To Live in the Reality of the Body we need to Live in the Inward Parts of Christ Jesus

If we would live in the reality of the Body of Christ we need to live in the inward parts of Christ Jesus, knowing His inward parts and living one with Him. This means first that we allow Him to make His home in our heart.

The Lord Jesus came into our spirit through regeneration, and now He is housing Himself in our heart, that is, He is settling in our being to make His home there. However, we need to cooperate with the Lord and simply allow Him to make His home in our heart.

This means that we need to experience Christ inwardly making His home deep down in our heart, even in the areas and rooms in our being which we don’t know exist – we just open to Him and allow Him to make His home in us.

Through many opening prayers here and there all throughout the day we can give the Lord permission to come into our inner being and spread from our spirit into our mind, emotion, will, heart, desires, intentions, and all our inward parts.

Before we go to bed we may want to tell the Lord, Lord Jesus, may tomorrow as soon as I wake up I would experience You and enjoy You for the Body.

When we wake up, we can turn our heart to Him and tell Him, Lord Jesus, I love You. I turn my heart to You. Make Your home in my heart more today. Lord, settle down in my heart and make my heart Your home for the Body.

Then, when we meet with the saints in various church meetings, our heart needs to be turned to the Lord and our spirit exercised so that we may not only enjoy the meeting but enjoy the universally vast Christ together with all the saints.

As we enjoy the immeasurably rich Christ and experience Him in the church life, we touch and enter into the reality of the Body of Christ.

The more Christ works Himself into our being, the richer the church life will be, and the more we will experience being in the reality of the Body of Christ, for the content of the church life is the Christ wrought into us.

This is God’s central work, and this relates to what He wanted to do from the very beginning – He wants to work Himself into man so that He may obtain a corporate expression through man.

Today we want to see how, for us to be live in the reality of the Body of Christ, we need to experience Christ in a very particular way – we need to live in the inward parts of Christ Jesus.

What are these inward parts, and how do these relate to the reality of the Body of Christ and also to our living?

Again, we need a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the full knowledge of Christ so that we may see who He is, what He is, what kind of living He had, and how can we as His continuation and duplication live in the inward parts of Christ Jesus.

Seeing how Christ as a Man had Human Inward Parts with their Various Functions

As a man, Christ had the human inward parts with their various functions, and Christ’s experiences in His inward parts were His experiences in His mind, emotion, will, soul, heart, and spirit, including His love, desire, feeling, thought, decision, motive, and intention (Luke 2:49; John 2:17; Matt. 26:39; Isa. 53:12; 42:4; Mark 2:8).

As His continuation today, we need to experience the inward parts of Christ Jesus for the reality of the Body of Christ.

When we say that we want to experience Christ’s inward parts, what do we refer to? When we read the Gospels what we see is not only God being mingled with man, a God-man living on earth, and the mighty works that Jesus did; what we see also is Christ’s experiences in His inward parts.

There are a number of verses which reveal Christ’s experience in His inward parts.

When He was twelve years old, the Lord Jesus said, Did you not know that I must be in the things of My Father? (Luke 2:49) This can also be translated as, I must mind My Father’s business. Even from a young age we see that the Lord’s mind was occupied with the Father’s business, and He was inwardly for the Father and for His purpose.

In John 2:17 we see how the Lord was zealous for God and for His house; zeal is a matter of the emotion. The zeal for God’s house burned in the Lord Jesus like a fire, and He exercised His emotion to love the things of God and the house of God.

Regarding the Lord’s will, in the garden of Gethsemane the Lord Jesus prayed, Yet not as I will, but as You will (Matt. 26:39). The Lord was about to be arrested and brought to the cross, and even in such trying times He took the Father’s will, for His own will was subdued to the Father’s will.

In His will the Lord exercised to do the Father’s will, and He chose the Father’s will even unto death, and that the death of a cross.

Isaiah prophesied concerning the Lord Jesus and His death, and he said, He poured out His life unto death (Isa. 53:12). This refers to the Lord’s soul-life; He voluntarily poured His soul unto death. The Lord Jesus didn’t just die for us physically, but He laid down His soul-life for us, and He poured it out unto death.

Yet concerning His heart, Isa. 42:7 says, He will not faint, nor will He be discouraged. On one hand the Lord willingly chose the Father’s will and knew He was going to die, and on the other, the condition of the Lord’s heart was that He was never disheartened or discouraged.

This was an experience of Christ’s inward parts. Finally, regarding His spirit, Mark 2:8 says, Jesus, knowing fully in His spirit… This shows that the Lord used His Spirit, discerning all things in His spirit, and knowing the situation in His spirit.

The Lord used His spirit for God and for making Himself a burnt offering.

Lord Jesus, may we see You and know You in Your experiences in Your inward parts. Make us Your duplication, Your reproduction, and Your continuation. May we be those who mind our Father’s business, are filled with zeal in our emotion for God and His house, choose God’s will, are willing to lay down our soul life, are not discouraged in our heart, and live and know all things in spirit. Amen, Lord, we want to experience the inward parts of Christ Jesus for the reality of the Body of Christ!

To Live in the Reality of the Body we need to Live in the Inward Parts of Christ Jesus

If we would live in the reality of the Body of Christ, we need to live in the inward parts of Christ Jesus (see Phil. 1:8; Eph. 4:16).

Regarding the inward parts of Christ Jesus there are two aspects: on one hand the Lord opened His being for us to enter in, abide, and experience Him; on the other, we need to allow Christ with His inward parts to enter us and replace our self-centered inward parts with Himself.

On the one hand the Lord Jesus has opened His being for us to enter into Him, abide in Him, and enter into His inward parts with all their details; in this way we can know how He thinks, how He feels, what He desires, what’s His longing, what is His intention and decisions.

On the other hand, we need to allow Christ with His inward parts to enter into us and replace our self-centered inward parts with Himself; in this way, Christ reproduces Himself in us – we live in Him and He lives in us for the reality of the Body of Christ.

A particular item related to the Lord’s inward parts is revealed in Psa. 16:7, where He tells God that God counsels Him, and at night His inward parts instruct Him. In other words, the Lord Jesus contacted God for counsel, but God counseled Him not by giving Him a direct speaking by through His inward parts.

If God was thinking a certain way, the Lord in His inward parts was also thinking the same way; if God felt this way, Christ also felt this way; if God had a certain desire, this desire was also Christ’s, for His inward parts guided Him.

Eventually this will become our experience more and more: we may look to the Lord for some outward guidance or direction, and it may or may not happen, but the Lord will lead us in a certain direction as we are one with Him on the level of the inward parts.

The Lord wants us to live in the inward parts of Christ Jesus so that His inward parts live in us and cause our inward parts to be one with Him; in this way we have His thought, His feeling, His desire, and His longing.

We need to experience Christ in His inward parts and live in the inward parts of Christ Jesus so that we may live in the reality of the Body of Christ.

When we live in the inward parts of Christ Jesus, we may have His deep sense of longing to return for His bride…we realise that the church as the bride of Christ is the joy set before Him, and for her He endured the cross and bore the shame, for Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her.

The Father is preparing a wedding feast in the kingdom for His Son, and Rev. 19:7-9 will be the happiest hour in the universe, for the bride has made herself ready!

When we sense the Lord’s desire to come, His desire will become our desire, and we will have His longing for the reality of the Body of Christ!

When we live in the inward parts of Christ Jesus, we realise that He is praying for us, He’s fighting for us, He’s interceding for us, He is shepherding us, and He is ministering to us with the goal that He may gain the reality of the Body of Christ, which is for the preparation of the bride of Christ!

When we live in the inward parts of Christ we will sense the Lord’s longing to gain His bride and return, and we will also long for Christ to return and for us to be raptured as His overcomers to be in the wedding feast!

Lord Jesus, we want to live in the reality of the Body of Christ by living in the inward parts of Christ Jesus. Thank You Lord for opening Your being for us to enter into You, abide in You, and enter into Your inward parts. Lord, we allow You with Your inward parts to enter into us and replace our self-centered inward parts with Yourself. Reproduce Yourself in us, Lord, so that we live in You and You live in us. May our inward parts be one with Your inward parts, and may we live more and more not in a self-centered way but in the inward parts of Christ so that we may live in the reality of the Body of Christ!

References and Hymns on this Topic

• Inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message by Ron Kangas for this week, and portions from, Life-study of Leviticus, msgs. 7, 9 (by Witness Lee), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, The Reality of the Body of Christ (2018 Thanksgiving Conference), week 5, Living in the Reality of the Body of Christ by Living in the Inward Parts of Christ Jesus.
• Hymns on this topic:
  # We exercise our spirit / That Christ indwell our hearts / To spread throughout our being / To all our inward parts, / His life substantiating— / Mysterious, unseen— / By Him as faith, perceiving / God’s bounty unforeseen. (Song on, God grants us to be strengthened)
  # O Lord, You know what’s in my heart, / Desires concealed in my inward parts; / Though “I am Yours” my mouth’s confessed, / By many loves my heart’s possessed. (Song on, O Lord, You Know What’s in My Heart)
  # Spreading outward from our spirit / Doth the Lord transform our soul, / By the inward parts renewing, / Till within His full control. (Hymns #750)