Always There

I want to make you think a bit today because isn’t that everyone’s favourite thing to do before the weekend?? It is super important though as it is about one of the basic and foundational beliefs in the Christian faith, so I hope you can hang in there with me!

I am talking about the belief that when you choose to accept that you are in desperate need of a Savior and you take God’s gift of grace Jesus comes to live inside of you, He becomes a part of your very being. From that moment on He is ALWAYS with you, there is never a time when He will leave you. Doesn’t that sound pretty amazing?! But do we really live our lives like Christ is always, at all times, on all occasions, without exception, there? We are going to take a minute and really think about what that means but first I am going to get a bit personal with you guys.

I have been struggling these past few months with that feeling of dullness. Can any of you relate to that? You know when you take a moment to reflect on yourself and it just feels so…blah. It is like my faith just hasn’t felt as exciting or as intimate as it has in the past. So my first response is to of course ask God, “What is happening here? Why aren’t you speaking to me clearly? Why am I not using my gifts as much? Why does it feel like you have left me to be on my own?” As you can probably tell in those questions I was automatically thinking this was God somehow ignoring me. That maybe this was a season in my life where God was using tough love to teach me something. Now I hope you don’t misunderstand what I am saying. Faith in Christ is definitely a journey and it doesn’t always look or feel the same from year to year. In fact to an extent it should be changing and evolving as we learn and continue to grow in Him but it should always be full of life. In my case I was putting the blame of my feelings of dullness on God instead of looking at myself. What I was failing to remember is the simple fact that Christ is always with me. God wasn’t ignoring me at all, actually it was quite the opposite, I was choosing to ignore His constant presence.

I think that this is a common occurrence with believers in the church today. We want to accept the love and grace of God so we do so whole-heartedly and the fact that Jesus lives in us seems like a pretty nice bonus. But somewhere along the way He gets put on the shelf, we get busy with daily life and only take Him down when we are in trouble or in need of some comfort but majority of the time He just collects dust on the shelf. Why do we do this to the Creator of the universe when He so desperately wants to work in and through us on a daily basis?

I am not exactly sure on the “why” but what I do want to focus on is the “what” and “how.” So what does it mean and look like to live as though Christ is always there and how do we become more aware of his presence? This is a huge question that can really change your entire outlook on your relationship with Christ! The good news is we have a whole book that was written to help us figure this out. I am definitely going to be digging into my bible more and I encourage you to do the same. The book of Matthew is a great place to start. My desire in writing this post was definitely to challenge you a bit but also to bring you joy, peace and hope because Jesus is and will always be there! So let’s take comfort in that but also shake things up with our daily lives; remember Jesus was a radical when He lived on earth and now He lives in you!

“And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age” Matthew 28:20

“Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s spirit dwells in you?” 1 Corinthians 3:16

“That according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith” Ephesians 3:16-17