1 John 3:24 The one who keeps His commandments abides in Him, and He in him. We know by this that He abides in us, by the Spirit whom He has given us.
It’s pretty common at this time of year to travel and either be a guest or have guests over. I will be hosting my family this Christmas (wow, that makes me sound like an adult…). When you go into someone’s house to stay for a while, you learn their patterns and fall into step (or at least politely observe). If they eat dinner at a certain time, you’ll eat dinner at that time. If they have special traditions or house rules, you’ll fall into step and go along with it as a guest. When we think about Jesus coming to earth and living with us, do we think of Him as a guest? Someone who we want to have in our lives, but not as a person who has a say in how we live? Now, as you can guess, that is a wrong view. But I know that is the misconception I struggle with when I think about living with God as this verse describes.
Jesus did not come to earth to visit us, but rather to invite us into His Father’s house. We are the one’s coming in and learning the new traditions and customs, following along with the pattern of life we see in Him. As this verse says, we are to be living, abiding, remaining in Him, with His commands and by the power of His Spirit who lives with us. We saw in verse 23 that the commandments we keep start with believing in Jesus and loving our brothers. We know from Scripture that this is possible through the work of Jesus and the Holy Spirit in our lives. Seek it out, follow it’s call for it is the way of true happiness, fulfillment, and joy! It may be hard to hear that we can not do this on our own, that we require help to be saved and that it requires obedience. The western cultures love autonomy and the relativistic systems that teach we’re okay and can do whatever we want. However, our freedom in Christ comes with the commandments and the Holy Spirit, the Helper. God has made a way to bring us to ultimate joy and happiness, the fulfillment of the desires our hearts long for. We have this in Christ and we have it through His relationship with us. As we celebrate this Christmas season, we celebrate Jesus’ coming to us to make us part of his family, inviting us into His house and giving us Himself. So how are we living in God’s house? How are we following His patterns?
Comments
Post a Comment