God Is Personally Present

November 4, 2016

God Is Personally Present

Be thankful in all circumstances,

for this is God’s will for you who belong to Christ Jesus.

1 Thessalonians 5:18

The middle portions of Chapter 5, verses 12-22, are an affirmation of the very high standards of moral and ethical behavior in the Christian life. Verses 16-22 especially are like a teacher’s aide in helping students learn the Christian way of life. (Like I before E except after C.) These Biblical standards for how we live our lives are both very important and also dangerous.

As I noted yesterday, the basic Christian Creed is, Christ died for us and rose again. What exactly does this mean in our daily lives? Another creed is in 2 Corinthians 5:17, “This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun! What does this mean that we have become a new person, that the old life is gone; a new life has begun? In this portion of 1 Thessalonians 5 (and in many other places) Paul tells us: honor those who are your leaders, live peacefully with each other, warn those who are lazy, encourage those who are timid, take tender care of those who are weak, be patient with everyone, don’t pay back evil for evil, always try to do good, always be joyful, never stop praying, be thankful in all circumstances, do not stifle the Holy Spirit, hold on to what is good and stay away from every kind of evil. Whew!

Paul gives us a peek into what it looks like when we are living our life in Christ Jesus. The danger is that we will turn this into a check-list of our moral progress and then yield to the temptation to compare our lives to others. When we do, we miss life in Christ, which has a very whimsical, humble nature at its core. So while you rightfully pay close attention to Paul’s list, be sure you also pay very close attention to this:

In our new life in Christ, we realize that “God is a living, personal presence, not a piece of chiseled stone. And when God is personally present, a living Spirit, that old, constricting legislation is recognized as obsolete. We’re free of it! All of us! Nothing between us and God, our faces shining with the brightness of his face. And so we are transfigured much like the Messiah, our lives gradually becoming brighter and more beautiful as God enters our lives and we become like him.”

2 Corinthians 3:16-18 MSG

Sē’lah

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(Selah is a word that appears in the Book of Psalms that I often use as the Complimentary Closing in my correspondence. Its meaning, as I use the word, is to pause and think about these things.)

These meditations are written by Alex M. Knight as he seeks the life in Christ as his way of life.  The meditations are published on the BLOG, http://seekingthelifeinchrist.blogspot.com/ and they are also distributed on the Constant Contact email server. You may subscribe to this email service by sending an email to: amkrom812@gmail.com. The BLOG is also available on Amazon Kindle, by subscription.

Publications by Alex M. Knight:

·        Seeking the Life in Christ, Meditations on the New Testament and Psalms has been published and is now available at Amazon.com in paperback and Kindle.

·        The second edition of  First Think – Then Pray is available on Amazon Kindle.

·        Meditations on The Story of My Life as told by Jesus Christ has been released as an e-book on Amazon Kindle.

Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.