Make Yourself at Home

December 11, 2018

I pray that Christ will be more and more at home in your hearts as you trust in him. May your roots go down deep into the soil of God's marvelous love. And may you have the power to understand, as all God's people should, how WIDE, how LONG, how HIGH, and how DEEP his love really is. May you EXPERIENCE the love of Christ, though it is so great you will never fully understand it. Then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God. Ephesians 3:17-19

When you have guests in your home for a few hours, you may say, “Make yourself at home.” What do you really mean by that? What are you expecting that they will take from that? I imagine you are meaning, “Relax. Chill out. Don’t adopt any special behaviors for here. Let’s just have a good casual time.”

I’m pretty sure you don’t mean, “Go ahead and dig through my drawers, looking for something. Use my toothbrush—get in the frig and eat anything you want. My house is your house. Treat my kids like your own. And my wife . . .” Wait! Stop! Let’s not get crazy here. There’s a big difference between making yourself at home and simply being comfortable.

It’s fairly easy to have Jesus be a friendly guest in our hearts. But He needs to be truly at home in our hearts, with total access to everything and everyone. Paul prays that He will become more and more at home in our hearts, and says that the deeper our roots go into the marvelous soil of God’s love, the better our experience will be. We will begin to understand the incomprehensible love of God, and how consuming it is. We will be made complete, with the fullness and power of God. When Christ is truly at home in our hearts, we get to know Him better and better, and it transforms us.

Does Christ feel at home in your heart? Why do you think so? Why not?

If a smoker is trying to live at your smoke-free house, he can’t be totally at home. He can’t bring his habit there. Even in this cold weather, he has to step outside to do his thing. Is there anything about Christ and you that is incompatible? You or He has to step outside? What can you do about it?