Does Christ Already Live in Me?

Between the before and the after

Before Christ, promise. In Christ, reconciliation. After Christ, dwelling.

Before Jesus Christ, there was promise.

After Christ, there is fulfillment.

But between the before and the after there is Christ.

And perhaps many still have not noticed this.

Christ did not come only to change history. He came to restore in man what was lost.

Because he himself said that he came to seek and to save what was lost.

And what was lost was not only man.

It was communion with the Father.

The purpose of Christ was not only to forgive us, but to restore in us that lost communion.

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In the parable of the prodigal son, the Father reveals something profound:

This son of mine was lost and is found; he was dead and has come to life again.

The son had not ceased to exist.

But he was separated from the life of the house.

This is the human condition without God.

Salvation is not only going to heaven.

It is the life of the Son being restored in us.

That is why the new birth is so central.

Christ is the Son of the living God.

And to those who receive him, God gives the right to become children of God.

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And here is the revealed mystery, proclaimed by the apostle Paul:

Christ in us.

Not only Christ revealed in Jesus.

But Christ being formed in us.

Because “the Lord is the Spirit.”

And where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.

But the struggle continues.

Just as Jesus Christ was led into the desert and faced temptation, we also experience this tension between the Spirit and the flesh.

This formation does not happen without confrontation.

That is why Paul says he suffers birth pains until Christ is formed in us.

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And then he reveals the center of everything:

Christ in us, the hope of glory.

Glory is God manifesting himself in this world through ordinary human beings, born again and guided by the Holy Spirit.

And through this same Spirit we have access to the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

Because the Spirit searches all things, even the depths of God.

The temple that God always wanted to dwell in is not made by human hands.

It is the heart of the one who has been born again.

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The question, then, is no longer only:

Did Christ come?

And it becomes:

Does Christ already live in me?

Because Christ is the expression of God's grace and of his love, revealed in us through the communion of the Holy Spirit.

And where Christ lives, something of his character begins to appear in us.

And where Christ lives, love is manifested.

Love bears all things,
believes all things,
hopes all things,
endures all things.

Love never fails.

Because love remains forever.

And whoever remains in love remains in God, and God in him.

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Bible references: Luke 19:10; Luke 15:24; John 1:12; 2 Corinthians 3:17; Galatians 4:19; Colossians 2:2-3; Colossians 1:27; 1 Corinthians 2:10; 1 Corinthians 13:7-8; 1 John 4:16.

If death is separation from the life of God, then salvation is the restoration of that life in us.
Read also: “Eternal death: what does it really mean?”