DON'T LOOK UP - LOOK IN

I. Introduction

A. The skeptic is asking, Where is your God? Up there?

1. The final answer has always been - God is not only up there, but in here

2. Wherever we start we find the answer within

a. look at the composition of the mystery of matter

b. Of what does it consist? Within matter the, molecule within that is the atom, within the atom, the nucleus, within the nucleus, illumined energy.

3. What about this Body? What is the key to physical life?

a. The answer again is within

b. Within the cell, within the genes, within the chromosomes

4. What about our Minds?

a. We probe the cells with the scalpel of the surgeon

b. We then recognize the sub-conscious mind that is beyond the reach of man's scalpel or microscope

B. It is always the truth that the answers to life are within

1. That brings us directly to our final inner problem

2. Ourselves as humans - the human personality

3. Most religious expression gives the image of a God up there -rather than God Ain here.

II. Bible Definition of Spirits

A. The reason why God can live in here, is because He is the Father of Spirits. (Heb. 12:9)

1. Since we have a human spirit, obviously He is the father of them and because he is a fellowship can be enjoyed by the two.

2. Bible defines the human spirit as the inner self (I Cor. 2:10-14)

a. What man knoweth the things of a man save the spirit of man which is in him.

b. The spirit is the I - whether of God or man.

c. Since spirit is Person - we come to the Bible revelation of the meaning of the creation of persons.

d. It is to be a relationship of the Person thru persons.

3. Human beings are not fulfilling their destiny unless they are in a relationship in which living is really His living in us.

B. The Disciples once asked Him to show them the Father.

1. Thinking in human terms of some vision being given them of a person outside them.

2. His answer clinched it when He said the relationship of deity to humanity is The Person within a person.

a. If they saw Him they saw the Father, not because He was the Father, but because The Father that dwelleth in me, He doeth the works.(John 14:9-14)

b. He went on to say the Spirit was coming to universalize Himself within millions of humans starting with themselves. (John 14:16-20)

c. That is exactly what happened at Pentecost and has been happening regularly since that day.

3. They were exchanging their faulty concept of an external God for a fixed inner consciousness

a. That consciousness is God and me as one person.

b. The Pauline letters bear this all out as Paul repeatedly speaks of Christ in us. Gal. 2:20 and Col. 1:27

4. Since God is the First Person in the universe, what kind of person is He?

a. Two - three worded statements:

1) God is spirit

2) God is love

b. If the only person in the universe is love and if being Spirit, He has as His means of manifestation a human race living this same kind of life - then God and His redemption has been completely fulfilled. (Gubb).

c. This being the case, God living in and through me there will never be a person, I can't stand or won't help.

5. Human love is quite different from God's love.

a. We mean by love - give some but keep plenty

b. God's love is give all - unstintingly