In Sarah Young’s Jesus Calling, I came across a sentence that shot me out of my slippers.
Pause briefly from time to time so you can consult with this Holy One inside you.
What a stunning phrase. It jarred me to my core. I peel back the layers of meaning in this sentence to see the message. I can wrap my brain around the “Pause briefly from time to time so you can consult with” part. Pausing throughout my day to consult with God – prayer. I can shoot dagger prayers all day, most of the time I don’t even need to pause. I can do it on the fly. You too? Zing. Zing. Bullseye. But, the more I think about it, the more I think maybe I don’t get it. Pause. Halt. Standstill. Suspend.
Let’s look at the pause. We’re on our power walk and we have something to consult God about. Erch! Dear Lord… We’re walking down the hall at work, we stop dead in our tracks, utter a few words and then back to the frenzy. Hmmm? You know it may not be practical for us to pause on our powerwalk or in the hallway. But, what about mentally pausing throughout the day? Stopping all mind traffic for just a moment in time to concentrate on this Holy One?
Where I really got weak knees was the rest of the sentence. “this Holy One inside you.” Inside you. Think about that for a minute. “…this Holy One inside you.” Ahhhh! This makes me pull up. I repeat this phrase to myself over and over trying to zero in on why it makes me so weak kneed. Why does this phrase make me uncomfortable? Why is it troubling to me? Even though this phrase should be such a comfort – isn’t that what “they” say? You see, I know that this Holy One is inside of me, but what is so bothersome to me is that I also know what else lives inside of me and it doesn’t square. This Holy One inside of me is chilling, not because of who He is, but because of who I am.
This Holy One living inside us is none other than God the Father and Jesus the Son, His Spirit. I got sin and this Holy One is sinless and cannot look on sin. So, I must continually confess, clean and make room for this Holy One. Because I am a sinner does not mean that this Holy One does not live in me. But it does mean that I’m not giving Him all my heart space. My sin takes up part of that space. Getting rid of our sin makes more room for Him. Close your eyes and visualize that. What takes up more space in our hearts? Is there room enough for this Holy One or is He crowded out by sin?
But you are not controlled by your sinful nature. You are controlled by the Spirit if you have the Spirit of God living in you. (And remember that those who do not have the spirit of Christ living in them are not Christians at all.) Since Christ lives within you, even though your body will die because of sin, your spirit is alive because you have been made right with God. The Spirit of God, who raised Jesus from the dead, lives in you. And just as he raised Christ from the dead, he will give life to your mortal body by this same Spirit living within you. Romans 8:9-11
That word just had to come up, didn’t it? What we all lack and always want more of…control. We are all controlled by something. What controls me? My sinful nature or the Spirit living in me? The essence of who I was, or the essence of who He made me. Hmmm. I’d like to always say the latter, but that wouldn’t be true. Sometimes my sinful nature squeezes on the Spirit inside me. When I’m shooting off my mouth (I’m still working on that talking thing), this Holy One inside me is not evident to myself or others. I’m not being controlled by the Spirit living inside me.
Live, living, alive. The key to the verse. No less than six times are those words mentioned in those verses. Why is it important? To live means to dwell, to reside, to abide. This Holy One inside me. This Holy One dwelling in me. This Holy One residing in me. This Holy One abiding in me.
Folks who have accepted, confessed, and proclaimed Jesus as their Lord and Savior, Christians, are no longer controlled by the sinful nature. Maybe I should check with this Holy One inside me to be sure He has enough room, that my sin is not taking up His space.