• Is God In Residence?

  Contributed by Johnny Wilson on Feb 27, 2009 (message contributor)

    (rate this sermon illustration)

   | 1,901 views

  Scripture:  None

  Tags:  Joy

  Denomination: *other

IS GOD IN RESIDENCE?

I once saw a poster of a valentine-shaped heart with a castle on top of it. There was a flag with a slogan, oversized and coming out of the top of the castle. The slogan read: "Joy is the banner flown from the heart when the King is in residence."

Well, stupid me, I didn’t realize what it meant until I discovered that, in the UK, one can always tell whether the queen is "at home" in the royal residence when a special flag is flying. In fact, there is even a larger version of that flag for her two (one real and one official) birthdays that are flown when she is "in residence" on one of those birthdays.

Now, the slogan makes perfect sense to me. Just as anyone from the lowest peasant to the Prime Minister can know that whether the royalty of Britain are present by looking for a flag, a physical symbol, everyone around us is likely to be able to tell whether God is "in residence" in our lives by our "joy." How we react to trouble, to challenges, and even to success will signal whether the King is "in residence" in our lives.