Best environs for God's shoes

Reading Paul’s epistles, you can’t tell how he did church. “You know what that tells you? How he did it ain’t the issue,” says Jordan. “He didn’t set a form. Preachers say, ‘Well, I don’t think you should meet in a building; I think you ought to meet in a house because the building doesn’t matter.’ Well, then why does a house matter? Who made the issue the house?

“I had a guy call me up and say, ‘You’re too much of a religionist.’ I said, ‘How do you figure that, because we’re about the most irreligious people anybody knows.’ He said, ‘Because you wear a coat and tie.’ I said, ‘Well, my wife likes for me to wear a coat and tie. So what do you wear?’ He answered, ‘Well, I wear sports shirts and turtle necks.’

“I don’t care what you wear. I know some people do. In Israel, it was all about religious garbs and robes. The issue becomes something that’s not the issue. But why do people do that? Because they don’t know what the answer is.

“What is the real problem? Jesus cried on the Cross, ‘It’s finished!’ That’s the banner you are to walk under. Paul said, ‘You’re complete in Him!’ THAT’S the truth that’s to govern your life and identity. Everything in your life needs to be measured by who He is, not who you are and what you do. Not how you perform but who He is; what He’s doing, how He performs.

“If you let that become the measure of your life, so that all your decisions, all of the details of your life, is measured from Him, then the BUILDING . . . Paul writes, ‘In whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord.’

“Paul writes, 'In whom ye also are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit.' God’s Spirit lives in you and when Paul says you’re ‘the habitation of God,’ He’s going to DWELL in you. The idea of a habitation is you’re not a guest. When you dwell somewhere, it’s different than visiting. It’s home. You ever notice how you just act different when you know you’re at home and not visiting somewhere?

“Why did the spirit of God come in you, as the Bible says? He didn’t come to visit; He came to dwell. His purpose in you is to settle down and be Himself. That’s what He’s there for. He didn’t come just to make you eternally secure. That’s done through the righteousness of Christ. He came so He could make you the habitation--the place where God kicks off His shoes and is Himself.

“A lot of us never let Him just relax and be Himself. He’s standing there saying, ‘That’s what I’m here to do!’ and you ignore Him. ‘[13] For this cause also thank we God without ceasing, because, when ye received the word of God which ye heard of us, ye received it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which effectually worketh also in you that believe.

“It’s so you can get a grip on who God really is; not just what He ISN’T doing today, but what He IS doing as He forms ‘the church the Body of Christ.’ He’s making this habitation of God through His Spirit so that Jesus Christ has this habitation to live in and to manifest Himself. A temple is a place where God’s worshipped and manifested.

“Paul talks about the life of the Lord Jesus Christ being ‘made manifest in our mortal flesh.’ He says, ‘For to me to live is Christ.’ When I think about life, it’s Christ. I want people, when they see me, for Him to be ‘magnified in my body.’

"I want people, when they see me make decisions to see that I cherish Him, His thinking more than anybody else’s. That I treasure what HE says. I treasure what He’s doing more than what anybody else is doing. When people see the choices I make in life, I want them to see that.

“That’s what Paul means when he says, ‘For to me to live is Christ.’ That’s not a theoretical, theological concept that he just wrote on a wall. It’s ‘For me to LIVE!’

"You know what life is? Look it up in the dictionary. It means, ‘The ability to relate to your circumstances; your surroundings.’ Now if you want to see life, look around; this is life.”