As the Father strengthens us into our inner man, Christ is making His home deep down in our hearts to occupy every room, and we’re rooted and grounded in love to apprehend with all the saints what the universal dimensions of Christ are and be filled unto all the fullness of God. Hallelujah!
The way that Christ builds His church is prophesied in 2 Sam. 7:12-14 to David and spoken of by the Lord in Matt. 16:18, and the practical way the church is built up is seen in Eph. 3:16-21.
Christ is not the “carpenter” who uses tools to build His “church” as “heavenly mansions” where all His people come and spend eternity.
This is a fallen concept, a natural view of what the Bible speaks about.
Christ is building up His church, which is the organic Body of Christ, by making His home deep down in our hearts day by day; He does it based on the fact that the Father strengthens us with power through His Spirit into the inner man.
On His side, God Himself became a man, went through human living, crucifixion, and resurrection, and He became the firstborn Son of God and the life-giving Spirit.
On our side, when we believe into the Lord, we enter into the process of transformation and conformation to the image of Christ, the firstborn Son of God.
And this process doesn’t include merely some outward perfecting, learning some new things, picking up new habits, or doing things that are good; this process includes Christ making His home deep down in our hearts.
Christ comes into our spirit and wants to spread into all the parts of our inner being so that He may work Himself into us and build Himself into our being.
The church as God’s building is actually a mutual dwelling place of God and man composed of divinity and humanity being built and blended together.
Everything in the church is Christ; everyone in the church must be made the same as Christ; the only element that the church is composed of is Christ.
God wants His Christ to be wrought into our being so that we would become the same as Christ to be the many members of Christ to express God corporately.
So Christ comes into us, into our spirit, and He wants to make His home in our hearts so that He may take over, occupy, possess, and saturate all the parts of our mind, emotion, and will.
In other words, Christ builds His church in an organic way by constituting Himself into us; in this process, what is old and natural is being removed, and what is of God is added to our being.
Christ is Making His Home Deep Down in our Hearts to Saturate and Occupy all the Rooms in our Heart
In Eph. 3:16-19 Paul prays that God the Father would grant us, the believers in Christ, to be strengthened through God the Spirit into our inner man so that Christ, God the Son, may make His home in our heart through faith.
The Greek word for “make His home” is katoikeo, which basically means to settle down in a dwelling, to make a dwelling place.
Kata in Greek means down; Christ is making His home deep down in our hearts.
When a person or a family moves into a new house, it may take one or two days for all the things to be moved in, but it will take quite a long time for them to make that house their home, that is, for them to settle in.
When Christ moved into us at the time of our regeneration, that was very quick; however, the process of Him settling down in our being takes a lifetime.
Christ lives in us – He is in our spirit, and in spirit, we are joined to Him as one (1 Cor. 6:17).
But He’s not in us as in a motel, coming and going, staying there temporarily and using the facilities; Christ is in us to stay, to make His home.
He wants to settle down, and He’s serious about making His home deep down in our hearts to saturate and occupy us with Himself.
For this to take place, God the Father exercises His authority through God the Spirit to strengthen us into the inner man, so that God the Son may make His home deep down in our hearts.
Hallelujah, Christ is in us (Col. 1:27), but we need to allow Him to make His home deep down in our heart, to house Himself in our heart.
On one hand, He entered into us and we entered into Him, so we now abide in Him; on the other hand, our abiding in Christ affords Him a way to abide in us triunely.
The Triune God is in us, He abides in us, and we are rooted into Him.
As we send our roots down deep into Him to enjoy Him and absorb Him, the Father works to strengthen us through the Spirit so that Christ may make His home deep down in our hearts.
Christ is making His home deep down in our hearts to occupy and saturate our mind (Heb. 4:12), will (Acts 11:23), emotion (John 16:6, 22), and conscience (Heb. 10:22).
Day by day we are in the process of having Christ housing Himself in our being. As a result of His settling down in us, we will be rooted and grounded in love; we will not be shakable or easily uprooted.
If we truly have Christ in us, if we truly have Him building His house in us, we will not be superficial or shallow; rather, we will be rooted in Him.
He is making His home deep down in our hearts and we are sending our roots deep down in Him to absorb Him and be filled with Him.
He is housing Himself deep down in our hearts by gradually occupying, possessing, and saturating our mind, emotion, will, and conscience.
Our heart has four main rooms: the mind, the emotion, the will, and the conscience; Christ desires to occupy and saturate every room of our heart, and He wants to take over every corner of every room.
As we pray and open to Him, the Father strengthens us into our inner man through the Spirit and Christ makes His home downward in our hearts to saturate, fill, and occupy every room of our heart little by little.
The result of such a process is that we are rooted in love for God’s farm and grounded in love for God’s building (2 Cor. 3).
Right now we may still be quite easily shaken and even drifting from time to time, so we need more rooting, more grounding; we need to allow Christ to go further down in us, settling down in our being.
May we bring this to the Lord and open to Him concerning all these matters, asking Him,
Lord Jesus, make Your home deep down in our hearts to occupy, saturate, and fill our mind, emotion, will, and conscience. Amen, Lord, settle down in us and make Your dwelling place, Your home, in all the parts of our heart. Make Your home in our heart so that we may be rooted and grounded in love. Dear Lord, we open to You all the rooms of our heart so that You may come in, settle down, and make Yourself at home. Saturate, fill, and occupy our mind, emotion, and will with Yourself. We want to abide in You so that You may abide in us and make Your home in our heart. Amen, Father, make our inner man strong through Your Spirit so that Christ may make His home deep down in our heart!
Being Full of Strength to Apprehend with All the Saints the Immeasurable Christ in His Universal Dimensions
As a result of Christ making His home deep down in our hearts, we are full of strength to apprehend with all the saints what the breadth, the length, the height, and the depth are (Eph. 3:18).
As He makes His home in our hearts, we will be full of strength to apprehend with all the saints the immeasurable Christ, whose dimensions are the dimensions of the universe. Wow, what a Christ we have!
As we allow the Lord to make His home deep down in our hearts, we experience His breadth and then His length; this is horizontal.
Then, as we advance in Christ, we experience the height and the depth of His riches; this is vertical.
There is no measure to how much of Christ we can experience and apprehend with all the saints; the only limit is our experience of Him.
Christ is universally vast and rich; His dimensions are the ever-expanding dimensions of the universe, and we cannot exhaust His riches. However, we may be limited in our experience of Christ.
There are some believers who experience the breadth of Christ, and they are satisfied with this; they become “one-liner” believers, believers who experience only one dimension of Christ.
For example, some believers pray – that’s all they do, just pray and pray and pray, and they barely read the word of God.
Others, however, only read the Bible and scarcely pray; they just love the Bible and read it and read it and read it.
Others preach the gospel; they don’t coordinate with others nor do they pray or read the Bible – they just love to preach the gospel.
These may be extreme cases, but it is easy for us to become one-liners, focusing only on one aspect of our Christian faith or practice.
Our experience of Christ needs to be like a cube – we need to apprehend with all the saints what the breadth and length and height and depth are, that is, we need to corporately apprehend the immeasurable Christ in His universal dimensions.
Not even experiencing Christ in His breadth and length is enough; our experience needs to be tri-dimensional, like a cube, solid and stable.
Both in the tabernacle and in the temple, the Holy of Holies was a cube (Exo. 26:2-8; 1 Kings 6:20); eventually, the New Jerusalem will be an eternal cube, the enlarged Holy of Holies with twelve thousand stadia in three dimensions (Rev. 21:16).
Our church life today must be a “cube”, that is, we need to allow Christ to make His home deep down in our hearts so that we may apprehend with all the saints the breadth, the length, the height, and the depth of the riches of Christ.
If we have a tridimensional experience of Christ, we will be stable and solid, and we will be filled unto all the fullness of God.
Christ’s making His home in our hearts causes us to know the knowledge-surpassing love of Christ that we may be filled unto all the fullness of the Triune God for His corporate expression, His glorification (Eph. 3:19-21; cf. Gen. 24:47, 53, 61-67).
The fullness of God is the full expression of what He is, the overflow of what He is; this fullness is mentioned in Eph. 1:21, and as we experience the Triune God, we will be filled with this fullness.
By Christ making His home deep down in our hearts, we are strengthened to apprehend with all the saints the universal dimensions of Christ, and we know the knowledge-surpassing love of Christ and are filled with all the fullness of the Triune God. Amen!
He makes His home deep down in our hearts, and we enter into a tridimensional experience of the Triune God with all the saints, with the result that we are filled with all that God is to become His corporate expression in the universe. Wow!
This is the real and practical building up of the church. May we bring this to the Lord in prayer, opening to Him all the inner parts of our being and allowing Him to make His home deep down in our hearts.
Lord Jesus, make Your home deep down in our heart so that we may be full of strength to apprehend with all the saints the immeasurable Christ! Hallelujah, our Christ is inexhaustible, and we can apprehend Him with all the saints in the church life in our experience! Amen, Lord, increase and uplift our experience and apprehending of Christ with all the saints until we know in experience the breadth, the length, the height, and the depth of the riches of Christ. Make Your home in our heart, Lord, so that we may know the knowledge surpassing love of Christ that we may be filled unto all the fullness of the Triune God for His corporate expression!
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Sources of inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, a sharing by brother James Lee, and portions from, Life-study of Ephesians, msg. 33 (by Witness Lee), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Crystallization Study of 1 and 2 Samuel (2021 winter training), week 9, entitled, The Organic Building Up of the Church as the Body of Christ through the Process of Spiritual Metabolism according to the Believers’ Inner Experience of the Indwelling Christ.
- Further fellowship on this topic:
– Person, Person, Jesus is our Person, / Living now in us. / He’s our tastes, our attitudes and actions; / Oh, how glorious! / Our Person, Lord, Thou art / Make home in all our heart. / As life in every way / Be our Person, Lord, each day. (Hymns #1240)
– 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. (Song on, The love of Christ is Christ Himself)
– 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. (Hymns #1232)
