If we as believers in Christ take Christ as our person and let Him live in us, we will live Christ as the proper church life.
When we were regenerated, without us realising this, another person came into us – Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who came into our spirit as the life-giving Spirit. Now we have the self as the person in our soul, and we have Christ as the Spirit dwelling in our spirit.
Since Christ came into us, our spirit became our inner man, which has Christ as its person.
Paul describes this very well in Gal. 2:20 where he said that we have been crucified with Christ, and now it’s not longer us who should live – no longer the I, the self; now it is Christ who should live in us – the new I, the new man.
The fact of the matter is that, long before we were born, our old man has been crucified with Christ, and now we need to apply the death of Christ to the self and the living out of the old man.
Whenever we feel that we are about to lose our temper or we are about to say something not in our spirit, we need to turn to the Lord and contact Him, and we will not live in the self but Christ, the person of our inner man, will live in us.
This is to take Christ as our person, and this requires that we deny our self, our fallen person. We need to deny our soul life and live by our new person, the indwelling Christ.
When we positively allow Christ to make His home on our heart, He will expose in us what is of the self, and we need to cooperate with Him to deny the self. We need to realise that, as believers in Christ, our real person is Christ and not the self.
It’s true, by default we lived in the self and we expressed the self, but actually our real person is Christ. We need to let this Christ increase in us by taking Him as our person so that we may live Christ as the proper church life.
The more the divine life increases in us, the more Christ makes His home in our heart, the more we give ground to the Holy Spirit to work in us; at the same time, our human element decreases, our self is being dealt with, and our inner parts are being subdued by the Spirit.
As we take Christ as our person for the church life and in the church life, our aims, purposes, and preferences are being replaced by His aims, His purpose, and His preferences. The Christ who is our person has a strong sense of purpose, and He’s very specific in what He wants.
When He exposes us, He is also very specific, not general.
We need to take Christ as our person in a practical way by letting Him make His home in our heart, and we will no longer live by ourselves but by Christ as our person; then, we become one with Him, and we no longer do anything according to our preferences and taste.
When we take Christ as our person, we will live Christ for the proper church life.
We thank the Lord that He doesn’t let us go out own way and live out the self. We thank Him and praise Him that He brings us back to Him, back to our mingled spirit to take Him as our person daily so that He in us may live the proper church life.
The only way for Christ to be our Person for the Church Life is for Him to make His Home in our Heart
The inner man with Christ as its person is for our living in the church. Christ is the person of our inner man not for us to be spiritual in an individual way but for our living in the local church. We all need to take Christ as our person for the church life.
In order for us to have the church life, we need to be strengthened into our spirit as the inner man so that Christ, a living person, may make His home in our heart (Eph. 3:16-17).
The church life is not formed of the outward necessary things but the living Christ who is the person and living of the saints for the one new man. We should not give ourselves any excuse for being in the self; we have a will – we can exercise our spirit, turn to the Lord inwardly, and live Christ as the proper church life.
We need to bring this matter to the Lord in prayer, making a connection between our situation and the Lord’s desire to build up His Body, and we will touch His heart; He will give us His best care, and He will also not hold anything back, for we don’t hold anything back.
The Lord wants to gain us as those who, for the sake of the building up of the church as the Body of Christ, we give the Lord the ground in our being to grow, increase, and give us the experiences we need so that we may live Christ as the proper church life.
For the proper living of the church life, we need to take Christ not only as life in our spirit but also as the person in our heart (Col. 3:4; 1:27).
Yes, Christ is in our spirit as our person, but we need to take Him as our person in our heart; we need to do it – we need to choose to be one with Him, so that we allow Him to emerge from our spirit and spread into our mind, our thinking, our concepts, our memory, and our imaginations.
For example, we need to let the Lord spread into our consideration of the saints, so that we do not become suspicious of them or imagine things about them. The Lord wants to make His home in our memory, in our thoughts, and in our imagination.
And sometime He may even come in to terminate everything and everyone in a particular situation, no matter of who is right or wrong, and He in us will cause us to forget and forgive.
When we allow Christ to make His home in our heart, He becomes our person. The only way for Christ to be our person is for Him to make His home in our heart (Eph. 3:17). We personally need to open to the Lord and let Him make His home in our heart.
Based on what He has done at the cross, we can come forward to Him willingly to take Him as our person so that He would make His home in our heart.
If we take Christ as our person, allowing Him to spread into our heart, the person who lives in our heart will no longer be the self but Christ – Christ will live in us in and for the church life (Gal. 2:20).
We do not want the self to live in our heart anymore; we want Christ to live in us, so that when we meet others, Christ will live in us, and we talk and behave in a Jesusly human way.
Lord Jesus, train us to live You for the church. Show us what this is, and make this real to us. For the sake of Your Body, Lord, carry what You want and do what is in Your heart concerning us. We don’t want to hold anything back. Amen, Lord, teach us, train us, and make us willing to take You as our person by allowing You not just to visit our heart as a motel but to live in our heart as Your dwelling place! We allow You, Lord, to spread in our heart and saturate our thinking, opinions, imaginations, concepts, and memory. Make Your home in our heart for the church life!
Learning to Take Christ as our Person to Live Christ as the Proper Church Life
If we practice to take Christ as our person, we will live Christ as the proper church life.
When we allow Christ to make His home in our heart, His tastes and preferences become ours; He expands in our heart, He takes possession of our heart, and He makes His home in our heart in a full way.
Eventually, Christ will saturate our whole being with Himself and we will no longer live by the self but by Christ. However, if we don’t take Christ as our person, we can never be blended with others because we all are different by nature.
Each one of us has their own tastes, preferences, and desires; when we come together and we don’t practice taking Christ as our person, we cannot be blended with others.
We may experience Christ by ourselves, we may enjoy Christ’s resurrection power on our own, but when we meet with the saints, our tastes and preferences can easily rise up within us. Oh Lord Jesus!
Many times when we’re by ourselves, we may enjoy Christ and experience Him, taking Him as our person; but when we come together and we are to arrange the chairs in a specific way or clean the meeting hall with some particular saints, our preferences and tastes may come out.
It is NOT possible for us to have the church life if our old man is allowed to be our person. If we want to have the proper church life, we need to lose our soul-life, deny our self, and apply the death of Christ to our old man; this is to take Christ as our person to live Christ as the proper church life.
Christ Himself is the content and reality of the church life. He is the Head of the church, the life of the church, the content of the church, the unique Person in the church, and everything in the church.
Unless we live by Christ as our person, we will remain natural persons, those who habitually live according to their natural constitution, racial culture, national character, and religious background.
But if we learn to take Christ as our person, He will make His home in our heart, and He will saturate and occupy our entire being; as a result, we will be constituted with Christ, and we will live Christ as the proper church life.
For us to live the church life as the new man, we need to take Christ as our person to live Him out as the proper church life.
We need to be rooted and grounded in the Lord’s love and able to apprehend with all the saints the breadth, the length, the height, and the depth of Christ (Eph. 3:17-18).
At this time we will also know the sweetness of His love, which surpasses all knowledge, and we will be filled unto the fullness of God (v. 19). Thus, we put off the old man and put on the new man daily (4:22-24). This new man is the church life.
The proper church life is a life in which we live in the inner man, taking Christ as our person (Eph. 3:17; 2 Cor. 4:16).
We all should take Christ as our person and allow Christ to live in us and make His home in our heart so that we may be filled unto all the fullness of God in order to be the practical manifestation of the church as the Body of Christ.
Lord Jesus, make Your home in our heart until we live Christ as the proper church life. We take You as our person, Lord, so that You may be the One living in us. Save us from living in our old man or expressing our self in the church life. Keep us taking Christ as our person as we meet with the saints so that His preferences and tastes become ours. Save us from not being blended with others and save us from remaining in our old man. Lord Jesus, we no longer want to remain natural – we take You as our person and we allow You to make Your home in us until we live Christ as the proper church life!
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message given by Ron Kangas for this week, and portions from, Collected Works of Witness Lee, 1970, vol. 3, “Taking Christ as Our Person for the Church Life,” chs. 4, 7, 10, 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 1, Experiencing the Central Work of God and taking Christ as our Person in and for the Church Life.
- Hymns on this topic:
# From the center to circumference / God would saturate each part; / Feeling, mind, and will renewing, / Making home in all our heart. / Thus in life we’re built together, / Then in love we’re knit as one; / God is now His plan fulfilling, / Finishing what He’s begun. (Hymns #1325)
# All these years I’ve come the church to know, / Yet O Lord, there’re things I can’t let go; / Yet within me there is an “Amen“; / O now joy I never knew in me’s flowin’. / 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. (Song on, Christ making His home in our heart)
# For this cause Your Person, Lord, / We take and stand in one accord; / All the members self forsake, / And of the Body-Christ partake. / We in Christ as one new man / Now come forth to take this land. / For this cause Your Person, Lord, / We take and stand in one accord. (Hymns #1230)
About aGodMan
