Christ in Me – Part 2

Read with me, May Christ through your faith [actually] dwell (settle down, abide, make His permanent home) in your hearts! May you be rooted deep in love and founded secure on love…

Ephesians 3:17                    

What does Ephesians 3:17 mean for us, today? Faith allows us the unique opportunity to host the living Christ on the very inside of our hearts. Faith is the open door of invitation that welcomes Him in. A sacred cohabitation occurs as we invite Him and He enters our hearts. It is essentially this union with Christ which affords us eternal Salvation. An extravagant bonding of His supernatural personhood and our earthly being happens. You might wonder what the purpose is. It is for the sake of fellowship, an intimate joining together with the One who loves us most. Because He first loved us, He chose to make His home with us. Because we love Him, we can make room for Him to do as He pleases. Someone who feels at home in your house will have the confidence that comes from not having their every movement censored or controlled. Making room for Him is an essential act of surrender. Surrendering to Him is also a way of saying we trust Him with our hearts. We are saying, “Lord, do as you please. I want to experience the fullness of who You are. Show me how You do life.” Surrendering is an act of faith that acknowledges His authority and sovereignty.  As our faith makes room for Him, we get to experience, not our idea of what His love should look like, but the full breadth, width, and depth of His love. This experiential intimacy yields the fruits of love. Faith makes room for us to fully know Him and to be fully known by Him. We then have the capacity to manifest His presence. We begin to see what it means to live from the inside out. Because He lives in us, we can live a life of being securely founded and grounded in the truth of His love. By surrendering to Him you get to know who He is within you, you get to know Him as He is. Faith pleases Him, and it is our faith that welcomes Him to abide inside of our hearts. He finds joy in the faith of a surrendered heart.

I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. Galatians 2:20

Being crucified with Christ speaks again of an inside-out way of living in which I have surrendered my will to the degree where it is He who lives, and not I. It is a life of Christ-likeness. A way of living that lends itself to the expression of Christ, not self. I love that Paul says in the second part of the scripture that He(Christ) loved us and gave Himself for us. There is a quality intrinsic to love, generosity. He gave Himself for me because He loved me. A transaction can now happen where He lives in us and we get to live in Him. When we allow Christ to live through us, giving ourselves over to Him, we are living in pure response to His love for us; we are showing our love for Him.

Pray this prayer with me,

“God, thank you for the gift of Christ in me. I ask for a new revelation of the reality of Christ in me. I long to be secure and rooted in your love. May my faith honor the gift of your presence in me.  May I come to fully experience and know the depth, height, and breadth of your love. May my whole life speak of Your indwelling presence and great love.”