Scripture Reading: Eph. 3:14-21
Ⅰ
In Ephesians 3:14-21 Christ is revealed as the One making His home in the hearts of the believers.
Ⅱ
The Lord's recovery in the church today is the recovery of Christ as the Spirit entering into our spirit to be our everything and to spread from our spirit into our mind, emotion, and will so that our whole being is saturated, permeated, and occupied by Him; as a result of this process, Christ will make His home in our hearts, and this will produce the church— Christ entering into our spirit and spreading from our spirit into every part of our being—vv. 6, 10, 16-21.
Ⅲ
Paul's prayer in Ephesians 3:14-21 is that the believers would experience Christ for the church; this reveals that spirituality is a Body matter, something in the Body, with the Body, and for the Body—vv. 6, 10; 4:4-6, 16.
Ⅳ
In order to experience Christ in a subjective way for the church as the Body of Christ, we need to be strengthened with power into the inner man— 3:16:
A
The inner man is our regenerated spirit, which has God's life as its life.
B
We need to be strengthened into the inner man with the power that raised Christ from the dead, that seated Him in the heavenlies, that subjected all things under His feet, and that gave Him to be Head over all things to the church—1:19-22.
C
The Father strengthens us from within through the indwelling Spirit—3:16.
D
The more we are strengthened into the inner man, the more the parts of our inner being are brought back into the spirit, into our inner man—v. 16.
Ⅴ
Paul prayed that we would be strengthened into the inner man with the result that Christ could make His home in our hearts and thereby occupy, possess, permeate, and saturate our whole inner being with Himself—v. 17a:
A
Since our heart is the totality of our inward parts, the center of our inward being, and our representative with regard to our inclination, affection, delight, and desire, when Christ makes His home in our hearts, He controls our entire inward being and supplies and strengthens every inward part with Himself.
B
The more Christ spreads within us, the more He occupies every part of our inner being, possessing all these parts, and saturating them with Himself.
C
In order for the revelation in Ephesians 2 concerning the new man to be practical in our daily life, we need to let Christ make His home in our hearts:
１
For Christ to make His home in our hearts means that He is transmitted into us in a full way—1:22-23.
２
The more Christ spreads within us, the more He settles down in us and makes His home in us—3:17a.
３
Christ desires to make His home in our hearts—that is, to occupy every part of our inner being—yet He may now be imprisoned in our spirit—Col. 1:27; 2 Tim. 4:22a.
４
For Christ to make His home in our hearts is to mingle Himself with every part of our inner being; this is the marvelous mingling of divinity with humanity to produce the church—Eph. 1:22-23; 2:21-22; 3:6, 10; 4:16.
Ⅵ
In order for Christ to make His home in our hearts, we need to take Him not only as our life but also as our person—Col. 3:4; 1 John 5:11-12:
A
When Christ is in our spirit, He is our life, but when He spreads into our hearts, He becomes our person—Eph. 3:17a.
B
If we take Christ as our person, allowing Him to spread into our hearts, the person living in our hearts will not be the self but Christ; the crucial question is who is living in our hearts and who is the person taking up residence in our hearts—Gal. 2:20; Eph. 3:17a.
Ⅶ
The genuine church life is the issue of the unlimited and immeasurable Christ personally making His home in our hearts—vv. 17-21; 4:16:
A
The content of the church is the Christ whom we take as our person, the Christ who is wrought into our being—Col. 3:4, 10-11.
B
If we would have the reality of the Body of Christ, we must allow Christ to make His home in our hearts—Eph. 1:22-23; 3:6; 4:16; Rom. 12:4-5; 1 Cor. 12:12.
C
In order for Christ's word in Matthew 16:18 concerning the building up of the church to be fulfilled, the church must enter into a state where many saints allow Christ to make His home in their hearts, possessing, occupying, and saturating their entire inner being—Eph. 3:17a; 1:22-23; 4:16.
D
When the riches of Christ are assimilated into our being metabolically, they constitute us to be the fullness of Christ, the Body of Christ, the church, as His expression—1:23; 3:8, 19:
１
Our Christ is unsearchable and immeasurable, yet He is intimately making His home in our hearts—vv. 17-18.
２
As He makes His home in our hearts, we are filled unto all the fullness of God—v. 19.
E
"To Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus unto all the generations forever and ever. Amen"—v. 21.