Unequivocally the best Bible study I have ever read regarding the daily Christian walk is Henry Blackaby’s and Claude King’s outstanding work, “Experiencing God.” In it they establish seven major Biblically grounded premises, two of which I am often acutely aware: God is always at work around you; and God invites you to become involved with Him in His work. Now, being invited to join God in His work and actually adjusting our lives to do so (a third premise in this study) are two different things, for saying “yes” to God means adjusting our lives to His meaningful purposes and then trusting Him to accomplish these purposes through us. Yet when we do submit our will to His, good things—amazing things—happen.
This is an awesome part of the Christian life, for Jesus is more than a concept or belief system, He is real, and His presence among us is not limited to a time when He walked the earth. “I am with you always, to the end of the age,”1 He promised before ascending into the heavens from which He came. Yet not only is Jesus with us, through His Spirit He also lives in us. Paul rhetorically prodded early believers, “Do you not realize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?”2 The Holy Spirit, or “the Spirit of Christ,”3 breathes new life into all who entrust themselves to His redemptive work on the cross, thereafter to take up residence in us. Paul again, “Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?”4
So Jesus is with us, and Jesus lives in us. Should it surprise us, then, that His Spirit works through us? Our faith in Jesus and our love for His people “come from [our] confident hope of what God has reserved for [us] in heaven.”5 Simply put, the freedom and joy of daily experiencing Jesus overflows to others, and the audience of those who want to know about Him is larger and more eager than we realize. Then how do we prepare for God’s purposes? We can do as Paul did for the early Colossian church: ask! Paul prayed for them, specifically that they would be “filled with the knowledge of [God’s] will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding . . . [and] bearing fruit in every good work.”6
No greater honor could we ever receive than to be the place where the Spirit resides through faith in Christ. And on no greater adventure could we ever embark than to live a life of eternal consequence in Him. This is His will for us. This is His gift to us. Praise Him.
Father, thank You for making us alive in Christ Jesus. Fill us with the knowledge of Your will in all wisdom and understanding, that we would live fruitful lives, fully pleasing to You. In Christ we pray. Amen.
1 Matthew 28:20, emphasis added
2 2 Corinthians 13:5, emphasis added
3 1 Peter 1:11
4 1 Corinthians 3:16 ESV, emphasis added
5 Colossians 1:4-5 ESV
6 Colossians 1:9-10 ESV, emphasis added
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Paul Nordman—Author 