"Didn't you realize that you were God's temple,
and that the Spirit of God is living among you?
(1 Cor. 3:16)

"The first Letter of John states clearly this foundational truth of Christianity:

"We ourselves have known
and put our faith in God's love toward ourselves.
God is love,
and if you live in love, you live in God
and God lives in you. (4:16)

"The truth is that in this life I will never get closer to God than I am now. God love me totally now. God will not love me any more in ten years' time no matter what great things I might do. God's love will not change. What can change is my awareness of God's presence with me and love for me. The difference between myself and the greatest of the saints is not that any one of them was closer to God in life than I am. The difference lies in their sensitive awareness of God's loving presence. It is this awareness and belief that leads the saints to respond in such extraordinary ways. This extraordinary change in ordinary people is the highlight of the church's beginnings. Those early Christians believed the Good News and were ready to take on the world because of that belief. They had an unshakeable conviction that their God was intimately close to them. They knew they were 'earthen vessels,' to use Paul's phrase, capable of failure and sin, fragile, and easily broken. But they knew, too, that they 'held a treasure' (2 Cor. 4:7), the treasure of God's presence.

"The heart of the matter for us as Christians is whether we can proclaim that we know and put our faith in God's love for us and God's presence with us. Paul, writing to the Corinthians, gave them a simple test of their faith:

"Examine yourselves to make sure you are in the faith.
Test yourselves.
Do you acknowledge that Jesus Christ is really in you?
If not, you have failed the test. (2 Cor. 13:5)

". . . It is not unusual for people . . . to feel a sense of failure and to carry in themselves a sense of their distance from God, even when they are very good people. What is needed is the realization that they are considering their relationship with God from the wrong viewpoint. Jesus, the bearer of Good News, invites us to believe in a far more encouraging reality. Each one of us, though, has to work at deepening our awareness of and our belief in these foundational truths:

"God loves me — now;
God is intimately present with me — now.

"In fact, God could not be more present to me than God is now. Nor is God more present to any other person on earth than God is present to me. The key is awareness of this presence. When I deepen my awareness and belief, my basic response will be accompanied with gratitude and joy. This awareness will in turn affect the way I respect myself and respect others. There will also be the conviction that nothing and no one can take this gift from me. Life will have its ups and downs, but God's presence is constant whether I feel it or am conscious of it or not.