According to 1 John 3:24, the Spirit has been given to us so that “we know Jesus lives in us.” But what does “Jesus living in us” mean, and why is it important?
The Greek word for “lives” in that verse is meno (may-no), meaning to “abide, dwell, reside in,” so Jesus living in us means he now resides and is always present in us, just as God was always present for the Israelites in the temple of old. And we’ve been given the Spirit to grasp that.
But why is it important for us to grasp? Because according to Hebrews 2, it’s why Jesus lives and resides in us. In verse 10, he lives to fulfill his Father’s plan to “bring many sons to glory,” which the Father made possible by “making Jesus, the author of their salvation perfect through suffering.” With that completed, Jesus is now “making us holy” like himself so that we can become members “of the same family” as he is, and he can then “call us brothers” (11).
But why did Jesus go through all that, just so we could be his brothers? Because, verse 12, he could then “declare his Father’s name to (us) his brothers.” And again in verse 12, that “in the presence of his brothers he could sing his Father’s praises.” In other words, Jesus wants to reside with, in, and among his brothers to reveal his Father to us – and he said so himself in John 17:6 and 26, that his great wish is to “make his Father known to us.”
How? Verse 26, by living in us the relationship he had as a human with his Father. His purpose being that we’d come to “know and rely on the love God has for us,” 1 John 4:16 – just as Jesus in his human life relied on his Father’s love for him (John 5:20). “I will put my trust in him,” Hebrews 2:13, is what characterized every moment of Jesus’ life, so that by living that same trust in his brothers, he could then say to his Father, “Here am I, and the children you have given me (who know and rely on your love, Father, just like I did).”
Jesus came as a human to live that life of trust in his Father’s love himself, in preparation for living it in us. Sharing his trust, then, is our proof that he lives in us. And we’ve been given the Holy Spirit so we truly know it.
Coming to understand that and believe it, therefore, depends very much on “The mind of the Spirit” at work in us….(next blog)
Buck To Basics 