Praying for our Inner Experience of the Indwelling Christ for the Building of the Church

Like Paul in Eph. 3:16-21, we need to pray for our inner experience of the indwelling Christ for the organic building up of the church as the Body of Christ; we need to cooperate with God in prayer so that the big “machine” of the Triune God would operate in us for Christ to make His home in our heart. Amen!

According to the New Testament, it is Christ who builds up His church, and this building is something organic.

God prophesied to David in 2 Sam. 7:12-14 concerning this, for He said that David’s seed (a human seed) will be called the son of God (a divine son).

The way Christ builds His church is by gaining these God-men, men who are born of God, and by working Himself with all that He is into them for them to become part of His corporate expression.

And the way we cooperate with the building work of Christ is not mainly by doing many outward things in the church; all these activities in the church life are necessary, but the intrinsic essence, the reality of all these things is God building Himself into man and man being built into God.

It is not merely by understanding the teaching and memorizing the doctrine of the organic building up of the church that we build up the church; it is by our cooperation in prayer that He does it in us.

This is related to John 15:4-5 where the Lord simply said, Abide in Me and I in you; such a statement is profound, and its application to our daily life has much significance.

When we are about to go shopping or are conversing with our spouse, are we still living in the Divine Trinity and with the Divine Trinity by abiding in the Lord and having Him abide in us?

The words that we say to others, the attitude we have toward some people, and the way we handle our children at home, is all this in the mutual abiding of God and man?

The Divine Trinity operates in us, works in us, and He many times tells us to stop, not to say something or do something…but do we stop? Do we obey the inner anointing?

Or do we just love to sing and praise the Lord, read the Bible, and enjoy the Lord in the ministry, yet without cooperating with the Lord’s inner speaking?

Do we just accumulate knowledge concerning the Lord, the church, and God’s economy, or do we also allow the Triune God in Christ to carry out a building work in us?

We need to open to the Lord again and again, especially as we see how much we fail and how little we cooperate with the Lord, and just pray that He would strengthen us into our inner man so that Christ may make His home in our heart.

May we learn to cooperate with God’s building work in us; may we learn to say Amen to His speaking and let Him work Himself more into our inner constitution for the organic building up of the church as the Body of Christ.

We need to Pray for our Inner Experience of the Indwelling Christ for the Organic Building up of the Church as the Body of Christ

In Ephesians, Paul offered two prayers, one in chapter 1 and the other in chapter 3.

In chapter 1 he mainly prayed for us to receive the revelation of Christ for the church, for us to see a vision of the church, and that the eyes of our heart would be enlightened.

In chapter 3, however, Paul prayed concerning the believers’ experience of the church; this is related to our inner experience of the indwelling Christ for the organic building up of the church.

In a very practical way, the way that Christ builds up the church is revealed in Eph. 3:16-21 – it is by our inner experience of the indwelling Christ for the building up of the church.

Here we see Paul praying to the Father to strengthen us, the believers, into our inner man through His Spirit with power, so that Christ may make His home in our heart.

The result is that we believers are rooted and grounded in love, and we apprehend the dimensions of Christ, and we know the knowledge-surpassing love of Christ to be filled unto all the fullness of God.

In order for the church to be constituted to become the fullness of Christ, the fullness of God, there is the need for the saints to be strengthened into their inner man so that Christ may make His home in their heart.

Our inner man is not yet the stronger part of our being; rather, we are still strong and active in our outer man, so we need the Father’s strengthening, through the Spirit, into the inner man, so that Christ may make His home in our heart through faith.

We need to pray daily to the Father that we would be strengthened through His Spirit into the inner man with the result that Christ could make His home in our heart and thereby occupy, possess, permeate, and saturate our whole inner being with Himself.

The Father is the source; we need to pray that the Father would strengthen us through His Spirit – the Spirit is the means, the channel.

When the Father as the source strengthens us through the Spirit as the means, the channel, Christ the Son makes His home in our heart.

Christ is in our spirit, and He wants to move in our heart to make it His home; for this to happen, for us to have the inner experience of the indwelling Christ for the building up of the church, we need to be strengthened with power through the Spirit by the Father into the inner man.

When our inner man is strong, when we’re strengthened into our spirit, Christ can move and work to make His home in our heart.

And the issue of the Father strengthening through the Spirit so that Christ makes His home in our heart is that we become part of the church as the fullness of God. Hallelujah!

It is a very good thing for us to take these verses in Eph. 3:16-21 and pray them to the Lord at least once a day for at least thirty days until they become our daily prayer.

We need to open to the Lord and ask Him in prayer that the Father would strengthen our inner man through His Spirit with power so that Christ may make His home in our heart, so that we may apprehend with all the saints what the dimensions of Christ are, and we would be filled unto all the fullness of God.

The source is the Father, the means is the Spirit, and the goal or aim is the Son, for the Son is the center.

May we be those who open to the Lord and pray concerning our inner experience of the indwelling Christ for the organic building up of the church.

Father, strengthen us with power through Your Spirit into our inner man so that Christ may make His home in our heart through faith. Amen, Lord, we open to You; strengthen our inner man through the Spirit so that Christ may make His home deep down in our heart. Make our inner man strong. Make Your home in our heart. Keep us open to You, dear Lord, concerning our inner experience of the indwelling Christ for the organic building up of the church as the Body of Christ. Amen, Lord Jesus, may our heart be open to You and may our inner man be strengthened so that You may make Your home in our heart. Root us and ground us in love so that we may apprehend with all the saints what the dimensions of Christ are, and that we may be filled unto all the fullness of God!

Being the Operator of the big “Machine” of the Triune God in Prayer for Him to do what He wants to Do

God has a heart’s desire, an intention, something that He wants to do in His economy, and this is revealed in the Bible; however, He needs man’s cooperation.

We can liken the Triune God to a big machine, and in Eph. 3 Paul was the operator, for his prayer “turned the wheel”.

This is a high principle in this universe: God wants to do something in His economy related to man and the universe, but He will work only as much as we, His people cooperate with Him.

He is like a big machine, very powerful and very ready to do what is in His heart, but He needs an operator to cooperate with Him.

This doesn’t mean that we can ask God to do what we want and He will do it; rather, He will do what is in His heart, and He wants men who cooperate with Him for His heart’s desire.

When Paul prayed the prayer in Eph. 3:16-21, he was a representative of the entire Body of Christ; God wants the entire Body to pray in oneness and give Him a way to do what He wants to do on earth.

God wants to do something, but He will only be the “machine” – He needs someone to be the operator. Amazing!

He didn’t need anyone to cooperate with Him in the creation of the heavens and the earth with all the things in them, but in the fulfillment of His economy, He needs us, His people, to cooperate with Him.

This is why we need to pray for the inner experience of the indwelling Christ for the organic building up of the church as the Body of Christ, as we see in Eph. 3, for when we do this, we operate the “machine” of the Triune God.

The prayer that Paul had in Eph. 3 should be the prayer that we all should have; when we pray in this way, we activate the “machine” of the Triune God in prayer for Him to do what He wants to do.

When we pray for the inner experience of the indwelling Christ for the building up of the church, when we pray that we would be strengthened by the Father into the inner man through the Spirit so that Christ may make His home in our heart, God can do what He wants to do in us.

The Father, the Son, and the Spirit are the three “parts” of this universal “machine”, and we as the Body of Christ are the operator of this “machine”.

When we pray the prayer in Eph. 3, we are the operator, and the Father works through His Spirit as a channel to strengthen every part of our inner being into the inner man so that Christ might make His home within all the parts of our heart.

God’s work, His most awesome masterpiece, is not something outward but inward – it is Christ making His home in our heart so that we may be filled unto all the fullness of God.

To say that we need to be strengthened with power into the inner man indicates that we are not in the inner man, that we live mostly in the outer man (Eph. 3:16; 1:19-22; 3:20).

If we check with our experience, we realize that this is the case.

Many times after we get up in the morning and have a time with the Lord, our spirit is strengthened and refreshed, but we may go to have breakfast and have an exchange of words with our spouse, and we get out of our inner man.

Throughout the day, we may be so much in the outer man, for we have to take care of this and that; besides the seven or eight hours of sleeping, we may not spend many minutes remaining in the inner man. Oh, Lord!

This is why we need to pray that the Father would grant us to be strengthened into the inner man; we’re so weak in the inner man, so we need the Father’s strengthening through His Spirit with power so that Christ may make His home in our heart through faith.

Lord Jesus, we want to cooperate with Your inner working in our being. We pray for our inner experience of the indwelling Christ for the organic building up of the church as the Body of Christ. Amen, Father, we need Your strengthening into our inner man with power through Your Spirit so that Christ may make His home in our heart. Yes, Lord, we open to You. We say Amen to Your working Yourself into every part of our being. Keep us praying day by day in such a way that we cooperate with Your operation in us. We pray for ourselves and for all the saints that we would be the operator praying so that the big “machine” of the Triune God would operate in our being for Christ to make His home in our heart and we would be filled unto all the fullness of God!

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, Collected Works of Witness Lee, 1988, vol. 1, “Living in and with the Divine Trinity“, pp. 319-321, 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:
  – Oh, strengthen my spirit, Lord Jesus, / Oh, strengthen my spirit, I pray; / Oh, strengthen my spirit with power / And spread to my heart today. / Into my heart, into my heart, / Spread into my heart, Lord Jesus; / Make home today and have Your way / In all of my heart, Lord Jesus. (Hymns #1134)
  – 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. / Father God, forgive me if I groan; / For so long I’ve been on a plateau. / Now with tears, I bow my knees and pray / By Your Spirit make my spirit strong today. (Song on, O that Christ may make His home)
  – ’Tis when the Spirit strengthens us / And Christ His home makes in our hearts, / The Father’s fulness with His love / Will fill us in our inward parts. (Hymns #243)