Jesus is not next door but inside you. But if Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, the spirit is life because of righteousness. Romans 8:10 Jesus is not our next door neighbor but He is the life-giving Spirit who resides within us through the Holy Spirit. He has come to give us life and to give it to us abundantly. But we need to submit our bodies to Him as living sacrifices. Yes if we give our bodies as living sacrifices God will show us what is His good, acceptable, and perfect will. He is in touch with our spirits as He longs to fellowship with above anything else. We must step forward and present ourselves to the Lord and He will show us the way.
Jesus wants to live and fellowship with us forever and He came to dwell within believers at the advent of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit came to reside on the earth. Allstate has a famous slogan “Like a good neighbor” but Jesus is not a good neighbor because He is much closer to us than a good neighbor. He dwells in us and this is experientially true as well.
Creflo Dollar (a famous pastor from Atlanta) once battled cancer that Jesus completely healed Him from. During his treatment He went to a famous specialist who took many x-rays and videos of the pastor’s body. He showed the pastor an x-ray and lo and behold there was an image of a bearded man with long hair dwelling inside of the pastor. Jesus was that man and He literally dwelled within the pastor. He literally dwells inside every child of God.
He died for this intimacy to take place between Himself and us and He takes this fellowship so seriously. As we said He takes it so seriously that He gave His life for all of us. What other God in the earth would come to reside in man as Jesus Christ has. This is how much He loves us that He came to save the world from sin not to judge it but to save it.
Ephesians 3:17 “so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love.” He dwells within each one of us by faith and if we submit to His Lordship the progression will be for us to become rooted and established love.
One who has submitted to Jesus Christ will be established and rooted in love and Jesus will be reflected in His life. The world will say this person has been with Jesus Christ and it shows in his life.
We owe everything to Jesus Christ so how can we do less than to offer our bodies as a living sacrifice to Jesus which is our reasonable source of worship. A sinless God who was comfortable enough to come and dwell in His creation. What kind of sacrificial and selfless love is this?