Over the past few years, I’ve been uncovering a mysterious power. It is the power of in. For such a small word it has made a big difference in how I perceive my identity. This little word is so vast that I am still learning its reach.

Even this blog post will only skim the depths of what can be learned. Many, more knowledgeable than I, have gone to great lengths to study and explain this spiritual truth.

Let’s look at a few thought provoking scriptures:

And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you.

I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. Yet a little while and the world will see me no more, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you.

John 14:16-20 (ESV)

It was hard for me to pick from the many verses that show this relationship we can have with God, but in this verse it shows the wholeness of God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

On a side note, I had to stop and take the dog out. I asked myself, what do I want my reader to know? This is such an extensive topic, how am I going to condense it down into my brief style of writing?

Ha ha! It just clicked! I have to trust God in me!

Okay, back to the verses above. I want to point out a few things. Jesus says the Holy Spirit “dwells with you” (present) “and will be in you” (future). What Jesus goes on to say is “in that day…” I see that day depicted in Acts when Jesus appears to the disciples and breathes the Holy Spirit into them. I also see this in my own life the day I asked Jesus for the Holy Spirit.

One more thing to notice is that the world does not receive him. God’s Spirit is omnipresent. Yet it is through dwelling with him that we can know him and be in him. Read on to this next verse:

Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.

John 15:4-5 (ESV)

Ah! Now that reveals a purpose! God wants us to grow and bear fruit. Not just any fruit, for it is not the branch that determines the fruit but the vine. When we abide, or dwell, in him we will bear fruit that expresses his nature to the world around us.

Another thing to note is that the fruit manifests on the branch not on the vine. This world is hungry for God but can’t receive him because they do not know him. But we know him because he dwells in us and we in him. That is the mysterious power of in.

So what did I want you to know? That there is an infinite source of creativity and power in Christ. When you inhabit that place with God that is uniquely yours, you will produce fruit in your life that can feed the hungry around you.

Grace & Peace,

Sandy