In Eph. 3:16-21 we see the spirit, attitude, prayer, and faith that a serving one should have in order to work out the New Jerusalem and bring forth the one new man; in this portion we see how Paul is obsessed with Christ.
The heart of the Bible is the four books of Ephesians, Colossians, Philippians, and Galatians, and the heart of these four books is Eph. 3:16-21.
Paul’s prayer here is the heart of the heart of the divine revelation in the Bible, and in it we see his spirit, attitude, prayer, and faith as a serving one, one who wanted Christ to be wrought into the believers for the building up of the church as the Body of Christ.
This should also be our spirit, our attitude, our prayer, and our faith as we serve the Lord to work out the New Jerusalem and to bring forth the one new man.
In this portion we can see that the Triune God is like a great machine, ready to accomplish His purpose and His heart’s desire, but He needs our cooperation, He needs the human operator to operate this great machine.
If we pray this prayer every day for thirty days, the Father will strengthen us with power through His spirit into the inner man so that Christ may make His home in our heart through faith, so that we may apprehend with all the saints what the universally vast dimensions of Christ are, so that we may be filled unto all the fullness of God.
When we pray this prayer, we are brought into God’s goal, His heart’s desire, and His central thought.
When we pray this prayer and have the same spirit, attitude, prayer and faith as the apostle Paul, we become the operators of the machine of the Triune God for Him to build Himself into our heart and make our heart His home for His expression and fulness.
According to the entire revelation in the Bible, the desire of God’s heart and His goal is for Him to work Himself into us and to make us His corporate expression. If we don’t have God being wrought into us little by little every day, then our time on earth is wasted.
God wants to obtain a fulness, a group of people who enjoy His riches and are filled to the brim to express Him in His fulness.
As we enjoy the riches of Christ, after being strengthened with power through the Spirit into the inner man, these riches get assimilated into our being metabolically to become part of our constitution, our very inward being.
This was Paul’s prayer, and this is what he cared about concerning the saints. Paul was obsessed with Christ – he first persecuted Christ in a negative way, but when it pleased God to reveal Christ in him, he persecuted Christ in a positive way by pursuing to know Him, be found in Him, be filled with Him, and experience Him.
Also, Paul proclaimed Christ and the cross, and he wanted to know nothing else among the believers but Christ, and this One crucified. He testified that to him to live is Christ, that he was crucified with Christ and now Christ lives in him, and that he is still travailing in birth until Christ is formed in the believers.
What about us – are we so obsessed with Christ like Paul that we treasure Him, pursue Him, desire Him, want to know Him, experience Him, live Him, live to Him, live for Him, have Christ live in us, have Christ being formed in us, and have Christ making His home in us, so that we may corporately become His fulness, His expression?
We need to have the same heart, spirit, attitude, prayer, and faith as the apostle Paul in Eph. 3:16-21, and we need to cooperate with the Lord in prayer to pray these verses not just for ourselves but also for the saints and the new ones we are caring for, so that Christ may make His home in our heart for the Body, and Christ would make His home in the saints heart for the bringing forth of the new man.
Having Paul’s Spirit, Attitude, Prayer, and Faith, and being Obsessed with Christ Making His Home in our Heart
Ephesians 3:16-21 reveals the spirit, attitude, prayer, and faith that a serving one should have in order to work out the New Jerusalem and bring forth the one new man.
Paul’s spirit and attitude, that is, what he saw, what he was filled with, what he said, and what he cared about in his heart, were all related to the vision of God being manifested in the flesh and being mingled with man in order to build the church with Christ so that the church would be filled with Christ.
Paul was obsessed with Christ, and he desired that this One would make His home into the saints heart through faith. The most precious point in Ephesians 3:16-21 is not Paul’s prayer and faith but his spirit and attitude.
He realised something concerning the church as the fulness of God, that is, that there’s a need for the believers to be inwardly strengthened to allow Christ to make His home in their heart for the church, so he bowed his knees to the Father to pray.
We need to have the same attitude, spirit, prayer, and faith as the apostle Paul, and we need to be so obsessed with Christ that we cooperate with Him to work Christ into others and build Christ as the material of God’s building into others so that they may become a spiritual temple for the expression, the fulness, of the One who fills all and in all.
God’s desire is to build Himself into our being for the church, for His corporate expression. We need to let God build Himself into us and, and we need to cooperate with God to minister the building and builded God into others.
Nothing but Christ builds up and constitutes the church, so we need to be strengthened with power through the Spirit into the inner man for Christ to make His home in our heart, and this Christ who has been wrought into us becomes the constituting element of the church.
Then, we need to pray for the saints according to Paul’s pattern so that Christ would be wrought into their bring and they would become a spiritual temple for the expression of the One who fills all in all.
We all must see a vision, a revelation of God and His purpose, to the extent that we are obsessed with Christ and have the same attitude, spirit, prayer, and faith as the apostle Paul for Christ to be wrought into the saints.
All of our prayers must take this kind of prayer as the center, and we should have the faith for such a prayer.
We may be so obsessed with Christ that we may also kneel down like Paul and pray Eph. 3:16-21 concerning ourselves, our spouse, the saints in the church, and all the local churches, because we want to see Christ being wrought into the saints for the church to become the fulness of God, the corporate expression of the Triune God.
Our serving the Lord must be with this vision, with this kind of spirit, and with this kind of attitude, prayer, and heart, so that we may be one with God in His heart’s desire to have a corporate expression by making His home in our heart.
Lord Jesus, may we have the same spirit, attitude, prayer, and faith as Paul in Eph. 3:16-21 so that we may work out the New Jerusalem and bring forth the one new man! May we be so filled and saturated with Christ and His heart’s desire that we are obsessed with Christ and we desire that Christ would live in us, be mingled with us, be expressed through us, be formed in us, and be everything to us. Amen, Lord, we want to cooperate with You that Christ may be wrought into others and be built into them as the material for God’s building, the church, for God’s corporate expression!
Four Aspects of our need to be Strengthened into our Inner Man by the Father
In Eph. 3:16 Paul describes four aspects of our need to be strengthened into our inner man by the Father.
First of all, Paul was so burdened and filled with desire before God that he knelt before Him for this prayer, and his first request was not that Christ would make His home in the saints heart but that the saints would be strengthened into their inner man.
This strengthening is very necessary, for many times our inner man is weak and passive, so we need the Father to strengthen us. There are four aspects of our need to be strengthened into our inner man by the Father:
1. We need to be strengthened into our inner man according to the riches of His glory (Eph. 3:16). Glory is God expressed (Exo. 40:34; 2 Chron. 7:3; Ezek. 1:28; 10:4). What dwells in Christ is the expression of the riches of what God is, and the glory that is expressed is the fulness (Col. 2:9; Eph. 3:19).
This means that God wants to be expressed, and we need to be strengthened into our inner man according to the riches of His glory. God’s glory is wrought into the church, for He wants to be expressed here, in the church; hence, to God is the glory in the church (Eph. 3:20-21).
The glory of the expressed God can enter into us, the believers, and become our strengthening power within us; in turn, we are strengthened to express God’s glory. We need to be strengthened into our inner man according to the riches of God’s glory, which is God Himself being expressed, so that we may also express God in His glory.
2. We need to be strengthened into our inner man through His Spirit. God’s glory is in His Spirit; everything of God is in the Spirit, and without the Spirit, God can’t be expressed through man.
The Father strengthens us from within through the indwelling Spirit, who has been with us and in us since our regeneration. We need to be strengthened by the Father according to the riches of His glory through His Spirit – who is with our spirit.
3. We need to be strengthened into our inner man with power. This power is referred to in Eph. 1:19-22, which is the power that raised Christ from the dead, seated Him at the right hand of God in the heavenlies, subjected all things under Christ’s feet, and gave Christ to be Head over all things to the church.
Such a fourfold power operates now in us, and with such a power God strengthens us for the church. The Greek word for power is “dynamos”, where dynamite comes from; we are so strong in ourselves that we need to be “blasted out of our self” and into the mingled spirit.
God the Father strengthens us with the fourfold power of Christ – the resurrecting power, ascending power, subjecting power, and heading up power – into our inner man so that Christ may spread into all the rooms of our heart and make His home in our mind, emotion, will, and conscience.
4. We need to be strengthened into our inner man; the inner man is our regenerated spirit, which has God’s life as its life. We are not strengthened into our mind or our will, but we are strengthened through the Holy Spirit into our mingled spirit. We need to be strengthened into our spirit every day.
Our inner man should be the strongest part of our being; we need to have an exercised spirit, and we need to help others also have an exercised spirit for Christ to make His home in our heart through faith.
May we be those obsessed with Christ to the extent that we pray to the Lord every day,
Father, strengthen us, according to the riches of Your glory, with power through Your spirit into our inner man so that Christ may make His home in our heart through faith! Strengthen us with the power that raised Christ from the dead, seated Christ at the right hand of God in the heavenlies, subjected all things under His feet, and gave Christ to be Head over all things to the church! Amen, may this fourfold power blast us out of ourselves and strengthen our inner man through the Spirit so that Christ may make His home in our heart through faith!
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message given by Ed Marks for this week, and portions from, How to Administrate the Church, pp. 117-122 (by Witness Lee), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Taking Christ as our Person and Living Him in and for the Church Life (2018 spring ITERO), week 8, How One Ought to Conduct Himself in the Church in Order to Bring Forth the One New Man.
- Hymns on this topic:
# Grant us spirit of wisdom and of revelation, / Strengthen us, Lord, with power into our inner man, / Your economy then may become our vision, / And You may make home in our hearts to fulfill Your plan. (Song on, Two Greatest Prayers of Paul)
# For this cause we pray the Father God— / Strengthen Thou with might our inner man; / Make Yourself at home in all our hearts, / Root us, ground us in Your love and for Your plan. (Hymns #1232)
# Oh, strengthen my spirit, Lord Jesus, / Oh, strengthen my spirit, I pray; / Oh, strengthen my spirit with power / And spread to my heart today. (Hymns #1134)
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