A People of The Presence
“We are not all we were made to be when everything in our lives and churches can be explained apart from the work and presence of the Spirit of God….Shouldn’t there be a huge difference between the person who has the Spirit of God living inside of him or her and the person who does not?” – Francis Chan
Paul writes: “Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit lives in you?’ If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him; for God’s temple is sacred, and you are that temple.” (1 Cor. 3:16) and “… in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.” (Ephesians 2:19)
The Spirit is God’s own personal presence in our lives and in our midst. For Paul, to be saved means to become part of the people of God, It means to be born into God’s family and therefore joined to one another as one body, to be formed into God’s temple.
God is creating a people for His Name, among whom God dwells and who in their life together will reproduce God’s life and character in all its unity and diversity.
The presence of God, should be the very thing that distinguishes us from all the other people on the face of this earth. It is what makes the church “The church”—remember it was the outpouring of the Presence in the form of the Spirit that created the church in the first place!
Coventry Vineyard Blog 