We all need to be clear that the Lord Jesus is in us not only as life but also as a person. Every man has a person within him, but those who have received the Lord into them as life have also received the Lord into them as another person. Thus, we need to see that the Lord is in us today not only as life but also as a person.
Ephesians 3:16-17 says that we need to be strengthened with power into the inner man that Christ may make His home in our hearts. The fact that Christ wants to make home within us indicates that He is a person. Thus, the question is, who is the person inside of us? Is the self the person, or is the Lord Jesus the person? It is true that the Lord Jesus is inside of us, but He can be inside of us in different ways. For example, you may receive me into your home, but this does not mean that I can make myself at home. Although you have invited me into your home, I am still only a guest. If you lead me into the living room and tell me, “Brother Lee, we have prepared this room for you,” then I can have the freedom to use that room. This does not mean, however, that I can move into any of the other rooms in your house. When I am in your house, everything is decided by you, not by me.
Today the Lord Jesus is inside of us, but will He be able to possess our whole being, or will we force Him to stay only in our spirit? Frankly, some brothers and sisters confine the Lord Jesus to a “corner” within them. You might be thinking, “Since Christmas is almost here, I will buy a few presents and send them to my children in the United States.” While you are thinking this, the Lord is in the “living room” of your spirit. However, in response to your plans, the Lord may try to come into the “room” of your mind, yet when He tries to do this, right away you shut the door to your mind, saying, “Lord! Please sit in the living room; do not come in here.” If this is the situation, then the Lord has not made His home within you.
One day a sister may come to a meeting and see a dress worn by one of the other sisters. Upon seeing the dress, she may be stirred up in her emotions because she likes the dress very much. As a result, she may quickly note the brand of the dress and ask the other sister where she bought it. However, while the sister is preparing to go out and buy the dress, the Lord Jesus may come to interfere with her plans. The Lord may begin by asking her, “Do you really want to buy that dress?” However, the sister may reply, “Lord, please stay in the living room. It does not feel so comfortable when you try to come into the room of my emotion. Please do not come in.” We all have experiences like this. There are many parts within us that we do not allow the Lord to enter into. We do not want Him to interfere with what takes place in these parts of our being. Thus, we force the Lord to stay in our spirit.
Because our tendency is to force the Lord to stay in our spirit, the apostle Paul prayed for us. He prayed that we would be strengthened into the inner man, so that as a result the Lord Jesus would be able to make His home in our hearts. For the Lord to make His home in our hearts means that He is able to go from our spirit to our conscience and from our conscience to our mind, emotion, and will, thus occupying our entire heart. Only when the Lord has this freedom will He be able to make His home in our hearts.
The Lord Jesus does not like to stay only in our spirit. He likes to visit our mind, emotion, and will. Moreover, once He has visited these parts, He does not want to leave; He wants to fully occupy them. This is what it means for Christ to make His home in our hearts. The Lord has indeed come into our spirit, but He is waiting in our spirit for a chance to spread His influence from our spirit into every corner, every part, of our being. The Lord wants to spread His influence in our being to the extent that if He does not move in our mind, we will not think about buying things, if He does not move in our emotion, we will not give our love to anything, and if He does not move in our will, we will not make any plans or decisions.
When the Lord Jesus gains the ground in every part of our being, He will then be able to make His home in our hearts. Thus, we must learn the lesson that as believers we are meant not only to rely on His power and live by His life but also to receive His entire person into us to be our person. This lesson is both deep and fine.
If we receive the Lord Jesus as our person in this way, our outer man will be consumed every day. The Lord will cause circumstances to rise up to consume our outer man, but as He is doing this, He will also cause our inner man to be renewed day by day (2 Cor. 4:16). This is the meaning of John 3:30—“He must increase, but I must decrease.” Our inner man, the new man, is Christ Himself. Christ must increase within us. Our outer man, the old man, is the self. The self must gradually decrease. The result of this increase and decrease will be that we no longer live but that Christ lives in us as our person (cf. Gal. 2:20). Then Christ will not only be our life, He will also live in us as our person. Hence, each of us will be able to declare, “For to me, to live is Christ” (Phil. 1:21).
This is a very sweet matter. Our inner man is being renewed and is expanding day by day. This will happen to the extent that one day even our body will express the glory of the Lord. In the end we will be transformed into His image, from glory to glory, even as from the Lord Spirit (2 Cor. 3:18). Brothers and sisters, this is what the Lord desires to gain today.