by Jim Gordon
The institution of marriage is such a great comparison to life with God. I think we often miss some good points about marriage that directly relates to life with God. To many times we do not associate marriage with Kingdom meanings.
Actually, marriage is a shadow of spiritual things. In Ephesians 5 it relates marriage to the church when it reads, this mystery is great; but I am speaking with reference to Christ and the church. The church here is not a building nor an organization. The Church that is mentioned are the people who follows Jesus. It is not a weekly meeting; it is a living organism made up of those of us saved by grace.
One of the things I have been thinking about recently is how we are one with God. It is hard to imagine that God lives within us. Jesus said when he left the earth, he would send us another comforter. Through his Spirit, Jesus came to live within us and is constantly with us.
We always think of God as sitting on a big throne, way off in heaven somewhere and that one of these days we will go and live with God forever.
The thing is, that is not what the written word tells us. We are the temple of the Holy Spirit, God’s physical dwelling place on earth. God’s Spirit dwells within us and will never leave us nor forsake us.
Now it is not saying we are God, but we are one with God. The best way I have found to make sense of this is to think of marriage. When two individual people, whether straight or gay, fall in love, make a commitment to love each other and live together, the bible says the two shall become one.
Does that mean that the spouse becomes their partner, that they somehow become the same person? No, both people remain individuals, yet they live as one. Same with us and God. We are still the person God created, yet because God loves us and we love God, the Spirit lives within us and we become one with God.
In John 17:21 Jesus is talking with God and says, ‘that they may all be one, even as You are in Me and I in You, that they also may be in Us, so that the world may believe that You sent Me’. Seems to me it is truly a marriage made in heaven.
We do not have to wait to a future time when we live with God in some far-away place. We are living as one with God in the Kingdom right now. We are the temple of the Holy Spirit, we are the dwelling place of God, and each of us are equally important parts of the body of Christ.
Jim Gordon and his wife left the institutional church after spending over fifty years within the system. Jim wanted a way to express his thoughts and concerns about the religious system and why he and his wife decided to leave the institution but not their faith in God. Jim can be contacted by email at: jimgordon731@gmail.com
Done with Religion 