A Lovely Dwelling Place

"Let us realize that we have within us a most splendid palace built entirely of gold and precious stones...there is no structure so beautiful as a soul filled with virtues, and the more perfect these virtues are the more brilliantly do the jewels shine. Within this palace dwells the mighty King who has deigned to become your Father, and who is seated on a throne of priceless value--by which I mean your heart."

-Teresa of Avila

"Jesus, I want my heart to be a lovely dwelling place for you." I wrote this in my journal after I read this beautiful quote from Teresa of Avila. A couple of weeks ago I brought a longer message on this topic to our Cascade campus at our Monday meeting.

I shared about pursuing the presence of God. How we can come boldly before God's throne of grace at any time, but how often do we come? Simply yearning for His presence is not enough. We must come to Him and abide in His presence.

The beautiful thing is that we have His presence. The living God has chosen to put His Spirit inside of us. A friend of ours says, "when you give your life to Jesus, you get all of the Spirit, but the Spirit doesn't necessarily get all of you."

This is where I believe this quote paints such a beautiful picture. That as we continually surrender ourselves to Jesus and allow His Spirit to have more of us, we become more like Him. I imagine this process of the Spirit transforming my dull, unrefined stone of a heart, into a palace of jewels shining beautifully.

A question I gave to the group was: "If my heart is His home and dwelling place, what does it look like?"

My prayer is this, "God, give us zeal for your presence. We want to abide in your presence and be transformed by it into your likeness. Help us to surrender every aspect of our hearts and lives to you, so that we may become a most splendid palace--a lovely dwelling place for you."