The Spirit of God dwelling in you

Back to this idea of relationship. This passage seems to call out the individual, and put each Christian into direct relationship with the Trinity. And how is that relationship described?

1. God has a Spirit. This Spirit dwells in you.
2. Christ has the same Spirit. If we “have” this Spirit, Christ “has” us.
3. By this Spirit, Christ is in us.
4. So, the love of the Father for the Son extends to us and his power is able to work in us.

First of all, the Spirit of God is dwelling in you. What does this mean? The word “dwell” suggests a long-term, intimate relationship. But he doesn’t just dwell with you, he dwells in you. The same word (I’m assuming it’s the same word) is used for our relationship with our flesh… we are “in the flesh”. Before, Paul talked about walking according to the spirit or flesh or Spirit, but this seems much more personal. I feel like the transition verse was where he says that “those who live according to the flesh set their minds on things of the flesh, and those who live according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit”. I can’t really tell the cause and effect, but how life is externally lived is a reflection (or a cause) of one’s interior life. Here it gets complicated, because to “set one’s mind on the things of the Spirit” has, as discussed before, the implication that it’s something that we do on purpose, while “the Spirit of God dwelling in you” has a much more passive, there’s nothing that I’m doing sound to it. I guess it could be both.. if I’m thinking that it’s parallel to walking according to the flesh, setting your mind on the things of the flesh and “being in the flesh”… you do what the flesh tells you to, because in your mind are fleshly things—they probably feed off of each other…you choose how you live based on how your mind works, and your mind is influenced by how you are living. And to be “in the flesh” is to inhabit this state… a mind at enmity with God, and actions that can’t please Him.

But we’re not in the flesh anymore… instead, the Spirit is in us. I keep thinking in terms of a country… to be in a country, we’re subject to its laws and organizational workings. Everywhere you move around and no matter what you do you’re still in that country. It’s interesting that it doesn’t say (here, at any rate) that we are “in the Spirit”… instead, the Spirit is “in us”. So He enters into our country, into the government and infrastructure of our bodies and minds that we had even before he came, and lives there. And by his living there, we are not part of The Flesh anymore… in us, He revolts and sets up an autonomous country, and we aren’t subject to The Flesh’s laws and we can tear up its roads and put in new schools or whatnot. And we can now live according to God’s law, because we’re not subject to the laws of the old country anymore. I realize I made a mistake when I said in the Spirit we’re an autonomous country. Of course we’re not. We’re now like a colony or outpost of God’s country.