LIVING WATERS
For the proclamation of the Gospel and the edification of the Body of Christ
A New Indweller
"But Christ as a son over his own house, whose house we are..." (Hebrews 3:6).
The appearance of a house is the expression of the one who dwells in it. Its furnishings, arrangement, cleanliness and arrangement, all express its inhabitant. When we were in the passions of sin, we expressed the one who dwelt in us: sin. "For I do not do the good that I will, but the evil that I will not, that I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me" (Rom. 7:19-20). Our house showed all our misery. "Wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from this body of death?" (Rom. 7:24).
Our body manifested in everything how miserable we were. But one day the Lord brought us out of the miry clay, out of a pit of perdition, set our feet upon a rock, washed us with clean water (Ezek. 36:25), and cleansed the house. He swept it and adorned it to be the habitation of His Spirit. "But when the goodness of God our Savior and his love toward men appeared, he saved us, not by works of righteousness which we had done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration and renewing in the Holy Spirit" (Titus 3:4-5).
Now it is no longer I who live, but Christ who dwells in me. This house is now being transformed, and will increasingly express its character, its freedom, its will, its holiness, its life. "For the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord" (2 Cor. 3:17-18).
Now this house has a new Dweller. We are no longer in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if the Spirit of God dwells in us (Rom. 8:9). If Christ lives in us, this new indweller will transform his dwelling place, and, in fact, he has already begun to express his character through it. We are no longer in darkness. This new Indweller brought light into his house, and treasure. "For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. But we have this treasure in earthen vessels..." (2 Cor. 4:6-7).
What should be clear to us is that our body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, and that it was bought with a high price, that it might be a place of glory and not of sin. "Or do you not know that our body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, which is in you, which you have of God, and that you are not your own? For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's" (1 Cor. 6:19-20).
This body now no longer belongs to us, it belongs to the Lord (1 Cor. 6:13). The Lord is now, not a guest, but the new Indweller; not a temporary, but an eternal indweller. "In whom ye also are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit" (Eph. 2:22).