At Home or Simply in the House?

What if I invited each of you over for a massive dinner party? Hopefully, you would expect to have a good time while in my home. It wouldn’t be one of those stuffy, lame gatherings. You wouldn’t anticipate that we will be sharing business plans, study notes, or anything else that could possibly constitute work. Instead, it would be a time of relaxation and hanging out. You wouldn’t plan on much of an agenda with the exception of dinner, maybe some good music, and quality conversation.

Imagine this scene with me.

You get ready for the occasion by assembling an ultra cool outfit, giving a little extra attention to your hair, and possibly even by picking up a cheap, but meaningful gift for your host. (Why, how nice of you. Anything but flowers, please.) After picking up some friends, you have arrived at my place.

You walk to the door with anticipation of what is to come. It could quite simply become the extravaganza of the year. Sounds great, huh? You excitedly knock on the door and await the experience that is to come on the other side. As I open the door, I welcome you in and encourage you to “make yourself comfortable.”

From there, everything begins to go terribly wrong.

As you once again hear my request for everyone to “make themselves comfortable,” you notice that I haven’t really picked up much for our time together. As a matter of fact, there is dirty laundry all over the house. It is piled up in the floor as well as draped over anything that will hold it. The mound of dishes is terribly noticeable due to the stench coming from the kitchen and the neon green “growth” on one of the plates.

As you clear off a spot on the sofa, you see the cushions are missing and any available seat will place you directly on the springs of the sofa. As if that wasn’t bad enough, an inordinate amount of food crumbs are there to welcome you into your cozy position. While sitting, I offer you an appetizer of what appears to you to be chips and salsa. However, the chips are obviously stale and the salsa went bad weeks ago.

Once I join you and the others in the living room, it is hard for you to hear me over the music that I have blasting from the other room. To make things worse, it appears we are listening to a compilation album of 90’s boy bands. If it was possible for your eardrums to talk, they would be screaming, “Make it stop!”

In addition to the music, my dogs have been outside barking at the top of their lungs for your entire stay. In an effort to calm them, I let the dogs into the house. They immediately head towards you with their muddy paws and slobbery faces. As they add to the mess of the house, they have also made you filthy. Your outfit has been transformed from red carpet candidacy to work day rags in a matter of seconds.

When it is finally time for dinner, you transition from the sofa springs to pick up one of the lawn chairs that has been leaned up next to a card table. On the table sits a semi-clean serving plate with big, huge steaks and several potatoes accompanying them. Things could be improving, right? Wrong. The steaks are still frozen and the potatoes are raw.

After dinner, you immediately begin looking for an exit strategy. You don’t want to be rude and you can’t abandon the friends that rode with you. You wonder, “Are they as miserable as I am?” You would do anything for someone to call and need your immediate assistance. You wonder if it would be wrong to fake an illness. Surely there is somewhere else you need to be, right? Questions of your own safety are arising as you stare more and more at the growth on the dishes. The dogs now have your coat and have made it a toy as they have dragged it out into the yard.

In an effort to end the evening, you are awkwardly lingering around the door. You’ve inconspicuously assembled all your belongings (except for the coat - it just isn’t worth it). You are grasping for any opportunity to leave - an ending point, a moment of silence, a small fire, anything.

And then the words come again. They are piercing and cruel. You are astonished at my audacity. You ask yourself, “Did he really just say that again?” You can’t believe it. I said it again. There it was. “Sit down, relax, and make yourself at home.” You are angered and are biting your tongue… you just want to scream! “What doesn’t he understand?”, you ask yourself.

“I am not comfortable here! I’m not at home here, I am simply inside the house!”

Now, stop. Pause. Think. How does this relate to your walk with Christ?

In Ephesians 3:16-17, the Bible says, “I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith.”

This is a really cool phrase that we don’t need to pass over too quickly. “So that” translates hina, which is a Greek word to introduce purpose clauses. The purpose of God strengthening us with power through his Spirit is so that Christ may dwell in our hearts through faith.

The word “dwell” is a derivative from a combination of two words (down and to inhabit a house). Not simply that of being inside the house of our hearts, but of being “at home” there, settled down as a family member or loved one would be. Christ cannot “be at home” in our hearts until our inner person submits to the strengthening of the Spirit - seeking His face, turning from sin, and yielding to His authority.

If you are a Christ follower, then Christ resides within you through the work of the Holy Spirit. However, is your heart a place of comfort for Christ or simply a place of residence? Is He comfortable residing within you? Or is it a place of filth, laziness, and other sin?

Here’s the bottom line. Is Christ “at home” in your heart or is He simply existing within the house of your heart? Although it may sound like semantics, there is a monumental difference. Take some time to evaluate the condition of your relationship with Him.

In the previous illustration, you couldn’t find comfort in the house due to the mess, right? Although you were inside, you certainly weren’t “at home.”

Although Christ is the house of your heart, is he “at home?” Is He comfortable?