Living in Him and Jesus Living In Us

By Jack Chui

Over the last 2 nights I had been to church to support my cell group members with the events they were hosting for Gracefest. I was a bit reluctant to go as I thought I deserved a rest from serving the church on Sunday. In then end, I was glad I mustered the energy to walk to church and for a change be ministered to. I was especially impressed by last night when the Tuesday cell group that I normally lead went about organising a Bible study prepared by a priest from st Francis church all without getting me involved. It makes me proud that I've a group that can do things without me and I'm pretty sure priests feel the same way.

The Bible study last night reminded me about how the Bible could be taught and how rare an occasion we can get such a talented priest/teacher to help us to understand and appreciate the gospel. I think Kenny would come close if we have him 90 minutes but this priest has 40 years of experience over Kenny...

One story he gave is worth sharing and I hope I can remember it well enough to be able to convey it the I heard and understood it.

It was about the lines in Johns gospel where "we live in Him and I in him". Imagine you are outside Jesus house. He opens the door and invites you in to visit. It's a lovely place as you can imagine and Jesus shows you to His living room. You sit to talk to Jesus and while doing so you notice the pictures around the room. Jesus goes on to tell you about the people in the photos, His mother, family, cousins and friends. He then asks if you would like to look around the house. You say sure and Jesus starts to take you to the kitchen the dining area, and around to the many bedrooms in His mansion and there are many rooms in His father's house. Each is room is different and it amazes you that you are privileged to see this wonderful house. you spend the while day enjoying Jesus company and his home.

At the end of the day, just as you are leaving, Jesus says to you, "next week, how about I come to your place?". You politely refuse as your place is nothing compared to Jesus place and there so much to clean up it would be embarrassing. Jesus is gently insistent though and the feeling pressure to  return His hospitality eventually leads you to succumb and you tell Him the address of your house.

You return home and sigh and start to tidy up the place because there's a lot of work to do. Things are moved, furniture is put aside so you can give it a full clean as Jr hasn't had one for a while and you would be having around a most distinguished guest. You place the furniture back, lay out the small guest room in case Jesus wants to stay and rearrange everything nearly so that it looks orderly. Some things are a bit out of place and you don't them on show are gathering around different parts of the house and you're struggling to figure out what to do with them. There's not much time left before Jesus comes over and so you decide to just take them all and shove it one of the spare rooms. For safe measure you lock the door so  I one goes creeping in to find it.

You open the door for Jesus and you welcome him into your living room. There you chat, serving some of the bumble biscuits that you have and while the conversation is underway he looks around at the pictures in your living room. You proceed to share about the people in the photos and so Jesus gets to know your family and friends. Jesus asks if you can show him your home. Youre a bit hesitant and was hoping that Jesus would be happy just chatting in the living room but you don't have much of a choice anyway. So you show Jesus around to the kitchen and dining area. You show him all the humble bedrooms and he comments about how lovely they are. You walk past the spare room to show him the garage and bathroom. As you're both walking back down the hallway Jesus asks what's behind the door which you didn't open. You say there's nothing much in there, just some old junk. He's curious to have a look and asks you if he can see it. You say it's locked so we can't go in. Jesus says - but you have the key don't you? You try to find an excuse to say you can't find it but you can't put up lying to Jesus who's been only but nice and kind to you.

So you take out the key from your pocket and open the spare room door for Jesus. He walks in and looks around. Then he walks back to the door as you haven't followed him in and he says - if you hide all this darkness so that I can't get to it, how am I going to be able to bring light and love to this area of your life?

I thought it was a wonderful story that while not terribly well written, might speak to you.