The Lord your God is in your midst, a victorious warrior. He will exult over you with joy, He will be quiet in His love, He will rejoice over you with shouts of joy.
The New Testament is referred to as a new and better covenant. This verse reminds me of one of the reasons the glory of the New exceeds that of the Old. It is the newly created heart that was promised in the Old that was delivered in Christ in the New. Here is the Old Testament promise…
And I will give them one heart, and put a new spirit within them. And I will take the heart of stone out of their flesh and give them a heart of flesh, that they may walk in My statutes and keep My ordinances and do them. Ezekiel 11:19
Here is how God fulfilled it…
I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me. Galatians 2:20
Christ in us changes how we should think about God and ourselves. It would be fair to restate our verse in light of Galatians 2:20….
The Lord your God is in you, a victorious warrior. He exults within you with joy, He will be quiet in His love, He will rejoice within you with shouts of joy.
I suspect because we allow our feelings to play so heavily into our spiritual lives, most of us think, “That Christ is in me is a nice thought and it appears biblically plausible, but I’m not feeling it so we move on to think about other things. Perhaps we have not known His presence within simply because we have not been taught that we could or taught how. Perhaps the full import of having a new heart has not been realized because we have not learned to be quiet long enough to encounter Him in that frightening place of stillness and quiet where we were told He would be…..
Be still and know that I am God. Psalm 46:10
Perhaps if we did make peace with the quiet, we would experience the promise God made to His chosen people (which now includes us).
Indeed, I will give you renown and praise among all the peoples of the earth, when I restore your fortunes before your eyes,” says the Lord.
The Blue Book has served thousands of Christians by inviting them to slow down and discover their God who lives within them. Those who learn this discipline ultimately discover that that which they longed for was Christ Himself and that He resides within them. The process of coming to know our God is an experiential mystery one I believe awaits all persevering saints. It is my prayer for you and myself that we will jointly press on in 2015 to know Him who lives within – the hope of glory. Amen.