The Faith Security of God's Indwelling Within Us!

Verses to remind us how to let God dwell within us.

Revelation 21:10, 22-22:5

21:10 And in the spirit he carried me away to a great, high mountain and showed me the holy city Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God.

21:22 I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb.

21:23 And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God is its light, and its lamp is the Lamb.

21:24 The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it.

21:25 Its gates will never be shut by day--and there will be no night there.

21:26 People will bring into it the glory and the honor of the nations.

21:27 But nothing unclean will enter it, nor anyone who practices abomination or falsehood, but only those who are written in the Lamb's book of life.

22:1 Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb

22:2 through the middle of the street of the city. On either side of the river is the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, producing its fruit each month; and the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations.

22:3 Nothing accursed will be found there any more. But the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him;

22:4 they will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads.

22:5 And there will be no more night; they need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever.

John 14:23-29

14:23 Jesus answered him, "Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them.

14:24 Whoever does not love me does not keep my words; and the word that you hear is not mine, but is from the Father who sent me.

14:25 "I have said these things to you while I am still with you.

14:26 But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach

you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you.

14:27 Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.

14:28 You heard me say to you, 'I am going away, and I am coming to you.' If you loved me, you would rejoice that I am going to the Father, because the Father is greater than I.

14:29 And now I have told you this before it occurs, so that when it does occur, you may believe.

So it has been predicted for us by our Lord Jesus exactly how we shall possess God within us under the condition that we KEEP THE WORD OF JESUS.

And so in Matthew 16:24-25 we are reminded how ".. Jesus said to his disciples: If any of you want to be my followers, you must forget about yourself. You must take up your cross and follow me. If you want to save your life you will destroy it. But if you give up your life for me you will find it."

For indeed, it is has been revealed to us his becoming the "Lamb of God" by which mankind is saved, and with whom the believing people of God is united in participating lamb-like sacrificial atonement to the Father.

The conversion, or purity of heart becoming a reality in, us, believing men and women by virtue of Christ’s own baptismal lamb sacrificing of himself to the Father as ransom to redeem mankind. This is and will be a process of our continuing individual conversions in each and every one of us, men and women born again in Christ, as we journey precisely as a people of God or of the Church.

Now to be truthful is to be faithful, is not to be fake. Not only in words but more so in deeds, does a truthful individual come true. Thus, the utmost manifestation of the Truth of Christ in us is the realization of his commandment of love. Only if we love is salvation successfully preached to the world, to mankind.

It is equally the manifestation of the Truth of Jesus Christ that he precisely came down from heaven so heaven will not appear so remote and unreachable. He came that we may have life, and live a life abundantly. Incarnation essentially means God within our reach.

Only through Jesus, and through no one else, and certainly through no individual effort could we live our life with meaning.

Mark, however, that in the journey, while living the life of obedience to the Commandments of God, specifically of the New Covenant, believers and converts of Christ will encounter tests of their faith and conversion. They shall be faced with, and suffer persecutions from unbelievers and non-believers of the world, who at times, per the Evil One, will seem to lord it over Christian populace of the world. In the process, as it had occurred in the past, Christians will be asked of martyrdom: sacrificial witnessing of fidelity to the faith as brought upon them by persecutors . The word martyr comes from martyrion, which essentially means witness. Martyrs testify to the truth. This integrity and the reality of our faith as believers invokes within us the Spirit prompting, which dares us precisely the truthful honesty to realize we are no Christians unless we testify in all fortitude to the faith, to the truth, or for instance, to open protesting against injustice. Christ, whether seen as the new human, or as the Goodness/Word from the Father, must be borne witness to even for dear life. For the Christian truth is never negotiable; it must be upheld absolutely.

The way to become his follower, as we initially noted, is to deny ourselves, take up our cross daily, and to do actually follow him. At Mass, which is the same Calvary Sacrifice of Jesus, which is the essential Cross he has asked us to take up, carry, and embrace; the Lord ever reminds us with the words: Do this in commemoration of me Do what? Do exactly what he did as formulated in the Consecration Words: to say with Christ with reference to our own body and blood, This is my body which I am prepared like Christ to get broken up for my neighbor; and this is my blood, which I am prepared like Christ to shed also for my neighbor in the name of love.

The acts of self denial and self surrender along with their acts of the total choosing of God or of God’s will are genuine definitions of the so-called human freedom. TO BE ALIVE IS TO LIVE ONLY BY THE GRACE OF GOD. But to live by grace is to live renouncing each moment, and each day our human sinfulness. And as God is the source and the empower-er of grace, God will fail NOBODY that asks for grace. And no matter what type of hardship or cross we bear God will supply the grace we need to bear our sacrificial atoning and personal purifying suffering in Christ for our relief and only true joy, and for the glorification of God. We are to go through inescapable pain, hurting, and anguish; but we are assured to come out of them relieved, refreshed, and re-strengthened, and persevering. And if God allows it, for some they are even to be rewarded with glorious temporal love union with God while even yet on earth.

This most perfect uniting with Jesus in his suffering consists the meaning of freedom. When we have Jesus, we have freedom. We shall cease to rebel. We shall accept and embrace everything the Lord has deigned for us. And in the process we shall only choose according as it were we are Jesus himself making the choice. It is freedom precisely because when we have Jesus or his grace we are freed from the effect of sinful concupiscence. This makes our choice or our act of choosing true liberty, i.e. our act is righteous.

And so we can recap this welcoming and embracing of the indwelling of God within us, which is our same call to holiness, as in effect the call to the participation in Christ’s Priesthood, Prophecy, and Royal servitude or Pastor union with God’s believing flock. To become holy consists in this participation at Christ’s atoning sacrifice to the Father, Christ’s evangelizing call to spread God’s revelations, and Christ’s fulfilling uniting within the Body of Christ of together being brought back to the peace and glory of the Father. But three things comprise the essence of the life of grace: God's revelation, sacrament, and Christ's sacrifice. For us to enjoy, manifest, and be initially enabled with this life of grace, we must listen to God's words, receive his presence within us sacramentally, and unite with God's Son's lamb-like sacrificing of ourselves together with Jesus.

Hence salvation is done; and the result is man’s renewed opportunity and retrieved state of living the life of Christ, which we call the life in grace. With this event God eventually fulfilled his promise of re-establishing covenant with man; thus ushering in the Age of the New Covenant. John writes, "And so if we have God’s Son, we have this life.

Christ said such revelations, like the above phrases from Scriptures, are precisely only understandable to whom God has chosen to understand them. He declared, "What you have hidden from the learned and the clever you have revealed to the lowliest children." Jesus clearly said here that the wisdom by way of education and the resources of wealth is by no means the medium to knowing God and his secret ways. Rather it has been the sole disposition of God and his Son that it be made known to whom God and his Son have chosen to know God and about God.