Why settle for a visit, If God came to stay.

We spend enormous amounts of time and energy and even large sums of money to try and "track" God. We try to find the latest formula to get God's attention to come and give us a visit. Some will ask; "Where is He now...we cannot afford to miss Him." We are zealously pursueing another touch, move or wave of God. I continue meeting precious people and believers trying so hard to get God's attention in order that they may experience Him in all His fullness. When I sit in this kind of talk I somehow can't help getting a picture of a God that seems very reluctant to meet and have fellowship with His children. In my heart I know this is not true, nothing can be more further from the truth.

Am I asking the wrong question or can it be that we are failing to interpret what God said in Christ?
Personally I think it is the latter. We read in the book of Hebrews in the first few verses of chapter one that God spoke in many various ways but in these last days communicated to us through His son, Jesus Christ. Jesus is the voice of God concerning us. All God ever wanted to communicate to us, He said in His son. Yes, you heard right, ALL God ever wanted to say, He said in His Son. Jesus was the exact and complete expression of the Father. The Bible is all about Jesus and Jesus is all about you. When you see Jesus, you see the mirror of your own life reflected in Him. 2 Cor3:18, James1:22-25. "...As He is, so are we in this world..." 1John4:17-19

Rom10:2 For I bear them record that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge.
Rom10:3 For they being ignorant of God's righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God.

Paul is addressing a people who sincerley wish to encounter their God. They are full of the zeal for God, but fail to interpret with understanding the zeal of God. They did not submit themselves to God's achievement in Christ on their behalf. God's zeal produced their righteousness but they were still trying to achieve it on their own.

Religion can be best described as mans attempt to please His Maker or get His attention. It's man made, it has performance written all over it. How you should pray, worship, act, do etc, that will somehow convince God to pay you a visit. Look at what Paul has to say to the religious people of the day.

Acts17: 22 Then Paul stood in the midst of Mars' hill, and said, Ye men of Athens, I perceive that in all things ye are too superstitious. ( very riligious)
Acts 17: 23 For as I passed by, and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription, TO THE UNKNOWN GOD. Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you.
Acts17: 24 God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands;

While religion is man's attempt to somehow get a hold of God, the gospel is the revelation of God's achievement in Christ Jesus to get a hold of you. When He came, He held nothing back but gave His best. All God's favour (acceptance of you) was displayed while you were yet sinners. "For God so loved the world that He gave....Christ died for us while we were yet sinners" It is in complete contrast to the religious spirit that is rampant in the church today. It is time to awake to His favour and to see yourself as He sees you. The veil was torn from top to bottom, so He can live and move in you. Rom5:8: John3:16 God is far more eager to meet with us and to share himself with us than all our best attempts to somehow reach Him.

Lets see what the Word says:
Acts17: 27 That they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him, though he be not far from every one of us:
Acts17: 28 For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring.
Acts17: 29 Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man's device.
Acts17: 30And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men every where to repent:

Gal2: 20 I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.
1 Cor6:19 What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?
1Cor6:20 For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's.

If He lives in us why do we keep on asking Him to come and visit us?
This gospel reveals the nearness of God. The mystery has been revealed, Christ is in you. (Col1:26,27) He is in you!

If Christ in you is not enough, what will be?
Let me assure you , He alone is more than enough. We simply allowed the enemy to fool us into waiting for another visit or move from God, when God waits to move through our lives in His power and glory. We are in for a long wait, if we continue to preach man's gospel (mans's effort) and not Christ and Him crucified (God's achievement). We have become so entangled with ourselves and preaching human experience, appealing to the intellect of man, that the simple truth of the gospel no longer appeals to our ears.

2 Cor11:3 But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.

Eve aspired to become something she already was. She grew dim in her appreciation of her identity. She carried His likeness and image. She was more than a "meat box". The most truth inspiring revelation that ever flooded my spirit was the realisation that all of God indwells in me. Of His fullness have we all received, grace upon grace. We are His dwelling place. Daily He desires to move and touch people through us. He refuse to live in homes made with hands, you are the only one who can accurately display Him in the earth. You carry His image and likeness.

While religion wants to get a hold of Him, the gospel reveals how God got a hold of us. He came to stay and abide. He desired zion as His dwelling place. (Psalm 132:13) God cannot get any closer to us than what He already is. Our ignorance of this truth does not nullify the nearness of His presence. We need to arm our thoughts with this truth. Awake and become aware of what treasue you carry within you daily.

Refuse to accommodate distance between you and God, let it be the focus of your life.
John15: 5 I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. We are united with Him.

I grew-up surrounded by vineyards in Cape Town, South Africa. I noticed the sap that flow through the vine is the same sap that flow through the branches. The branches (that's us) carry the fruit that brings glory to the Father.

Col3: 16 Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord. He is in you! He is your identity!
1Cor6: 15 Know ye not that your bodies are the members of Christ? shall I then take the members of Christ, and make them the members of an harlot? God forbid.

I Am, that I Am is in you. Emmanual, Our God is with us. We are God containers!

I believe a greater awareness of this truth will result in an amazing demonstration of His manifest presence in our lives. Walk with a consciousness of His indwelling presence, you may just find yourself to be the next wave and move of God, you were waiting for.