If we would have the reality of the Body of Christ, we must allow Christ to make His home in our hearts, for only by the inner experience of Christ as life can we have this reality of the Body.
Today the universal Body of Christ is expressed on earth as the local churches, and a genuine local church is a local expression of the universal Body of Christ. To be in a local church, therefore, whether we know it or not, is in some way to be in the universal Body of Christ.
The local churches are the procedure for God to gain the Body of Christ, and they are indispensable with all their aspects in this age for the goal of the Body of Christ to be manifested in reality all over the earth.
When the Lord Himself, from His perspective of His administration on the throne, decides that the reality of the Body of Christ is sufficient, this reality will become the prepared bride for the Bridegroom to come.
Then, before too long, the bride will be the warrior returning with the Lord as the Commander-in-chief to engage the enemy at Armageddon. Then the army with Christ will be a corporate smiting stone to strike the human government, reduce it to nothing, and the stone will become a great mountain filling the whole earth.
All this will take place in approximately three and half years, and everything depends on whether or not in our generation, at this present time, the Lord will actually have in the churches the reality of the Body of Christ.
The Spirit of reality, who is the reality of all that the Triune God has and is and is the reality of the Body of Christ, this Spirit has to be wrought into our being.
When the Spirit of reality is actually and experientially wrought into our being, the reality of the Body of Christ is being manifested among us.
The reality of the Body of Christ depends upon this kind of constitution, on the inner experience of Christ as life for Him to make His home in our heart. Therefore we must give the Spirit of reality the full access to our inner being so that He may work Himself into us and even our inward parts would be saturated with Him.
Whether or not such a constitution will come forth in the Lord’s recovery is not determined by God or by Christ or even by the Spirit of reality alone but by us.
We need to let the Lord work Himself into our being, we need to let the word of Christ dwell in us richly, we need to let the peace of Christ arbitrate in our heart, and we need to let the Lord make His home in our hearts. We can let Him or we can let Him not. We decide, and, this is our freedom and responsibility.
Opening to the Lord as the One who Searches the Hearts for Him work Himself into us
In Revelation the Lord spoke to the seven churches, and to each one of them He both revealed a certain aspect of Himself and His person, and He gave them a particular word concerning their situation, connecting that aspect of His person to their condition.
To the church in Thyatira He said, All the churches will know that I am He who searches the inward parts of the hearts. What the Lord spoke to one particular church, the Spirit speaks to all the churches.
The Spirit is an eternal Spirit, the local churches are being recovered on the earth, and the Spirit speaks to the churches right now that He, Christ as the glorified Son of Man searches the inward parts and the hearts.
He knows that the only way we will truly and unreservedly open to Him is when we are in an atmosphere of His sweet, endearing, precious, pure love for us, and He shows us His heart full of love toward us.
Yes, the Lord knows us inwardly, and yes, He knows our heart’s most secret thoughts, feelings, intentions, and desires, and yet He loves us without end. He knows the depths of our heart for He’s the One who searches the inward parts and the heart, and yet He loves us.
Our response to His love, when we see His unconditional love toward us even as we are, is that we by the Lord’s mercy present ourselves to Him and fully open our entire being to Him, giving Him the permission to enter in our heart, make His home in our heart, be free to do whatever He wants to do, have the freedom to touch whatever He wants, and give us the experiences that He thinks we need for Him to gain the reality of the Body of Christ.
According to the book of Revelation, the Lord’s eyes are like a flame of fire, and He as the Lamb of God on the throne has seven eyes.
We need to be before Him, open to Him, and let Him look at us, and His eyes of burning fire will consume everything in our being that is contrary to Him, and He will infuse into us the reality of His being.
How does He do this? The secret is the Spirit with our spirit, as seen in Prov. 20:27. The spirit of man is the lamp of Jehovah, searching all the innermost parts of our being. Our human spirit is God’s lamp – and the light is God Himself, who is light (1 John 1:5).
When our spirit – the lamp – is mingled with the divine Spirit – the light – they become one searching lamp, searching the innermost parts of our inner being.
Our mingled spirit cooperates with the glorified Son of man to search our inner parts for His enlightening.
When the Spirit with our spirit search our inward parts, He touches the depths of the self, our peculiarity, and our disposition, and He breaks through in us; then, there is an opening in our inner being, and so He constitutes us with the reality of Himself little by little.
This is the same principle we see with Samuel in 1 Sam. 16:7, where God sent Samuel to anoint David, but Samuel looked at the outward appearance – however, God looks at the heart.
We live in a culture of outward appearance; we should not put on a mask or try to be something we are not, but rather, learn to live a life of genuineness in the presence of the One who looks at the heart.
Our prayer should be as the Psalmist’s prayer, Lord, examine me, try me, and test my inward parts and the heart. The Lord will test our inward parts, and He will arrange something in our environment, which will get a reaction from us – this is where we are, and this is where we need to open to the Lord.
The righteous God tries the heart and the inward parts; search me and know my heart (Psa. 7:9).
Jehovah tests the inward parts and the heart, He searches the heart and tests the inward parts (Jer. 11:20; 17:10); He imparts His laws into our heart and writes it on our heart (Jer. 31:33). May we learn to open our inner being to the Lord and tell Him,
Lord, we open our being to You, the One who searches the hearts; try our heart know our inward parts, and infuse Yourself into our inner being! Lord, we open our whole inner being to You for You to search us, test us, remove anything that is contrary to You, and work Yourself into us. Amen, Lord, make Your home in all our heart. Thank You for Your heart of love toward us; in love, Lord, we just open to You so that Your Spirit with our spirit would search all the innermost parts of our inner being.
Allowing Christ to make His Home in our Hearts for the Reality of the Body of Christ
When Christ comes into us, He is in our spirit; our heart is our home, and the Lord wants to spread from our spirit into every part of our inner being, into all our heart.
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; 3:16-17; 4:16). He will not invade our home but rather, He stands at the door and knocks; we need to open the door and He will come in.
The Body of Christ is built up by Christ as the Spirit entering into our spirit and spreading Himself from our spirit into our mind, emotion, and will, so that He may occupy our entire being.
Many times, due to ignorance, we imprison the Lord in our spirit; we limit Him to the realm of our spirit, and He waits for us to turn our heart to Him and allow Him to spread into every part of our heart.
He doesn’t want just to visit our heart or stay there as in a motel or a vacation home; He wants to make our heart His home. Therefore, we need to take Christ as our person; when we take Him as our life, He comes into our spirit as life, but when he becomes our person, He spreads into our heart.
The genuine church life is the issue of Christ personally making His home in our heart to occupy every corner of our inner being. Actually, the content of the church is nothing else but Christ, the Christ whom we have enjoyed, the Christ we have experienced, and the Christ we allowed to be at home in our heart.
The Lord said that He will build His church (Matt. 16:18), so we need to let Him make His home in our heart so that He may possess, saturate, and occupy our entire inner being.
The more Christ makes His home in our heart, the more we are able to be built up with others in the Body of Christ; the reality of the Body is such an inner experience of the indwelling Christ (see Col. 1:27; 2:19; 3:4, 10-11, 15-16; 4:15-16).
We need to ask the Lord,
Oh Lord, what is the inner experience of the indwelling Christ? We don’t want to merely have some experience of Christ personally, but have the experience of the wonderful Christ who indwells us!
With prayers like these, all throughout the day, we open the door of our heart to the Lord, and we cooperate with His inner working for Him to make His home in us.
When Christ makes His home in our hearts, we will be filled unto all the fullness of God; this fullness is the church, the Body of Christ, as the corporate expression of the Triune God (see Eph. 3:16-19).
Here we see the direct connection between Christ making His home in our heart and the fullness of Christ coming forth; the more we let Christ make His home in us, the more He brings us into the reality of the Body of Christ.
The reality of the Body life is the issue of the immeasurable Christ making His home in our hearts; our inner being has to be enlarged so that we may experience Christ not only in His breadth but also in His length, height, and depth.
We need to experience the universally vast dimensions of Christ in the church life, with the saints.
The content of the church as the Body of Christ is the Christ who has been wrought into our being (see Gal. 1:15-16; 2:20; 4:19; Col. 3:4, 10-11); the more we open our inner being to Him and let Christ work Himself into us by making His home in our heart, the more we will be intrinsically part of the reality of the Body of Christ, which will ultimately bring the Lord back.
Lord Jesus, we turn our heart to You. We open our heart to You in faith and in love, and we pray that we would have a real experience of You for the reality of the Body of Christ. Amen, Lord, we want to experience You for the Body. Work Yourself into us. Make Your home in our heart. May our heart be Your home, and may You spread from our mingled spirit into all the inner parts of our being. Oh Lord, may Your Body be built up by Your daily spreading into our inner being to saturate us, fill us, and permeate us with Your element!
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, The Conclusion of the New Testament, msg. 338 (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:
# Come and rejoice with me! / For I have found a Friend / Who knows my heart’s most secret depths, / Yet loves me without end. (Hymns #285)
# ’Tis my joy to give You all the ground, Lord; / Make my heart a dwelling place for You; / I want You to be at home within me; / Come and settle down in every room. (Song on, My heart longs for absolute surrender)
# 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)
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