Colossians 1:27
Jesus desires to be even closer to us than a brother or a friend. He is not only the God who is above us and the God who has come among us; he is also the God who desires to dwell within us. This is the fact that the apostle Paul described in Colossians 1:27 as “the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.” It is the wonder he describes in Galatians 2:20 when he says, “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.”
This is the mystery we were made to contain: the very life of Jesus. He means to live out the reality of who he is right here within the reality of who we are. He means to be our lives – the breath in our lungs, the thoughts in our heads, the energy and creativity in our jobs, the love in our hearts. He means to take on the stress and unravel the inner complications so that we can move through our lives just as he did, in gentleness and simplicity and harmony.
We were never intended to be more than containers: temples to contain his glory (1Corinthians 3:16-17), branches to contain the sap of his life (John 15:1-8), vessels to contain the new wine of his Spirit (Romans 9:20-21). We are the glove; he is the hand. We are the cup; he is the coffee. We are the lamp; he is the light.
This is what we were made for. This is the intended purpose of the human person and personality; not to be gods, but to contain God. This is the kind of unity that was present in the garden but that is sadly missing in this world. It is the sheer simplicity of God’s design that was shattered by humanity’s sin. And it is the reason that Jesus came and cared and was tortured and killed and laid in a tomb and raised to life again …… so that he could give us another shot at being what we were intended to be. christasus.com
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