December 30, 2015

The Spirit Within

I have a friend who I seldom see, but recently we ran into one another and she said, “Every time I drive by your house I think of you.” Her comment gave me pause. The Holy Spirit resides in every believer, but yet when I encounter people of like faith it’s only on the rare occasion that I think about the Spirit living within them. Paul said, “And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you” (Ro 8:11 NIV).

1 comment:

Steve Corey said...

Gail;

-----I’m not a dispensationalist, per se, but pondering the different positions, you might say, God takes relative to man at different times in history is quite interesting. There was once a time when God spoke with the entire human race face to face. Of course, at that time the entire human race consisted only of Adam and Eve. Moreover, at that time neither had apple on their breath. But even after they ate the forbidden fruit (most likely not apple) God talked with them face to face a bit more. But from then until Moses, man had to skate pretty much freestyle, since man hadn’t been given any inspired scripture for general consumption, except for what Enoch wrote and the command He gave to Noah upon leaving the ark (although Enoch himself indicated his writing was not divinely inspired, and unfortunately, few took Noah seriously. Big mistake.)
-----A big change came with Moses. At that time, God came and dwelt amongst His people with His presence demonstrated upon the mercy seat in the Holy of Holies. With Jesus came another big change. God not only came and dwelt amongst man, but this time His presence was in human form. The cross ended that condition. But Pentecost brought the next big change. Now God lived inside every person whom He knew, that is, within everyone made alive in Christ. From thence forth, whomever God had not dwelt in perishes at death. And things are still this way. Many of us think another big reversion is close at hand with the rapture. At that time, everyone in whom the Lord dwells skates out of this place, leaving temporal mankind out in the cold again without God‘s presence in one form or another.
-----About seven years later comes another interesting change. Revelation speaks of a thousand years when Christ resides in Jerusalem in His glorified, eternal, human body. The Word is totally silent about mortal man at that time and the Holy Spirit. Neither does it give any indication of His Spirit indwelling any men during the Tribulation period, although all God’s saints at that time are “sealed” on their foreheads. Of course, Jesus is yet human during the Millennium, as much as He is God then. It’s just that the “human” of Him is eternal “human”. And since the Bible promises we who now believe will always be with Christ after shelling our mortal condition, I’m strongly supposing that we will be here with Christ during the Millennium. Indeed that will be a different age for mankind, some being mortal, some being eternal, one being God. That would be cool.
-----Then, there is one change left. After Satan is loosed for a short spell and all mankind again turns upon the Lord, God ends this boring ball game. He punts everybody who loved unrighteousness, slinking away from Him, into Hell. Everyone who loved righteousness, drawing near to Him, lives on in His presence as did Adam and Eve when their breath was fresh and clean.
-----Well. All that isn’t really worth much to know. But it is kind of fun to think about.

Love you all,
Steve Corey