“We are coworkers belonging to God. You are God’s field, God’s building.”

‭‭1 Corinthians‬ ‭3‬:‭9‬ ‭NET‬‬

Christianity is very hard for new Christians to grasp. It is equally hard to explain to new Christians. We are always trying to describe the intangible realities of a life with Christ within and it is full of words like faith, grace, not you but God, Holy Spirit power, and other things. It is this mystery of godliness which the Bible is written for, to explain the new reality that has no analogy to the natural human. We only have mixed analogies of Body, Bride, and Temple. In these three analogies the scripture seems to believe we can begin to grasp who Christ has become in us (please forget to use the phrase ‘who we are in Christ’), and in so grasping his reality within we find the body, bride and temple make increasing sense. The bride becomes one in intimacy and union with her groom. That makes some sense. But the body analogy requires understanding spiritual possession, to be possessed by the Spirit. And the temple only works if we remember the filling of the temple with glory and smoke of the nature of God. So then we must use the Bible to understand the analogies, not our culture or imagination.

The difficulties of grasping true Christianity are well worth the effort to understand. As we depart our nature and enter His we find relief from the burden of our own souls and their constant stupidity and misleading. Their ravaging fears and anxieties and their foolish decision making. Because if Christ is real within us and we are becoming one with him in relationship, then we ought to find something other than natural life, and the taste of his goodness should satisfy even in a dry and weary land like North America.