04 Aug Christ In You Wherever You Go
Jesus said to the twelve that it was better that he leave them, because the Holy Spirit would come. (John 16:7) It’s hard to imagine how it could be better without Jesus physically present, but that is because we underestimate the power of the Holy Spirit. Jesus knew what He was saying to them was true.
The reality is that whenever a believer encounters the Lord, they are changed and Christ comes to dwell within them by the power of the Holy Spirit. So Christ is now with us wherever we go. While God is omnipresent and able to be everywhere, Jesus as a single human is confined to one location at one time. But the Spirit of God dwelling in each of us takes Jesus with us everywhere we go.
So Jesus is in his people on the streets of Mexico. Jesus is with his people in the heart of the Congo jungle. Jesus is in the mountains of Tibet, or the burning sands of Djibouti. The influence of Christ is everywhere that his people are.
But some believers have only known the Lord in their intellect. They believe, and they may trust, but their intention to represent Christ as good as it is, comes from hard work and human effort. In addition to intellectual consent, a change of heart is required. The Lord must enter into the believer and renew them from within. “My burden is easy, and my yoke is light,” said the Lord. (Matt 11:28-30)
The Lord within us by His Spirit makes even the hardest things possible. Believers are at times tortured in prison, or facing an honor killing in Arabia, or confined to home in China, or reduced to menial labor in the caste-system of the subcontinent. Christians facing any number of difficulties find that the Lord within helps and strengthens them. Take Christ away, and it loses meaning, and we lose grace, and our humanity would rebel against that pain. But Christ within gives it purpose, and our example is a testimony of the living Christ.
It truly is better to have the Spirit in the world, working in the millions of believers in so many places.
If you are a believer, but have not known the transforming power of the Spirit of God in your life, now is the time to seek Him for change. Your hunger for Him, will produce rivers of living water inside of you. (John 4)
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