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For us, With us, In us

God had a plan. A plan from the very beginning. A plan to have a deep relationship with each and every one of us.

In the beginning, God was able to walk with man.
....and then we blew it.

While we were no longer able to abide in His presence, God still advocated for us. He fought for His people. God was for us. 

 Throughout much of the OT, God is represented by the name Jehovah-Jirah, "God will provide."
But God's plan wasn't to just be for us, ultimately He wanted to restore us to Himself--to be able to rekindle that intimate relationship between creation and Creator.

So God promised a deliverer: Emmanuel "God is with us." God sent His son Jesus to deliver us from the bondage that we put ourselves in with our sin. Jesus came into the world and the disciples of Jesus initially had a framework of understanding that Jesus would deliver them from Roman oppression and captivity. But God's idea of Emmanuel was so much bigger, and better, than what we were thinking.

God sent Jesus as being a carnate version of Himself--God. With. Us. Dwelt among us. Made Himself us.

And as Christians we tend to really like that. I want to live there with my faith. I want God to experience what I experience. I want Him to be my buddy, my friend, to live on my playing field. I want God to be really close to me, not just some deity up in heaven, but actually present--right here, right now.

But God had a plan. A plan that would be even better than what I could possibly expect.

Jesus said to His disciples in John 16:7-ff
"It is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I go, I will send Him to you. ...13 But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth; for He will not speak on His own initiative, but whatever He hears, He will speak; and He will disclose to you what is to come.

So while it was nice to have Jesus here on this earth, God had an even better plan: "God in us." The Holy Spirit lives inside us in such a way that we don't just have proximity to God in flesh, but that we actually are living, breathing, moving things that have God inside of us!

So now we have unlimited access to God through Jesus' sacrifice and through the presence of the Holy Spirit. It is a different version of the Garden of Eden--where God can live with us and in us.

God For Us.
God With Us.
God In Us.

How cool is that?

Comments

  1. UnknownMarch 2, 2016 at 2:56 PM

    John16:7-15 gives me goosebumps. It reminds me of something I heard, "my God don't play."

    Matt (with gnomes)

    ReplyDelete

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