AT HOME WITH GOD

AT HOME WITH GOD

John 14:23

When I was a little boy my parents were song evangelists. We literally lived out of suitcases, on the road at least 36 weeks a year. Our "home" was simply the address of an aunt and uncle in Lansing, Michigan.
I guess I didn't think of traveling all the time as strange because it was the only life I knew. I think I felt sorry for other kids who didn't get to see new things all the time. But at the same time I looked with great longing at houses, homes, permanent places to live. How I looked forward to coming back to Lansing to be with aunts and uncles and cousins by the dozens! How I valued that aunt and uncle's home!
Still I think I learned something very early in my life that applies to this scripture lesson today. It is good-- best perhaps-- to have a sense of place and permanence. But being "at home" finally is a people matter. When we did not have any permanent house whatsoever when I was with father and mother I was "at home." Their security was my security. Their peace was my peace. Occasionally, their discontent was mine, too-- for while they were people of integrity they weren't perfect.
That first lesson, then, was where the people you love and trust are-- _there_ is home, at least in the sense of security for the child.
Later, when circumstances made it necessary for my parents to leave the itinerant ministry, our first-ever house of our own was a bungalow at 610 South Magnolia in Lansing-- you know-- two blocks over from Hayford Street. I had a room that was mine, and I slept in the same bed every night, and could have my own closet and my own pictures on the wall. It was far from heaven. But there I had my family, and I had a sense of permanence as well.
I know it is a stretch of imagination to apply this homely and personal understanding of what it means to be "at home" with God, but the facts somehow seem similar:
The reality is that we are not yet at home. [The choir has sung "I Feel Like Traveling On" because "This world is not my home, I'm just a-passing through..."] The promise of Jesus early on in this great passage is that in the place where he lives are many dwelling places, and that he has gone to prepare a place for us so we can be where he is permanently. The passage from Revelation is not so much descriptive, to my literary understanding, as suggestive of a glorious reality that transcends everything we know now.
But the reality also is that God Almighty, YHWH-- the Father, Son and Holy Spirit want to be "at home" with us while we travel towards home. This kind of being at home with God isn't the final word on glory or fulfillment or permanence. We are not yet what we are going to be. But if in fact God is wi-i-i-i-ith us!! as the choir sang last Sunday night and Tom Waltermire has been TRYING to sing all week-- if God is with us on the road, and we are at home in him-- then we need to make sure this has happened in a personal way in each of our lives.
"IF YOU LOVE ME," said Jesus,

"YOU WILL OBEY ME, AND THE FATHER WILL LOVE YOU, AND WE WILL COME TO YOU AND TAKE UP PERMANENT RESIDENCE IN YOU."
God not only WITH us-- God not only WATCHING OUT for us-- God not only SAVING US FROM SIN-- BUT GOD AT HOME IN US WHILE WE ARE ON THE WAY!

A WORKING DESCRIPTION OF WHAT WE CALL "HOLINESS!"
How do we go about making God at home in us??
Love is the key.
Love is not a feeling, but a centering, an act of will and covenant.
In the case of humans there is a submission to covenant.
In the case of divine-human relationship God is always right.
He accommodates our weakness but cannot compromise dishonesty or selfishness so he must be obeyed, but obeyed because of trust/love.
The everlasting "YEA" is the doorway to everything of significance in the kingdom of God. You know whether or not you have come to the place in your walk with God where you have deliberately said "yes!!!!YES!!! Y E S!!!!!" to God for time and for eternity!
That is the place where God moves in to make Himself at home.

Prayer: There is room in my heart for You, O Lord!

TRINITY SUNDAY

The Sunday after Pentecost is called Trinity Sunday, and marks the end/beginning of "special time" when we remember Christmas, Christ's COMING, and Easter, His victory of sin and death, and Pentecost, the Gift of the Holy Spirit to breathe life into the Church-- and of "ordinary time" when we celebrate the Book of Acts, and seek to let the Holy Spirit live through "ordinary people" and keep writing new chapters in that unfinished story.

Ordinary time indeed! The Holy Spirit is not for special occasions only!

Trinity! God in Three Persons! Blessed Mystery! Holy Wonder!

We SEEK after God (Hebrews 11:6) because faith pleases Him, and he is a Rewarder of those who seek!

We WANT TO BE LIKE JESUS (Ephesians 4:32) because that is how God wants us to be: kind, tenderhearted, forgiving, even as God in Jesus Christ has forgiven us!

We ASK TO BE PART OF THE MISSION of God (John 15:8) by bearing MUCH fruit, and so proving we are Christ's and glorifying the Father.

Father...Son...Holy Spirit... with us, in us, making us alive!

So how may we have this Pentecostal fullness?

We ask!

Luke 11:13 (Jesus said it:) If ye, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask ?

I believe that! I am asking right now! Will you join me?

O Father in heaven, please fill me again, just NOW, with your Holy Spirit, and use me this very day to tell someone You are GOOD, and that You love them! Amen.

Pentecost for Today, Now

What happened at that first Pentecost after the Resurrection? What really happened?

Acts 2 gives an account. Joel gave the prophecy years before. The Holy Spirit was given to rank and file believers.

Common people communicated to other common people in a way that could not be misunderstood. Everyone there heard the good news in their own language.

The essence of what happened then is not what we usually talk about. We know the story: sound of a tornado- tongues like fire on each person's head- speaking in foreign tongues- and we think that if only...

But the heart of Pentecost is the Holy Spirit filling praying people and then using them to let other people know they are welcome to join in the blessing.

The very same Holy Spirit-- is what Jesus promised the Father will give us if only we ask. Luke 11:13: If you being evil know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him.

We have Jesus' word on it!

This Sunday, May 11, is Pentecost Sunday. Will you join me in asking the Father to do it again? Fill your church, Father-- as YOU see fit-- in your way! Jesus promised! We ask! Amen