I’m a very new Christian. For the first time I can remember I felt Jesus come into my mind and into my body on Monday. Jesus spoke to me and I felt a great calm overcome me. I never want Jesus to ever leave my mind and my body ever again.
Hmmm...Friend, Jesus isn't a feeling, a sense of great calm, but a Person. I point this out, because you will be tempted to connect feelings that arise from his presence to Jesus himself. Doing so is dangerous because feelings come and go, they change constantly, rising and falling with circumstance and one's physical condition. If, then, you operate as a Christian on the basis of what you feel, you will have an extremely topsy-turvy and frustrating spiritual experience.
Jesus is not ordered by your feelings. He isn't within you in the Person of the Holy Spirit because you have a feeling that he is. He is within you because he has promised that, if you trust in him as your Savior and submit to him as your Lord (
Romans 10:9-10), yoke yourself to him (
Matthew 11:28-30), he will come into you in the Person of the Holy Spirit (
Titus 3:5-8; Romans 8:9-14), make you his living temple (
1 Corinthians 6:19-20) and
never leave you nor forsake you (
Hebrews 13:5). And this remains so regardless of what feelings you may have.
What will truly mark the presence of God within you won't be changeable feelings but fundamental changes to your desires, thinking and behaviour. The Holy Spirit will:
- convict you of sin (
John 16:8).
- illuminate your mind to God's truth (
John 14:26; John 16:13; 1 Corinthians 2:10-16).
- strengthen you in times of trouble and temptation (
Ephesians 3:16; Philippians 2:13; Colossians 1:11; Philippians 4:13).
- comfort you (
2 Corinthians 1:3-5).
- discipline you (
Hebrews 12:5-11).
- form in you the Fruit of the Spirit (
Galatians 5:22-23; Ephesians 5:9).
Look for these signs of God within you, not mere feelings. They are a truer indication of your saved status than a sense of calm, however strong it was.
so I have two questions. Firstly if I sin as I have before many times will Jesus leave my body and mind?
On what basis does God save you? On what grounds does God accept you as one of His own? On the basis of your good works, your righteousness? Absolutely not.
Ephesians 2:8-9
8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God,
9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast.
2 Timothy 1:9
9 who saved us and called us to a holy calling, not because of our works but because of his own purpose and grace, which he gave us in Christ Jesus before the ages began,
Titus 3:5-7
5 he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit,
6 whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior,
7 so that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.
The only thing that satisfies God's requirements for adoption into His family is His own holy perfection. And the only place we find that, of course, is in Christ, God made flesh, our Savior. Upon our trusting in Christ, he gives to us his perfect righteousness, clothing us in it, and thus making us acceptable to God. This is why Paul wrote to the Ephesians believers that they were "accepted in the Beloved," who is Christ.
Ephesians 1:6-7
6 To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved.
7 In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace;
God sees us in Christ, clothed in his perfection, and so He accepts us as His own. This is the ONLY basis upon which God accepts anyone. It is never Jesus + something else (our works, our commitment, our sincerity, etc.);
only Jesus is sufficient to satisfy the just, holy demands of God. (
John 14:6; Acts 4:12; 1 Timothy 2:5)
It is a kind of blasphemy, actually, to think you can contribute to the saving work of Christ. In this sort of thinking, this works-salvation, the human person elevates him/herself into the sphere of divine perfection, not simply receiving Christ's perfect atoning work on the cross for them, but adding to his work, as though they can make it more satisfying to God, more perfect than it is. Such thinking is a deep offense to God, I believe, placing the efforts of the sinful creature on par with the sacrifice of Christ, making their ability to "live right" before God the true basis of their salvation.
It was this ugly sort of thinking Paul challenged in his letter to the church in Galatia:
Galatians 3:2-3
2 This only would I learn of you, Received you the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?
3 Are you so foolish? having begun in the Spirit, are you now made perfect by the flesh?
The Galatian believers were being urged by "Judaizers" to move into a works-salvation model of thinking, mixing OT law-keeping with salvation by grace through faith in Jesus. The Judaizers wanted the Christian believers, cleansed and regenerated by the Holy Spirit (
Titus 3:5), to cleanse themselves by keeping the laws of the "Old Covenant" under which OT Jews had operated for many centuries. This works-based self-cleansing was what Paul meant by "made perfect by the flesh." He was very clear in the passage above that such thinking was foolish in light of the Galatian believers having received the purifying Person of the Spirit solely by faith in Christ their Savior.
I write all this to help you understand that the question of Jesus leaving you arises from a works-salvation kind of thinking. He doesn't dwell within you in the Person of the Holy Spirit (
Romans 8:9) because you have
earned his doing so. God doesn't make you his "living temple" because you are clean enough, or faithful enough, or wise enough, but simply because you have, from the heart, believed Jesus has saved you from your sins by paying for them with his blood and life on a cross 2000 years ago. (John 3:16; John 6:37; Romans 10:9-10)
You can rest easy, then, knowing God is not like humans, vacillating in His commitment to you, as we often do with each other, accepting you only so long as you live as He commands. He moved to save you when you were His enemy, living in rebellion and sin, soiled horribly with the darkness and corruption of wickedness. Your awful state did not keep Him from drawing you to Himself and saving you and it doesn't keep Him from you now that you're saved, either. You are accepted in Christ, and secure forever in, and because of, Him.
John 10:27-30
27 My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.
28 I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand.
29 My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand.
30 I and the Father are one.”
Romans 8:31-39
31 What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?
32 He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?
33 Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies.
34 Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us.
35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword?
36 As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.”
37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.
38 For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers,
39 nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
For the Christian, the consequence of sin is a hindering of fellowship with God (not loss of relationship with Him). He is our "exceeding great reward," you see, the awesome pinnacle of the Christian's spiritual experience. Everything is downhill from God. In Himself, in the Person of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Christ, God gives to us the Ultimate Gift, the Greatest Possible Blessing, which is Himself. Our sin cuts us off from fully enjoying God, from intimate communion with Him and all the incredible things that arise from this communion. This is the first and terrible consequence of sin for the Christian person. (
Psalms 66:18; Isaiah 59:2; 1 Peter 3:10-12)
You can see a picture of this in the story of the Prodigal Son (
Luke 15:11-32). Although the Prodigal was always his father's son no matter where he went or what he did, so long as he was in a "far country," living in rebellion to his father, squandering his inheritance, the Prodigal Son could not enjoy fellowship with him. And so complete was the halting of their fellowship, that the father described it like death, saying twice that his son was "dead." His wicked boy wasn't
actually dead, of course, but the effect of his rebellion, his sinful waywardness, was to totally halt intimate communion with his father such that it seemed
as though the Prodigal had died.
God also promises in His word that corruption and death of some sort always results from sin - for the believer as well as the non-believer (
Galatians 6:7-8; Romans 6:23; James 1:13-16). The believer never has to fear eternal death, having been placed in Christ, the Savior, by their faith in him. But they can certainly suffer death of all the good things that come as a consequence of fellowship with God: love, joy, peace, purity, inner stability, spiritual fruitfulness, etc.
The Christian believer also suffers more physical consequences of sin, too, of course, becoming obese, diabetic, and prone to cardiac issues if they are gluttonous, developing lung cancer if they succumb to smoking, or liver and kidney damage if they grow addicted to alcohol, etc.; they can become anxious, and depressed, and obsessive, controlling and angry, too, when they depart from God into sin; their imagination and desires grow foul and twisted also, as they venture into the filth and perversion of the world and the devil.
There is the loss of heavenly reward, as well, that results from the believer living a sinful life. Everything they've built up in their life as a disciple of Christ, if it doesn't truly arise from the foundation of Christ their Savior, will be "burnt up" (
1 Corinthians 3:10-15). Paul notes, though, that even still, the believer will be saved "so as though by fire," which is to say "with the smoke of hell on his clothes."
my second question is about the enemy, the great dragon, whatever we call him. I live in supported accommodation and I wonder if one of my carers is a satanist. It’s well known I’m a Christian and I worry that if she is into Satan she may meddle in my life. Satanists have no morals right? so can, and do you think it’s likely, that she would meddle in my life (spiritual or otherwise)?
Focus on the Lord, Lenno, not some suspected Satanist. So long as you remain near to God, living in constant submission to, and dependence upon, Him, feeding daily on His word, talking with Him throughout each day, you will be well-protected from the agents of the Evil One. Shine brightly for Jesus and let God touch those around you through you - especially those caught in deep bondage to the devil.
