Christ in You: The Mystery That Changes Everything
Rev. Aniekan "Mbomboyo" Okokon ·
To them God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. — Colossians 1:27
A mystery, in Paul’s vocabulary, is not a puzzle. It is something God kept hidden until He chose to reveal it. The prophets saw the Messiah coming. They saw Him suffering and reigning. What they did not see — what no one saw — was that He would come to live inside ordinary people, Jew and Gentile alike, and make their bodies His dwelling place.
That is the mystery. Not Christ above you, directing from a distance. Not Christ beside you, a helpful companion. Christ in you.
The difference between a visitor and a resident
Under the old covenant, the Spirit came upon people for a task and then lifted. The presence of God lived in a tent, then a temple, behind a curtain, approached once a year by one man. Believers today sometimes still pray as if that were the arrangement: asking God to come, to show up, to visit the meeting. But the curtain has been torn. The temple is now a people. He is not visiting. He has moved in.
Paul draws the conclusion plainly in 1 Corinthians 6:19 — your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you. Notice that he says it to the Corinthians, a church with more problems than most. Christ in you is not a reward for maturity. It is the starting point of the Christian life.
What changes when you believe it
- Prayer stops being an attempt to reach a distant God and becomes fellowship with One who is nearer than your breath.
- Holiness stops being a wall you build to keep sin out and becomes a life that flows from the One already inside.
- Ministry stops being you working for Christ and becomes Christ working through you, which is a far lighter yoke.
- Loneliness loses its final word. You may be alone in a room; you are never alone in yourself.
The hope of glory
Paul calls Christ in you "the hope of glory". Hope, in the New Testament, is not a wish but a certainty waiting to be seen. The Christ who lives in you now is the guarantee of what you will be. The glory is not something added later to a life that lacked it; it is the unveiling of what has already been planted.
This is why we do not treat the Christian life at WordHouse as an anxious climb toward God. He has already come the whole distance. The rest of this series is simply learning to live from the One who lives in you.