are one spirit with God. “But the one who joins himself to the Lord is one spirit with Him.” (1 Corinthians 6:17)
The Father lived through Jesus: “Jesus said to him, ‘Have I been so long with you, and yet you have not come to know Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; how can you say, “Show us the Father”? Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father is in Me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on My own initiative, but the Father abiding in Me does His works. Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father is in Me; otherwise believe because of the works themselves.’” (John 14:9-11)
We live the same way Jesus lived: “… as He is, so also are we in this world.” (1 John 4:17)
We receive life just as Jesus did: “As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever feeds on me, he also will live because of me.” (John 6:57, ESV)
Jesus is the vine, we are the branches: “‘Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me. I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing.’” (John 15:4-5)
Jesus is the life: “Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.’” (John 14:6)
