Why live from your external circumstances when you can live from an inner place of peace, love, hope, security, strength, power, healing and faith.
Most people, Christians included, don’t know that they can live from the inner place of their heart and even if they knew it, don’t know how to find or get to the inner place.
I grew up in church and was never taught about living from the inner place, let alone how to find it. Yet this is what it means to abide in Jesus; to live from a constant state of inner peace, calm, strength, healing and power – not dictated or controlled by the external, harsh circumstances of life.
I don’t blame or criticize the church. In fact I love God’s church. She is the beautiful bride of Jesus.
No, this message was lost to the church hundreds of years before our time. Or, should I say, stolen by the evil one whose purpose is to steal, kill and destroy.
I will come back to that in a moment but first I want to talk about Adam and Eve and when God put Adam and Eve out of the Garden of Eden because of their sin.
Adam and Eve lived in the garden and walked and communicated with God in the garden. It was paradise, it was peaceful, they didn’t work – they just enjoyed God and life.
It was an inner place where man could see and speak directly to God (and Satan). Unlike the world we live in today, nothing separated the natural from the spiritual. Then sin entered the world and God had to put them out of the garden.
Being put out of the garden was not only a literal and physical event that happened but it was also a spiritual event. No longer was humanity able to live in the inner place where nothing separated us from the spiritual. Instead we were put out to live from our external selves and circumstances.
The inner place is the spirit or heart and it is a beautiful, peaceful, easy place to live. It truly is as magnificent as the Garden of Eden. The external is a life of trying to make it in our own strength, striving, toiling and hardship. That was the life Adam and mankind were put out of the garden to live.
Being put out of the garden was representative of when things changed – from us living out of our internal selves to having to live out of our external selves.
As Christians we know that Jesus died on the cross to change this. We know that when Jesus died, the veil in the temple that separated us from the Holy of Holies was torn in two giving us direct access to God the Father.
You may also realize the Bible tells us we are now the temple. The three parts that make up the temple correspond to the three-fold nature of man. Our bodies are the outer court, our minds are the inner court or holy place and our spirits are representative of the Holy of Holies.
What you may not realize is that when the veil in the temple was torn in two, it not only gave us access directly to God but it means that we can now live in that inner place again. We can live from the inner place of our spirit, the Holy of Holies where God lives.
Because of sin, we were put out of the inner place, but because of Jesus we can now live from the inner place again. We don’t have to live from our external selves or our external circumstances anymore.
Do you live from that inner place? Do you know how to find that inner place? Are you living from your spirit or are you still living a life dictated by your external circumstances? A life of toil, striving and hardship?
As Christians we know we have access to the Holy of Holies but most of us don’t live there, at least not all the time. Some of us never even go there or even know how to find it.
You don’t have to live from the external any longer. Jesus has made a way for you to re-enter the inner place and to live every day, every moment of your life from that place. No more striving and no more toil.
Colossians 1:13 tells us “For He has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of his beloved Son”. He has rescued us and brought us into His kingdom and His kingdom is within us. Luke 17:21 tells us “the kingdom of God is within us”. In other words, the kingdom of God is an inner place.
And the greatest goal is to constantly live within that place, the inner place of our spirit where God lives. That is what it means to abide in Jesus (John 15:4) – to learn to live from the inner place and not out of the external place.
Meditating on God is about going into the Holy of Holies, the inner place and learning to live there.
Stillness and meditation are the way to the inner place.
Meditation has been stolen from Christianity. Most Christians today are uncomfortable with the word meditation because all it reminds them of is eastern religion and the new age.
But meditation does not belong to the new age or eastern religion. It belongs to God and was always intended as way for God’s people to connect intimately and deeply with Him. It’s time for Christians to take back this practice that belongs to them.
Why would the devil want to rob the church of meditation? Because he knows that it helps us enter the inner place; the place where God lives; the place for which Jesus died to give us access.
The devil knows that as long as the Church rejects this practice, God’s people won’t know God and worship Him as fully as they could. The devil knows that God’s people will continue to live from the external place of striving and toil that Adam was cursed to but Jesus has redeemed us from.
Take back what is rightfully yours today. Enter the place that you were designed and created to live in – the place that sin kept us out of for so long but Jesus has made a way for us to enter and live from again.
Stop living from the external circumstances of life and begin living from the inner place of peace, joy, healing, strength and power.
The starting point and the most important key to getting to the inner place and learning to live from that place is stillness.
Learning how to find inner and external stillness will help you to connect deeply and intimately with God.
Our minds are powerful and are used to being in control. They don’t like being forced to stop and be still. Our minds are wired to try and solve our problems and manage life.
But this is what it means to live from the external, because as strong as our minds are, they do get overloaded, stressed, anxious and overwhelmed.
The way to find peace and life is to get past our minds and learn to live out of our spirit; the inner part of us where God lives.
Your life can be so much better than it is – even if it is good already, it can be even better. The best life of all (and I haven’t achieved it all yet but it is certainly my goal) is to learn to constantly live with God from the inner place.
You can start today by taking some time to meditate on God and let Him take you into the inner place of your heart, the place where He lives.
God bless you and praying you take time to find the inner place today.
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