When our inner man is strengthened, spontaneously we will be open to the Lord, and Christ will be able to make home in our hearts through faith. To make home is to settle down. It is not to be a guest or a temporary boarder. The Lord is often like a guest within us; He cannot settle down. Although we love the Lord, in our mind there are still corners which the Lord cannot touch, in the will there are still parts that have not yielded to the Lord, and in the emotions there are still other loves that block the Lord from entering in. Because of this, the Lord cannot do anything. Paul’s prayer was for us to be strengthened in our spirit, so that the Lord could gain every part and could settle down in our hearts. Our heart is like a house with a few rooms. It has the mind, the will, the emotion, and the conscience. When our spirit is strong, we will allow the Lord to occupy and to fill every part. The Lord will then be able to make home in our whole being comfortably and properly.
When Christ makes home in our hearts, in His love we can be rooted for growth and grounded for building up (Eph. 3:17). When we are rooted and grounded in the Lord’s love this way, we will be able to receive the Lord’s inward dispensing again and again. When the Lord makes home within us, He will spread within us, and His spreading will be His dispensing. The more He spreads Himself, the more He will dispense Himself to us. When He spreads to our mind, emotion, will, and even to our conscience, all our inward parts will receive more of His dispensing. More and more we will realize the Lord as the lovable One, and will be rooted and grounded in His love. In this way, we can be an apostle as Paul was. Paul’s prayer can be considered as a prayer for the saints to become the apostles. Throughout the ages, countless numbers of saints have been perfected by his prayer.
When we are rooted and grounded in Christ’s love, we will be full of power and strength to comprehend with all the saints the breadth and length and height and depth of the universe, which are the immeasurable dimensions of Christ. There are these four dimensions in the universe, the breadth, the length, the height, and the depth. But no one can say how broad is the breadth, how long the length, how high the height, or how deep the depth. These immeasurable dimensions are the dimensions of Christ. The more we are rooted and grounded in His love, experience and enjoy His love, the more we will comprehend with all the saints His immeasurableness. This proves not only that we have received His dispensing, but that we have received it immeasurably. The more we receive Him, the more immeasurable and unlimited He becomes, and the more we realize that He is immeasurable and His riches are unsearchable.
After we are rooted and grounded, and have become strong to comprehend the immeasurable dimensions of Christ and to enjoy and experience the divine dispensing of His knowledge-surpassing love, our whole being will be filled unto all the fullness of God, and we will become the corporate expression of the processed Triune God. If all of us are like this, surely we all will be perfected to become apostles and prophets.
In these verses Paul shows us how he perfects the saints until every one of them becomes the same as he was. He was a person who experienced Christ; he was strong in spirit, and the Lord could make His home in every part of his heart. He was full of the sweetness of Christ, full of His love, and experienced all His dimensions. Since he was such an apostle, his perfecting will make us the same as he was. In this way, the souls are saved, the sheep are led back to the flock, and all the saints are perfected to be the gifted ones to do the work of the New Testament ministry, which is the building up of the Body of Christ for the fulfillment of God’s eternal economy.
(A message given by Brother Witness Lee in Peaking Jaya, Malaysia on November 5, 1990)
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