No Staging Allowed

 

“Jesus replied, “Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them.”

John 14:23

Our local paper always includes the real estate section in the Saturday morning edition.

Many of the homes for sale are listed in this section.

Often it will include photographs and descriptions.

Then if you are in the market for a new home one of the things you can do is plan your weekend visits to Open Houses that you may have an interest in seeing and possibly buying.

A popular activity nowadays is to ‘stage’ a home. The purpose is to make an empty home look more attractive, or a cluttered home less cluttered in an effort to gain a quicker sale or a better price.

Today’s verse speaks of Jesus and the Father coming to make their home in us. This is not to ‘stage’ your life but rather to be a genuine expression of God’s love to you and those you come in contact with in the course of living your life.

As we have talked about in previous blogs

God doesn’t come into our lives in order to ‘play’ church in any way.

We are to be an expression of His love.

People will see right through any ‘staged’ love.

They can see through the phony, artificial words of a life ‘staged’

but not really lived ‘In Christ’.

They will be impacted by the genuine love of God lived in and through your life when He has made His home in your heart.

Like a home where you feel welcomed the moment you walk through the front door, so too is the life where God lives and dwells.

It is real.

It is genuine.

There is nothing ‘staged’ about it.

Are you willing to be that dwelling place of God on the earth?

Are you willing to love as He loves you?

No ‘staging’ allowed!