THE CHURCH DISPLAYING
THE MULTIFARIOUS WISDOM OF GOD
The church as revealed in Ephesians 3 is mainly for the display of God’s multifarious wisdom to the rulers and the authorities in the heavenlies, especially to Satan and his angels (vv. 9-11). God had a plan that He kept within Him for many years as a mystery until the day came when He showed His plan to some of His apostles, making them stewards to distribute all the unsearchable and untraceable riches of Christ to God’s chosen ones. The result of these chosen ones’ enjoyment of the riches of Christ is that they are constituted the church. Thus, the church becomes the wise exhibition of all that Christ is, displaying the multifarious wisdom of God.
CHRIST MAKING HIS HOME IN OUR HEARTS
We may have enjoyed Christ in His riches, but we need to enjoy Him more. Christ is in us, but how much is He in us? Because of God’s heart’s desire for the church to be constituted with the riches of Christ, Paul prayed for the church. He prayed that the Father would grant us, "according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit into the inner man" (v. 16). When the time for my dinner is near, I may be very hungry and even exhausted. But after I eat, the food that is within me strengthens and upholds me. I am strengthened and upheld according to the riches of American food. Paul’s prayer is that we would be strengthened according to the riches of the Father’s glory.
We need to be strengthened with power through the Spirit into the inner man that Christ may make His home in our hearts (v. 17). The phrase "make His home" is only one word in Greek, katoikeo. Kata, the prefix of this word, means down. Christ is making His home deep down in our hearts. Christ is in us, but is He settled in us? When a person moves into a new house, he needs to get settled in that house. In other words, he needs to make his home there. Then every room of that house becomes inhabited by him. When I am a guest in someone else’s house, I do not have the freedom to go into every room. A guest in a house is limited to certain rooms. Christ does not want to be a guest in our hearts by being limited to certain rooms. He desires to settle down in our hearts, to make His home deep down in our hearts. Christ has to be added into us. The very Christ who is in us has to increase within us.
How much of Christ do we have within us? According to my observation, Christ is within some believers as a prisoner. He is limited within them in a small area, that is, imprisoned within them in a small cell. Is Christ free to occupy our mind? Sometimes we may say, "Lord, at least tonight, give me the freedom in my mind." When the sisters go to a department store, they may want to buy something, but the Lord would not agree. Then they might say, "Lord, allow me to buy it this time." We would not allow the Lord to make His home deep within our hearts. This is why Paul prayed that the Father would grant us to be strengthened according to the riches of His glory with power through His Spirit into the inner man. When we get strengthened into the inner man, this opens the way for Christ to get Himself settled in our entire being. Christ is in us, but He needs to saturate and permeate every part of our entire being. We need to enter into the reality of what verse 7 of #501 in Hymns says:
Thy Spirit will me saturate,
Every part will God permeate,
Deliv’ring me from the old man,
With all saints building for His plan.
(The Body of Christ, Chapter 3, by Witness Lee)
