I Have The Spirit Of God Dwelling In Me

Several years ago my longtime spiritual counselor Doug was diagnosed with lymphoma cancer. Doug and his wife were effective ministers of the transforming power of God both as pastors in their church and through seminars in other churches. The cancer was tenacious and sent his white blood cells skyrocketing and he lost his energy, which was especially noticeable since he was a very energetic person. He fought back with prayer and chemotherapy and soon his white blood cells went back to normal. He regained his energy. Yet the cancer was not dead and it traveled into his groin and grew into a fist-sized tumor. More prayer and chemotherapy shrank the tumor by 75%. But after some traveling and a sickness the tumor began growing again and weakened him so much he couldn’t do chemotherapy for awhile. When he restarted chemotherapy his strength returned and he could even travel and minister. Still the lymphoma roared back and moved into stage four cancer which is the worst stage. Over half of his bone marrow had become lymphoma cells. All this time Doug continued to honor and trust God. The doctor came up with a new chemotherapy which helped for awhile. But the cancer finally overwhelmed his body until it could not fight back and his lungs gave out. He died in the hospital with his grieving wife by his side.

“He wants to spread into every part of you until you are completely transformed into the New Adam that you are destined to be.”

The Holy Spirit is a constructive cancer. He wants to keep destroying your old soul “cells” and replacing them with His truth and love. He wants to spread into every part of you until you are completely transformed into the New Adam that you are destined to be. You can fight against the Spirit and beat Him back but He will keep coming back at you. But unlike physical cancer you can definitely stop the work of the Spirit if you want. You can stop listening and stop following, but then you are only turning away from your true self and from true life. You are preventing God from restoring His image in you. Why would you do that?

Consider how fantastic it is that God actually puts His own Spirit inside you when you first believe in Jesus. Not only does He give you a new self, the New Adam, but now “your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit” (1 Cor. 6:19 ESV)! In the Old Testament God only dwelt in the innermost room of the temple, the holy of holies. Now he makes His home inside you. You become a new Garden of Eden where God’s presence is with you as it was in the Garden (Gen. 3:8). Thus, we have the presence of God inside us producing a beautiful harmony with our New Adam until we “shine like the sun in the kingdom of [our] Father” (Matt. 13:43 ESV).  

So did Doug win or lose his battle with cancer? Of course he won. This is because he lived for the next age so that we can say ““O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?” (I Cor. 15:55 ESV). And our assurance of immortality is the presence of the Spirit of God inside us. God “set his seal of ownership on us, and put his Spirit in our hearts as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come” (II Cor. 1:22 NIV). The Holy Spirit dwelt in Doug and empowered him to live his last days with faith and peace, knowing that whenever he died he would go home to be with Jesus.