John the Beloved records a fascinating promise by Jesus:

Jesus replied, “Loving me empowers you to obey my word. And my Father will love you so deeply that we will come to you and make you our dwelling place.”
[John 14:23 (TPT)]

One of the most profound manifestations of this indwelling that I have experienced occurred on
my tour of Israel in 2007 with a team of about 30 from my church. Early in our tour, our team was in a time of worship on the morning of our departure to Nazareth to visit “Nazareth Village,” which was a small region that was crafted to look like Nazareth in the time of Jesus. As I was deep in worship of our Lord, I began to feel an emotion that grew in intensity. It was a “mixture” of expectation, excitement, and even thrill. I wasn’t sure why I was feeling this so strongly and suddenly realized that this was an emotion of Jesus, who lives in me. I asked him, “Lord, what are you feeling right now?” He promptly answered this way:

“Thank-you for taking me home!”

Then I recognized what Jesus was feeling – he was excited about seeing his boyhood home of Nazareth. I could relate to him, in the sense that I would feel the same way about anticipating a visit to my own childhood region after many years of being away from “home.” I questioned Jesus about his gratitude expressed to me specifically, since I knew that he was also “going with” the other members of the team. He acknowledged that I was correct, but he blessed me by saying that he wanted me to know how thankful he was that he was living inside of me (making me a dwelling place for he and Abba) and that I could feel his heart, even as he felt
mine!

I shared this Jesus-encounter with our pastor who asked me to then share it with the rest of the team because he knew it would bless them. However, before I could do so we were called to quickly board our tour bus for our imminent departure to Nazareth. (We had learned that it was not good to keep our Israeli tour guide waiting since he was keeping us on a strict schedule.) As we explored the Nazareth Village “sights” which were fascinating because of their authenticity, complete with shepherds herding sheep, a carpenter’s shop, an olive press, etc., I had a powerful impression about half a dozen times that Jesus had walked right where I was walking. I could feel his intense emotion of being “home” and I was overwhelmed by his joy.

The next morning, I had the opportunity to share my experience with the rest of the team, and several of them said they had felt something similar to this “boyhood home” emotion and my encounter helped them identify their emotion more clearly! We were all blessed by these tangible expressions of the reality of the “indwelling” of Jesus and Abba with us!
As we surrender to the entwinement of our hearts with those of Jesus and Abba (our joyful “roommates”), we experience an ongoing “escalation” of blessing by this intimacy with God himself! May you truly experience the thrill of your divine roommates!

© 2022 The Father’s Touch Ministries