Allowing the Holy Spirit to remove the walls of the house

I love the story in Mark 2 where four men drop a crippled man down through the roof of a house where Jesus was teaching.

They could not get in the door of the house — they could not even get close to the door. It tells us why in the first verse of Chapter 2: “because Jesus was IN the house.” Everywhere Jesus went he attracted large crowds. I have read and preached on that story many times. When I read it the other day the verse, “Jesus was IN the house” jumped out at me. The Holy Spirit gave me a whole new revelation of that verse.

You see, when we ask Jesus into our hearts we become the temple of the Holy Spirit. 1 Corinthians 6:19: “Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is IN you, whom you have from God.” Wow.

As Christians, you and I are the temple of the Holy Spirit. Do you know what that means? Glad you asked. Jesus is in the house. Before I go on any further, let me tell you how amazing that is.

When Solomon was directed to build a temple for God, he said in 2 Chronicles 2:6: “But who is able to build Him a temple, since heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain Him? Who am I then, that I should build Him a temple?”

Solomon was overwhelmed by the thought that he was building a temple for God. Do you realize the God that the heaven and the heaven of heavens could not contain lives in you and me? We are God containers. I can thankfully say, “I am not a garbage container any longer, I am a God container!”

Now, let’s look at the second part of 1 Corinthians 6:19. It goes on to say that we are no longer our own, we have been bought at a price. That price, my friends, is the blood of Jesus. 1 Peter 1:18: “Knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible things, like silver or gold, from your aimless conduct received by tradition from your fathers, but with the precious blood of Christ.”

Now that Jesus owns us, he wants to come in and clean house. He does not just want to be our savior (fire insurance), He wants to be our Lord also. You might say he wants our lives to be an “open house.”

Did you ever have friends come over and you invite them into your home and say to them, “make yourself at home”? Now you are not saying check out the bathroom, the bedroom and the closets. No, you are basically saying, take a seat in the living room. Right?

With the Holy Spirit, you and I tend to put up a few walls and doors with locks on them to hide our sin. I want you to hear this clear. Our walls and locked doors do not keep him from seeing the sin in the house. He is light and his light sees everything. There is no darkness to him; to him, we are an “open house.” Psalm 69:5: “O God, You know my foolishness; And my sins are not hidden from You.”

What our walls and locked doors do is keep us from seeing him and feeling the fullness of the love, grace and mercy he has for us. The walls we put up are obstacles. The Holy Spirit is the only one who can take those walls down. He will not do it without our surrender and obedience.

Psalm 139:23-24: “Search me, O God, and know my heart; Try me, and know my anxieties; and see if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.” Psalm 32:5: “I acknowledged my sin to You, And my iniquity I have not hidden.”

In my 30 years as a Christian, I have found that the more I let the Holy Spirit remove the walls in my house, and make it an “open house,” the more I experience the fullness of his love, grace and mercy.

Let him make your house an “open house.”

Hasselstrom is an evangelist with Cross Tied Ministries.