For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved (John 3:16-17). And we have known and believed the love that God has for us. God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him (1 John 4:16). There is a dual abiding; us in Him and Him in us. God loved the world and sent His Son to us, not to condemn but to save. That salvation sent from God abides in us and we abide in salvation. God is an inside out and an outside in relationship. God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us (Romans 5:8). Before He dwelt in us, He did an outside in work on the cross – from His heart to ours. Him is us is the individual relationship with God; us in Him is the relationship with the full body.

For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, “Abba, Father” (Romans 8:14-15). Those who abide in the Spirit of God, in His love, are the sons of God. Our adoption as sons is though our willingness to be led by God’s Spirit. All the laws and the prophets rest on two things, and both of them are love; to love God and to love one another (our neighbor). It is in the following of the commandment of Jesus Christ to love that we are being led by the Spirit of God. The Spirit we receive (the indwelling) is the Spirit of adoption that calls on God, not in fear, but with a term of affectionate relationship, “Abba, Father.” The manifestation of that relationship is the love we have towards one another. God sent His love from the outside in, to dwell in us, so it would flow from the inside out. It is the drinking in of the everlasting water that causes the water to come up in us like a flowing river. God sent His love, so we can love.

© 2011, Tim D. Coulter Sr.