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“That Christ may make His home in your hearts through faith”—Eph. 3:17a:
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God the Father is exercising His authority through God the Spirit to strengthen us into the inner man that God the Son may make His home deep down in our heart.
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If we allow Christ to have all the room within us and if we give Him the full liberty to do whatever He wants in us, our heart will become His home.
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“God is my witness how I long after you all in the inward parts of Christ Jesus”—Phil. 1:8:
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Paul did not live a life in his natural inner being; he lived a life in the inward parts of Christ, experienced Christ in His inward parts, and was one with Christ in His inward parts.
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Paul did not keep his own inward parts but took Christ's inward parts as his; Paul's inner being was reconstituted with the inward parts of Christ.
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“Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus”—2:5:
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To let Christ's mind be in us is to take Christ as our person by denying our natural mind and taking His mind.
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If we intend to take Christ as our person, we must be willing to deny our mind and have our mind replaced by the mind of Christ.
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“For also what I have forgiven, if I have forgiven anything, it is for your sake in the person of Christ”—2 Cor. 2:10b:
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Paul lived Christ in the closest and most intimate contact with Him, acting according to the index of His eyes.
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Paul was a person who was one with Christ, full of Christ, and saturated with Christ; he was a person broken and even terminated in his natural life, softened and flexible in his will, affectionate yet restricted in his emotion, considerate and sober in his mind, and pure and genuine in his spirit toward the saints for their benefit.
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“That the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the spirit”—Rom. 8:4:
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In practicality, to take Christ as our person is to have our being wholly according to the mingled spirit.
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In our daily life we should not have our being according to teaching, feelings, concepts, or circumstances but according to the mingled spirit, taking Christ as our person for the universal one new man.
Morning Nourishment
Eph. 3:14-17 For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father, of whom every family in the heavens and on earth is named, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit into the inner man, that Christ may make His home in your hearts through faith, that you, being rooted and grounded in love.In Ephesians 3:17 the phrase make His home is only one word in the Greek, katoikeo. This Greek word basically means to settle down in a dwelling, to make a dwelling place. The prefix of this word, kata, means “down.” This means that Christ is making His home not upward but downward….In some big cities there is an “underground city” with all types of shops and eating establishments. In the same way, Christ likes to make a home downward or “underground.” Christ is not superficial like many of today's Christians who “skate on the ice” of the truth contained in the Bible. The Father, according to His wisdom, is exercising His sovereignty to strengthen you through His Spirit into the inner man, that Christ may make His home in your heart.
We all need to say, “Thank You, Father! You are the One granting us to be strengthened. You have a plan, You have a purpose, and You are wise. Praise You that You are exercising Your sovereignty to cause us to be strong. Thank You, Father, that You do this through the Spirit. Thank You, we are being strengthened into the inner man, that Christ may make His home in our heart.”(CWWL, 1984, vol. 3, “God's New Testament Economy,” pp. 475-476)
Today's Reading
The Triune God is now abiding in us, so we have been rooted into Him [Eph. 3:17]. While we are rooted into Him, the Father works to strengthen us through God the Spirit so that God the Son, Christ, may make His home deep down in our heart, which is composed of our mind (Heb. 4:12), will (Acts 11:23), emotion (John 16:6, 22), and conscience (Heb. 10:22). Before He began to make His home in our heart, our mind, emotion, will, and conscience were devoid of Him. However, since we began to pray that God the Father would strengthen us into the inner man, Christ gradually began to occupy our mind, take over our emotion and will, and possess our entire conscience.Our heart is like a house that has four rooms, and these rooms are the mind, the emotion, the will, and the conscience. Christ has the desire to occupy every room of our heart and every corner of every room. As He makes His home downward in our heart, we become strong to apprehend with all the saints the breadth, length, height, and depth of Christ (Eph. 3:18). These are the dimensions of the universe. No one knows how wide the breadth is, how long the length is, how high the height is, or how deep the depth is. All these dimensions describe the immeasurable Christ, whose dimensions are the dimensions of the universe. He is the breadth, length, height, and depth.
In Matthew 16:18 the Lord Jesus promised that He would build His church. In order for this to be realized, the church has to enter into a state where so many saints will have Christ making His home deep down in their heart so that their entire being would be saturated within with Christ as the embodiment of the Triune God, possessing and occupying every corner and every avenue of their entire being. This is the subjective experience of the Triune God and is the very mingling of the Triune God with His chosen and redeemed people. This is divinity mingled with humanity, the composition of the divine God with His redeemed people, which is termed the New Jerusalem in this great allegory. We have entered into the Triune God, and we are still entering. We are entering, and He is making His home deep down in our heart. The more we enter, the more He deepens. Eventually, He gets into our inward being to such an extent that He has housed Himself in every corner and avenue of our entire being. (CWWL, 1984, vol. 3, “God's New Testament Economy,” pp. 476-477)
Further Reading: CWWL, 1984, vol. 3, “God's New Testament Economy,” ch. 39