Every time I preach, teach, or counsel, I ask this question at some point. Why did Jesus come to live inside you? Before you read further, how would you answer?
Most answers include truths such as: “To save us from our sins”; “To forgive us”; “To give us new life”; “So we could be born again”; ”To take us to heaven when we die”. While all of these are true, rarely does anyone tell me what I’m hoping they will say.
Jesus came to live in us to love us from the inside so that He could have an interactive relationship with us. How do we know this? There are a few reasons. God is love according to Scriptures like 1 John 4:16 – So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. Another reason is because of the prayer Paul prayed for the Ephesians in chapter 3 that we can also pray for ourselves and other people. 14 For this reason, I bow my knees before the Father, 15 from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name, 16 that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man, 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, 18 may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, 19 and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God.
Do you see what I’ve emphasized in this beautiful prayer? This prayer is for us to understand more than the fact that Christ lives in us. It’s a prayer for the Holy Spirit to strengthen us in such a way that we have a Spirit-given revelation of the reality that Christ is in us so we may know (experience) the greatness of the love of Christ who lives in us.
I asked the question to a pastor recently whom I was counseling, “Why did Christ come to live in you?” After he shared a few answers, I shared the above with him. He began to tear up as he softly responded, “I’ve never thought about that before.” He was deeply touched by the Spirit that Christ was living in him to love him.
Why don’t you thank Christ in you right now that He is there to love you every day?
If you want to understand this reality more, please ask for information on our Advanced Discipleship Training, where we take a deeper dive into this topic.
