“… you belong now to the household of God. Firmly beneath you is the foundation, God’s messengers and prophets, the actual foundation-stone being Christ Jesus Himself … each separate piece … properly fitting into its neighboring piece, grows together into a temple consecrated to the Lord. You are all part of this building in which God Himself lives by His Spirit.” (Ephesians 2: 19 – 22 Phillips)
You! A “building in which God lives by his Spirit.”
This is the “You God Sees!” A place for Him to live.
Notice, Paul has said this before. He ended the 1st Chapter this way. “God has placed everything under the power of Christ and has set Him up as the Head of everything for the Church. For the Church is His body, and in that body lives fully the one who fills the whole wide universe.”
Jesus told his Friends that the “Spirit of Truth,” would be “with them;” “in them.” (See John 14: 15 – 17.)
Amazing! You! Occupied “fully” by the Spirit of him in whom “we live and move;” in whom “we exist.” (See Acts 17:28 New English Bible) By faith – a decision to “abandon all outcomes to Christ’s determination” – God Himself settles into you. At the very core of you, where the crucial decisions of life are made, God is now an active participant in the process. He is renovating your conscience. What matters most is changing. You are being restored. Still yourself, you are coming to resemble your Father and Elder Brother. You are becoming more and more like the God who created you! And you’re not the only one.
The major point Paul makes in Chapter 2 is that Jewish and Gentile believers “together” comprise this “place” where God Himself lives. There are no distinctions. The “Church,” those who’ve been “called,” and have responded, is a Community as diverse as the world. Every Christ-follower, wherever they lived, now live, or ever will live, is undergoing the same transformation you’re experiencing. Like you they are the person they were originally. But they too resemble their Father. Just as it is with you so it is with them. The “Spirit of Truth,” is now a partner in their choices. The results will be unique to them as they are to you. Together, you and your neighbor become facets of the magnificent being whose body you are. You think differently. You see from unique perspectives. Your mission, while a common thing, will take you to diverse places. Your accomplishments will not be alike. Their nature will be unique. Sometimes you’ll feel like he or she is doing greater things than you. At other times you’ll feel like your work is more significant. Still the resemblance to Jesus will be obvious in both of you. This, above all else, will reveal the presence of the Spirit in you. For, like our Father, His Son, and his Spirit, you and your neighbor – We – are “a Community” of “boundless love, knowledge, and power.”
This is the “You God Sees!”
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