Paul the Apostle, while in a Roman prison, wrote to Timothy his young protegee: “The cloke (coat) that I left at Troas with Carpus, when thou comest, bring with thee, and the books, but especially the parchments.” (2 Timothy 4:13)

Paul, a student of the well-known Gamaliel, was quite accustomed to books. See Acts 22:3, specifically naming Paul’s Tutor. However, in time … Paul the reader, became Paul the writer! And as such (consequently) never quit being Paul the student! The student of the Old Testament Scriptures.

I guess books are on my mind because this week we have been moving more of my library from its years-long resting place in a climate-controlled storage unit … to its new home in a little city near our house.

A little slogan I picked up years ago, “READERS ARE LEADERS,” still holds true. But also … readers are workers! It’s hard to concentrate for hours on a single Text! (As in preparing a Sermon God has laid on one’s heart.)

In some ways Solomon certainly was right. “Much study is a weariness of the flesh,” he wrote in Ecclesiastes 12:12. (But in other ways much study is a delight, especially analyzing God’s Word!)

I am wondering today, my Preacher friends or my Sunday School teacher friends … have you studied for this week’s Sermon(s) or Lesson(s)?

Studied diligently?

Studied the right kind of books?

There are wrong kinds you know!

Kind worth nothing but burning!

Like the new Christians at Ephesus (a wicked, demon-possessed city) did! “Many of them also which used curious arts (magic) brought their books together, and burned them before all men: and they counted the price of them, and found it fifty thousand pieces of silver.” (Acts 19:19)

All I am asking today …

Let’s be readers to the Glory of God! Careful students of His Word!

And while we are at it … let’s get familiar with some of the great Christian writers of the past!

Paul to Timothy again … “Till I come, give attendance to reading.” (1 Timothy 4:13)

But, and here’s another “warning” … do not let books take the place of THE BOOK in your life, the Word of God! Major on the Bible!

In reading the good Books of yesterday’s spiritual heroes … you are obeying in spirit Solomon’s advice in Proverbs 13:20. “He that walketh with wise men shall be wise.”

Read a Sermon tonight from one of the giants of the past!

You will spiritually grow thereby …

— Dr. Mike Bagwell

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If you are a true Believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, having been saved by His indescribable Mercy … GOD LIVES INSIDE YOU! (Titus 3:5 … “According to his mercy he saved us.”)

This of course does not mean that you have become a “god,” and certainly not the “Deity” Himself. We are still ex-sinners, saved by Grace! But still, God inhabits your body!

No one is disagreeing so far, no one who accepts the Bible as Truth. “Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God.” 1 Corinthians 6:19

Yes, the Holy Spirit indwells us Christians!

But my Lesson Title goes further, I think.

GOD LIVES WITHIN US!

Of course, doctrinally the Holy Spirit IS God! (So, there it is, God living within us!)

But today (in a motel room preaching a Revival in a nearby sweet Bible-believing Church) I am enjoying a Verse that may say even more!

Paul is here interceding before the Lord, advancing one of his high-level spiritual prayers. Read this, listen to him: “That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; and to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God.” Quoting Ephesians 3:17-19.

Christ (Jesus) dwelling in our hearts?

Yes!

(Jesus did promise … “I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.” Hebrews 13:5)

But (from Ephesians 3:17-19 above) a fuller description of that “Indwelling” follows … that we be filled with all the “FULNESS OF GOD!” This must mean the Godhead! The Father and the Son and dear Holy Spirit!

Filling us!

Living within us!

No wonder we are admonished again and again to pursue holy lives.

Never to grieve the Holy Spirit!

Never to offend the Lord Jesus!

Never to neglect God the Father!

Like I said in the Title … “GOD WITHIN!”

And I have Scripture to support my thought.

Better yet, Scripture has given me that thought!

What an honor!

Yet, what responsibility!

“Filled with all the Fulness of God!”

Think about that for a while!

I’ll join you …

— Dr. Mike Bagwell

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