The only way for Christ to be our person is for Him to make His home in our hearts. The need in all the local churches is for the saints to take Christ both as their life and as their person by allowing Him to make His home in their hearts. The churches are the Lord’s testimony on earth. But this testimony must have an inward reality. I am sorry to say that it is possible for the church to be an empty shell, a shell without content. The content of the church must be the very Christ whom we take as life and as our person. If we take Christ as our person, then as we come together in the meetings Christ will be expressed from our spirit and through our heart. All those who come will sense that Christ is present both as our life and as our person.
The meetings of a local church must be the expression of Christ. Christ is not only the victorious and prevailing life, but also a practical, present, living Person. Whenever we testify in the meetings, others will be able to tell whether or not we have been taking Christ as our person. If we are faithful to take Christ as our person, we shall enjoy the presence of the Lord Jesus in the meetings. In fact, the meetings will even be His presence, for He will be expressed from within us.
We need to pray for ourselves and for others to have the reality of taking Christ as our person in our daily living. Everything we do should be done not by the self, but by Christ. His tastes and preferences need to become ours. Then Christ will be not only our life, but also our person. The Lord will thus expand in our heart, take possession of our heart, and make His home in our heart in a full way. Eventually, He will saturate our whole being with Himself, and we shall live no longer by the self, but by Christ. The more this becomes our experience, the more the meetings of the church will be the presence of the Lord Jesus. In such meetings there is little need for preaching, teaching, or the exercise of gifts, because Christ is expressed through the saints. Because Christ is so rich, available, present, and practical in the experience of the saints, they will be able to share Christ with one another. What a difference between such meetings and the “services” in today’s Christianity!
In Ephesians 4 we see that when the victorious Christ ascended, He led a train of vanquished foes and constituted them into gifts to His Body. We have pointed out that we become gifts through experiencing Christ’s descending and ascending within us.
Paul is the most useful gift given by Christ to His Body. Before being constituted a gift to the church, Paul was an enemy of Christ and a persecutor of the church. Nevertheless, when the Lord Jesus appeared to him, Paul was defeated. He fell to the ground, and said, “Who art thou, Lord?” By calling on the name of the Lord Jesus, he was saved, and the Lord came into him. At that moment, Saul of Tarsus became a vanquished foe. In the years to follow, he went on to experience Christ’s descending and ascending within him. Eventually, through this experience of the traveling Christ, Paul became an outstanding gift to the Body.
The principle is the same with us. Although we were once enemies of the Lord, one day He met us, perhaps as we were on our road to Damascus. The Lord vanquished us, captured us, and put us in His train of vanquished foes. Now, by descending and ascending within us, He is constituting us into gifts to His Body.
Many Christians think only the leading apostles, prophets, evangelists, and shepherds and teachers are gifts to the church. However, if we read 4:7 in context, we shall see that every member, including every one of us, is a gift to the Body. In 4:16 Paul speaks of every part, that is, every member. Every member of the Body may be a gift if he is constituted by the descending and ascending Christ.