By Jon Walker
To them God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. Colossians 1:27 (NIV)
While moving through the line at a college cafeteria, one of my friends spotted a note stuck in a bowl of apples. It read, “Please take only one apple per student. Remember, God is watching!”
When my friend, one apple in hand, got to the end of the line, he spotted another note – this one hand-written – next to a bowl of cookies. It read, “Take all the cookies you want! God is watching the apples.”
It’s a comic absurdity, the way we behave as if God can be compartmentalized, believing there are parts of our lives that remain separated from God’s omnipresent Spirit.
And this belief, and the resulting behavior, is contrary to the Gospel. The brutal and bloody death of Jesus accomplished more than just paying the wages of our sin; his death also released the Holy Spirit to dwell within us, so we could be transformed into masterworks of Jesus.
You are united with Christ, he is in you – Jesus-in-you – allowing you to participate in the Divine nature (Colossians 1:27; 2 Peter 1:3-4). This doesn’t mean you become divine, or that you access some mythological inner divinity; rather, it means you’re now connected with the Divine nature through the work of Jesus Christ, who came that you can now have the life of God in you, so full it overflows into the lives of others (John 10:10; John 4:14).
If you’d like to receive these devotionals regularly, you can sign-up at www.gracecreates.com/subscribe/. Jon Walker writes from www.gracecreates.com. He is a Zondervan author, and the former writer/editor of the Purpose Driven Life On-Line Devotionals. This devotional is copyrighted 2008 by Jon Walker. Used by permission.