In and Within 2 One Step-Three Steps

[HKHaugan]

Where do we start in the ‘In and Within’ theme?  The first step within is always prayer.  We go before our Father and wait on His wisdom.  He is the starting place and the Lord Jesus is His voice. “And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you (Mt.6:5-6).”  Note the three steps Jesus has given us.  First, go into your room.  Second, close the door.  Third, pray to your Father who is unseen.  Let’s move through these on our way to the Father‘s presence.

 

First, go into your room.

 

What is ‘your room?’  Taking his cue from the Old Testament concept of the Temple Paul sees it as an analogy, a foreshadowing, of what Jesus does in the New Testament.  He lays the groundwork for us to see our body as the temple of the Spirit (1Cor.6:19).  When Jesus chases the animals and the moneychangers out of the Temple in Jerusalem check His words (John 2:13-16).  They become the lead-in for each of us to go into the room within. He reprimands the callous disregard of God’s house in making it a ‘den of thieves.’  Has not our heart, our mind and spirit been robbed of the consciousness of God and filled with spirits of pride, fear and whatever other spirit sin entertains? 

 

Paul’s further reference was Scripture. Consider as an example Nehemiah 13:9, “I gave orders to purify the rooms, and then I put back into them the equipment of the house of God, with the grain offerings and the incense.”  The key here is submission to the Spirit who clears the inner unseen rooms in our body, our mind, our heart and our spirit through forgiveness as we repent.  We humble ourselves ready to listen to what His Spirit leads us to grasp from His Word.  Paul tells us in Romans 12 to be transformed by the renewal of our minds, in Ephesians 1 to open the eyes of our hearts and throughout his epistles to let faith guide our spirit. 

 

The rooms within are the mind, the heart and the spirit---the image of God. The Holy Spirit moves within us, if we allow Him, to cancel the power of sin as we let Him expose the spirits that have lodged their wares, those being the strongholds that block the Lord from being the Savior and Lord of each.  Go back to Nehemiah for a second.  After he ordered the rooms to be purified “he put back into them the equipment of the house of God.” 

 

What is that equipment now that we are in Christ?  The first is the Word of God.  It is the fountain from which the water of the Spirit nourishes the mind, the heart and the spirit.  The second arises from the first, choice.  It’s the choice, His relational gift, to open the doors of belief for our mind, trust for our heart and faith for our spirit to act.  These are the will of the Father who tells us to listen to Jesus (Mt.17:5) and all that He says and does.  Choice opens us to receive Jesus who opens us to the touch of the Spirit who in turn takes each word from the Word and clears the underbrush sin has planted.  Think of the Word as a bulldozer whose headlights are exposing the heavy growth making a path through it and then the Holy Spirit replanting the empty ground with the seeds of belief, trust and faith. 

 

But it doesn’t stop there.  The equipment that follows the bulldozing and planting begins with being made functioning members of the Body of Christ, the family of God.   As relational images of God we receive the cultivating tools of worship, discipleship, ministry and mission.  We have been given meaning and purpose.  We are given spiritual gifts to minister in the Body and the power to be witnesses for Jesus in the world to reconcile that part of the world we live in.  All the equipment we have been given has a common two-fold purpose, build the Body of Christ and spread the Kingdom of God. 

 

But the important thing for us now is to see that the work of God begins ‘in and within’ so that we can go ‘out and about.’  We have to allow Him to refurbish the inner rooms. 

 

As I write this I am looking out at a mountain ridge bathed in the morning sunrise with a clear sky as the background for a quilt of shimmering Fall colors on a crisp October morning. The hand of God is bringing beauty to the inevitable Winter with its cold and darkness.  Even as that happens the seeds of new growth and freshened experience lay in the arms of nature’s death to be overcome in the Spring’s blossoming hope.  Even the seasons reflect the truth of eternal life in the resurrected Jesus and the constant reminder that our future rests in the eternal God and His personal presence in the rooms of our mind, heart and spirit.

 

We will continue our journey into the rooms in this series of ‘In and Within.’