Spiritual Direction
“Making our home in Christ” can feel like a crazy concept in our hi-tech world. But it didn’t during most of history. Our culture is biased against anything that cannot be measured. Mystery, beauty, truth, and belonging cannot be calibrated. In Google’s world of everything binary, “ambiguity is not an opening for insight, but a bug to be fixed.”[1] Don’t be intimidated: mystery and technology can share the same playground. Give yourself a lifetime to ponder, wrestle with, and embrace the mystery of Christ. If it’s real, it will have a life of its own.
Exploring
What does Jesus’ invitation mean? The Greek grammar suggests: “Let there be mutual indwelling.”[2] The tense of the verb (when the action takes place) tells us that “Make your home” is not just a single or repeated action, but a way of being.
In the New Testament, the Greek word menó is translated as remain, abide, stay, dwell. In the Gospels, it frequently refers to where a person makes their home. For example:
And He said to them, “Wherever you enter a house, stay there . . .” (Mark 6:10)
Stay in that house, eating and drinking what they provide . . . (Luke 10:7)
“Zaccheus, hurry and come down, for today I must stay at your house.” (Luke 19:5)
Now the slave does not remain in the house forever . . . (John 8:35)
Making our home in Christ means establishing our life in him, just as he does in us. Thus Paul writes, “it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me.”[3]
Question
What are some reasons why you might not want to embrace this kind of relationship? Keep it real. And write it down. Ask God to help you understand your heart.
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Nicolas Carr, The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains (2011), 172.
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C.K. Barrett, The Gospel According to St. John: Commentary and Notes on the Greek Text (1955), 396.
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Galatians 2:20. See also, 1 Corinthians 2:16—”But we have the mind of Christ.”