Eph 3:16 That He would grant you... to be strengthened with power through His Spirit into the inner man, (17) That Christ may make His home in your hearts through faith, that you, being rooted and grounded in love, (18) ...apprehend with all the saints what the breadth and length and height and depth are (19) And to know the knowledge-surpassing love of Christ, that you may be filled unto all the fullness of God. Ehp 1:22 ...the church, (23) Which is His Body, the fullness of the One who fills all in all
...When Christ makes His home in our hearts and when we are strong to apprehend with all the saints the dimensions of Christ and to know by experience His knowledge-surpassing love, we shall be filled unto all the fullness of God. All this fullness dwells in Christ (Col. 1:19; 2:9). Through His indwelling [us] , Christ continually imparts the very element of God into our being. We can be filled with God to such a measure and can attain such a standard, even unto all the fullness of God. In this way we fulfill God's intention that the church should be the expression of God. In the light of such a vision we see that it is utterly wrong to regard the church as a material building where "services" are held. It is also not adequate to view the church merely as the ecclesia, the gathering together of God's called-out people. Although many Christians today use the term "the Body of Christ," few have any clear realization of what this term signifies. The Body of Christ is the expression of Christ. It is also the fullness of Christ, which is the fullness of God. This fullness of God comes into existence in a practical way by our being strengthened into the inner man, by Christ making his home in our hearts, by our being rooted and grounded in love, by our grasping the dimensions of the immeasurable Christ, and by our knowing Him as the knowledge- surpassing love. When we have been filled with all the riches of Christ and metabolically saturated with all that Christ is, we become the fullness of God. Surely this is the highest definition of the church.
Bible verses are taken from the Recovery Version of the Bible and Words of Ministry from Witness Lee, Life-study of Ephesians, pp. 291,295. Both are published by Living Stream Ministry, Anaheim, CA. Please visit us at www.emanna.com. Send comments to: [email protected].
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