God in a box; the paradigm shifts

God’s presence seems limitless. It’s unusual to think of our God putting His presence in a box, such as in the ark of the Covenant. But sometimes God chooses to limit Himself so that we might get to know Him. When God’s presence dwelt in the ark He was showing His people that He chose to dwell amongst them, and go with them in their travels. He Who was perfect had chosen to dwell amongst imperfect people; He Who was powerful chose to live amongst the weak.

Though God limited Himself in the dwelling place of His presence, He had a plan that He worked to bring forward. We might call it a paradigm shift. God had not intended for Man to believe He should dwell in only one place, but that Man should know that God was with them. Later, God shifted Man’s understanding of His presence by He putting His presence inside Man. This shift is called the New Covenant and came about when Jesus fulfilled the Law, becoming the final sacrifice attached to the Old Covenant. God chose to no longer limit Himself to dwelling places, such as the ark of the covenant, but put His dwelling amongst Man by being inside of Man.

Though we see this paradigm shift of God’s dwelling place, we still see that God has chosen to live in imperfect people, people who are weak. Yet His intention has become more than showing us He is with us; He is living in us to make us like Himself. He has placed His Holy Spirit in us to make us Holy, and joined us together with other believers in His Church to build us up into His nature. Not only do we know that we are His people and He goes with us where we go, we know that we can become like Him and that His plan has been for us to be glorified with Him. Still, we see that God has limited Himself by working through His people, the Church, to accomplish the work of bringing us to perfection (see Eph 4:11-13).

I believe the Lord has shown me that we are coming to another paradigm shift. Looking at Revelation 10:5-7 we read about an angel, straddling both sea and land, who says “There will be no more delay! But in the days when the seventh angels is about to sound his trumpet, the mystery of God will be accomplished, just as He announced to His servants the prophets.” There is coming a time when God will no longer wait on imperfect men to move His plan forward, but will take those who are ready to do His will. This will be a time, literally, when God waits no more. When the angel blows the seventh trumpet we see that there were “loud voices in heaven saying ‘The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ, and He will reign forever and ever,’” (Rev 11:15b). Then the 24 elders thank Him “because you have taken your great power and have begun to reign,” (Rev 11:17b). These verses show us that God’s plan is for a time when He is not limited by imperfection, nor is He working with imperfect systems; He will make the kingdom of the world His own. The limits of the system of religion and of this world will fall away as the One Who is perfect makes them submit unto Himself and His holy ways.

What sort of people, then, should we be when these things happen? Peter answers this question by saying we should be holy (2 Pet 3:11-12). We should be a holy, blood bathed, pure in faith, spotless people. This is what the second shift, God’s Holy Spirit dwelling inside of us, was meant to produce. We will be like Him, and we will be glorified with Him when He moves forward to make the kingdoms on earth His own. The Spirit dwelling in us will make us ready to move on with God as He completes the work He planned from the beginning. God did not intend to limit Himself forever, but to prepare a people who would dwell with a limitless, all powerful God. Let us be found to be holy, spotless, and without wrinkle for Him. Amen.