Christ Makes His Home in our Heart until We are Filled unto All the Fullness of God

When someone believes into the Lord Jesus, Christ comes into his spirit to regenerate him with the divine life. This is the beginning of the Christian life. God is Spirit, and when we open to Him we receive Him as Spirit into our spirit.

But God wants to spread into all the parts of our being – He wants to make His home in our mind, emotion, will, and all the parts of our soul. For this, we need to be strengthened with power into the inner man, so that we may cooperate with the Lord’s making His home in all our heart.

He spreads in us daily, bringing life into our mind, emotion, and will, taking us through the process of renewing, transformation, and conformation, until we become the same as He is.

Also, Christ wants to become our person, so that we would think the way He thinks, desire the things that He wants, and choose what He wills. The result of Christ making His home in our heart is that we are all filled unto all the fullness of God – we become the Body of Christ, the full expression of the Triune God (Eph. 3:19)!

Together with all the saints we apprehend what the immeasurable and inexhaustible dimensions of Christ are, and we become the church as His fullness, His expression.

This is the church life today: a group of people in whose heart Christ makes His home, and who allow Christ to live in the, be expressed through them, and fill them unto all God’s fullness to be His expression.

Christ Makes His Home in Our Hearts and He Becomes our Person

God created us with a human spirit so that we may receive Him, contact Him, and touch Him (John 4:24; 1 Thes. 5:23). But our spirit is only the beachhead for God to come into our being.

The decision maker in us is not our spirit yet, but it is our heart. Our personality, our decision-maker, our loving organ, and our thinking person is our heart. This is why Christ wants to spread into our heart and make His home in our heart, so that He may become not only our life but also our person.

Christ as the life-giving Spirit is now in our spirit (1 Cor. 15:45b; 2 Tim. 4:22), but He wants to continue to spread into our heart and make His home there.

All genuine Christians today have Christ in their spirit, but how many believers allow Christ to make His home in their heart?

How many open to the Lord to spread in their mind, spending time in God’s word and in fellowship with God so that He would infuse His way of thinking, His thoughts, His thought-process into us?

How many believers allow Christ to fill their emotions and give them the love for God, for man, and for the things of God?

How many believers allow Christ to defeat their will, strengthen their will toward God, and uplift their will to choose God’s will and stand with God’s will on earth?

Christ really needs to break through in us, in our inward being, so that He may make His home in us and become our life and person. For Christ as a living Person to become our person we need to be strengthened into our inner man so that Christ may make His home in our hearts through faith (Eph. 3:16).

Daily we need to take Christ as our person, our personality, yielding to Him as He speaks to us, rebukes us, bothers us, anoints us, leads us, and touches us.

Filled Unto All the Fullness of God

The result and the issue of Christ making His home in our heart is that we are filled unto all the fullness of God (Eph. 3:19).

First we are strengthened into our inner man, then Christ has a chance to make His home in our heart, and as we all go through this process, together we will be full of strength to apprehend with all the saints the breadth, the length, the height, and the depth of Christ (Eph. 3:18).

As Christ is making His home in our heart, we will realize experientially what the immeasurable dimensions of Christ are in the saints, and we are filled with all the fullness of God to express Him. We will know the knowledge-surpassing love of Christ – we will experientially realize the love of Christ, which is beyond any human knowledge.

As a result, we will be filled unto all the fullness of God to be the Body of Christ! This means that, personally, even though our love and patience runs out, Christ’s love and patience are immeasurable and they fill our virtues to become our love and patience. Corporately, in the church life we are filled unto all the fullness of God!

Such a matter is beyond our human understanding. What is God’s fullness? In Christ all the fullness was pleased to dwell bodily (Col. 2:9). As we allow this One to make His home in our hearts, we together are filled with all the fullness of God.

The fullness of God today is in the Body of Christ, the corporate entity which expresses Him to the uttermost by being filled to overflowing with all the riches of Christ.

We have such a glorious destiny! God made us as vessels to be filled with Him, and we will be corporately filled with the fullness of God to express Him and overflow Him to the entire universe! Hallelujah!

The Church Life Today Being the Issue of Christ’s Making His Home in our Heart

What is the church life today? It is simply eating, drinking, and breathing Jesus! In the church life all the saints enjoy Christ, drink Christ, eat Christ, and breathe in Christ.

The church life is composed of many believers who are at different stages of allowing Christ to make His home in their heart through faith. We all open to the Lord and let Him make His home in us, and together we apprehend the universally vast dimensions of Christ.

As we personally allow the Lord to make His home in our heart, we corporately are filled with the unsearchable riches of Christ with the result of having an overflow of the fullness of God.

When human beings gather together when they even live together in a corporate way, there’s a lot of problems, frictions, murmuring, quarreling, and issues. In the church life though as a divine and mystical gathering of believers who let Christ make His home in their hearts, Christ becomes all and in all.

We can have a tranquil and joyful church life as we allow Christ to make His home in our heart. Hallelujah! When we get together we simply overflow with the indwelling Christ who has been making His home in us.

Together, we apprehend the immeasurable and universal dimensions of Christ in all the saints. The genuine church life is the issue of the unlimited and immeasurable Christ personally making His home in our heart!

The content of the church is the Christ whom we take as our person, the Christ who is daily being wrought into our being as our life and person (Eph. 3:17; 4:16).

Eventually, the church will consummate in the New Jerusalem, the ultimate issue of our enjoyment of Christ and of Christ making His home in our hearts. Praise the Lord!

Lord, make Your home in our heart a little more today. Spread into our mind, Lord, to renew our mind and strengthen our mind to think the way You think, even to think Your thoughts. Lord, spread in our emotion and heal us, fill us, strengthen us, and cause us to love what You love, hate what You hate, and desire what You desire. Lord, defeat our will, subdue our will, and fill our will with Your intention, Your purpose, Your will, and Your goal. May all the saints in the church life allow You to make Your home in their hearts through faith. Lord, fill us unto all the fullness of God to be the Body of Christ expressing You to the entire universe!

References and Further Reading

• Inspiration: A sharing by brother James Lee and portions in, Life-study of Ephesians (msg. 80), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, “The Completing Ministry of Paul“, week 3 entitled, The Indwelling Christ.
• Further reading: recommending chs 2-4 from, The Completing Ministry of Paul (by Witness Lee), and ch. 3 from, The Intrinsic View of the Body of Christ.
• Hymns on this topic:
  # Thus with all saints we can apprehend / All the vast dimensions of God. / Knowing Christ’s love passes all we know, / We’re together filled to fullness with our God.
  # When Christ makes His home in our hearts, / And when we are full of strength to apprehend / With all the saints the dimensions of Christ / And to know by experience His knowledge surpassing love, / We will be filled unto all the fullness of God, / Which is the church, the corporate expression of God / For the fulfillment of His intention.
  # O that Christ may make His home my heart, / Spread Himself in every part! / Saturate and life impart! / That with all saints, I may apprehend / All the vast dimensions of my loving Christ.