The Secret of Christ’s indwelling

Embracing Christ’s presence within provides believers with patience, grace, and spiritual strength, enabling them to live holy lives even amid challenges. By trusting in this inner presence, Christians gain peace and godly power in their daily experiences.

It is fitting that the largest church in the greatest Gentile city is dedicated to the apostle Paul. Gentiles owe him a great debt as the Apostle of the Gentiles. We owe, under the Spirit of God, to him. He unveiled two great mysteries that especially touch us as Gentiles. We cannot discuss, now, the first of these, glorious as it is. It sparked a revolution when first preached by the apostle, despite fierce opposition. Until then, Gentiles had to become Jews before they could be Christians.

They had to go through the synagogue to reach the church. But Paul showed that this was not needful. He proved that Gentiles were equal to Jews in their gospel privileges. They were fellow heirs, and members of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel (Ephesians 3:6). “The mystery is that the Gentiles are fellow heirs. They are members of the same body and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel.”

The second one deserves more thought. If God's children realized it, they would live divinely. This would silence the enemy and, to some extent, repeat Jesus's life on earth.

The mystery is that the Lord Jesus is willing to dwell within the Gentile heart. Many viewed the expectation for Him to dwell in Abraham's children's hearts as patronizing. But, it was unbelievable to think He could find a home in a Gentile's heart.

This mistake, however, vanished before the truth. He realized that he was unfit to be called an apostle because he had persecuted God's church. God revealed through him, "To them, God chose to reveal among the Gentiles the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory."(Colossians 1:27).

“Master, where do you dwell?” they asked. In reply, Jesus led them from the crowded Jordan bank to a "tent of woven willows," where He stayed for a short time. But if we ask Him now, He will not point to the high, lofty dome of heaven or the splendid stone or marble structure. He will point to the happy spirit that loves, trusts, and obeys Him. “Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me." Revelations 3:20. "Jesus answered him, 'If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.” John 14:23. He promised to be within each believer, like a tenant in a house, sap in a branch, and lifeblood in a body.

The Mystery Christ is in the believer. He indwells in the heart by faith. It is like the sun indwelling the lowly flowers that open their petals to its rays. Not because we are good, or because we are making a sincere effort to consecrate ourselves. Not because we keep Him by the tenacity of our love.

But because we believe, and in believing have thrown open all the doors and windows of nature. And He has come in. He entered without making a sound, and we failed to detect His entrance. There was no footfall along the passage.

The golden bells at the bottom of His priestly robe did not betray Him. He arrived at dawn, like nature waking from her winter's sleep and putting on her Creator's robes. But this is the way of Christ. He neither strives nor cries, nor causes His voice to be heard. His tread is so light that it does not break bruised reeds. His breath is so soft that it can re- illuminate dying sparks. So, do not be surprised if you cannot tell the day or the hour when the Son of Man comes to dwell within you. Only believe that He has come. “Examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Or do you not realize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless indeed you fail to meet the test!” (2 Corinthians 13:5).

It is very wonderful. The heavens, even the heavens of heavens, with all their light and glory, alone seem worthy of Him. But even there He is not more at home than He is with the humble and contrite spirit that simply trusts in Him.

In His early life, He said the Father dwelt in Him so truly that His words and works were not His, but His Father's. He wants to be in us as His Father was in Him. Our lives should be channels for His hidden self to reach men.

It is not generally recognized. That does not disprove it. We fail to recognize many things in ourselves and in nature around us that are still true. But many whose natures are Christ's temple ignore the wonderful Tenant within. There is a reason for this. He dwells so deep. Below the body's life, which is like a tent's curtain; below the soul's, where thought, feeling, and imagination roam like white-stoled priests in a holy place; below the play of light and shade, will and memory, and the ebb and flow of self-consciousness. There, through the Holy Spirit, Christ dwells. The Shekinah once did in the Most Holy Place, hidden from man's view.

We rarely explore these deeper departments of our being. We are content to live the superficial life of sense. We eat, we drink, and we sleep. We give ourselves to enjoy the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. We fulfill the desires of the flesh and the mind. Or we abandon ourselves to the pursuit of knowledge and culture, of science and art.

We make short incursions into the realm of morals, that sense of right and wrong that is part of the makeup of men. But, we know too little of the spirit's deeper, mysterious chamber. So, most believers are unaware of their divine, wonderful Resident. He makes the regenerated spirit His home.

One must accept it by faith. We repeat here our constant mistake about the things of God. We try to feel them.

If we feel them, then we believe; otherwise, we take no account of them. We reverse the divine order. We say feeling, FAITH, and FACT. God says FACT, FAITH, and feeling. With Him, feelings matter little. He asks us to accept His Word and to cling to it because He has spoken it. He disregards our feelings.

Scripture tells me that Christ occupies the throne in His ascended glory. He is also within me by the Holy Spirit. I confess I do not feel Him there. Often, amidst the storm of my emotions, I cannot find Him. I cannot hear Him say, "It is I." But, I dare to believe He is there. He is not without me, but within. He is not a transient visitor for a night, but a permanent resident. He is not changed by my shifts in mood, from love to despair. He is always and unchangeably the same.

And I say again and again, “Jesus, You are here. I am not worthy that you should abide under my roof; but you have come. Assert Yourself.

Put down all rule, authority, and power. Come out of your secret chamber, and possess all that is within me, that it may bless your holy name.

Catherine of Siena once spent three days alone, praying for a greater joy in God's presence. Instead, it seemed wicked spirits assailed her with evil thoughts. At length, a great light appeared to descend from above. The devils fled, and the Lord Jesus conversed with her.

Catherine asked Him; “Lord, where were you when my heart was so tormented?”

“I was in your heart,” He answered.

"O Lord, you are everlasting truth," she replied. "I bow before your word. But how can I believe you filled my heart with such detestable thoughts? “Did these thoughts give you pleasure or pain?” He asked.

“An exceeding pain and sadness,” was her reply.

The Lord said, “You were in woe and sadness because I was in the midst of your heart. My presence was what rendered those thoughts unsupportable to you. When the period I had determined for the duration of the combat had elapsed, I sent forth the beams of My light, and the shades of hell were dispelled, because they cannot resist that light.

The Glory of This Mystery When God’s secrets break open, they do so in glory. The wealth of the root hidden in the ground is revealed in the hues of orchids or the scent of roses. The hidden beauty of a beam of light is unravelled in the sevenfold colour of the rainbow.

The swarming, tiny life of southern seas breaks into waves of phosphorescence when cleft by the ship's keel. And whenever the unseen world has revealed itself to mortal eyes, it has been in glory.

It was especially so at the Transfiguration when the Lord’s nature broke from the strong restraint within which He had confined it and revealed itself to man's eye. “And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became white as light.” (Matthew 17:2).

So when we accept the fact of His existence deeper within us than our own and make it one of the aims of our life to draw on it and develop it, we shall be conscious of a glory transfiguring our life and irradiating ordinary things, which will make earth, with its commonest engagements, like the vestibule of heaven.

Jonathan Edwards’ wife had been the subject of great fluctuations in religious experience and frequent depression till she came to the point of renouncing the world and yielding herself up to be possessed by these mighty truths. In this case, a marvellous change took place. She began to experience a constant, uninterrupted rest; sweet peace and serenity of soul; continual rejoicing in all the works of God’s hands, whether of nature or daily providence; wonderful access to God by prayer, as it was seeing Him and immediately conversing with Him; all tears wiped away; all former troubles and sorrows of life forgotten, except grief for past sins and the dishonour done to Christ in the world; a daily sensible doing and suffering everything for God and doing all with a continual uninterrupted cheerfulness, peace, and Joy.

Such glory—the certain pledge of the glory to be revealed—is within reach of each reader of these lines who will dare day by day to reckon that Christ lives within and will be content to die to the energies and prompting for the self-life so that there may be room for the Christ- life to reveal itself.

“I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” (Galatians 2:20).

The Riches of the Glory of This Mystery. When this mystery or secret of the divine life in man is apprehended and made use of, it gives great wealth to life. If all the treasures of wisdom, knowledge, power, and grace reside in Jesus, and He has become the cherished and honoured resident of our nature, it is clear that we also must be greatly enriched. It is like a poor man having a millionaire friend come to live with him.

There is a richness of patience. Life is not easy for any of us. No branch escapes the pruning knife; no jewel from the wheel; no child from the rod. People tyrannise and vex us almost beyond endurance. Circumstances strain us till the chords of our hearts threaten to snap. Our nervous system is overtaxed by the rush and competition of our times. Indeed, we need patience.

Never relax the self-watch. Never indulge in unkind or thoughtless criticism of others. Never utter the hasty word or permit the sharp retort. Never complain except to God. Never permit hard and distrustful thoughts to lodge within the soul.

Always be more thoughtful of others than self, to detect the one blue spot in the clouded sky, to be on the alert to find an excuse for those who are forward and awkward; to suffer the aches and pains, the privations and trials of life, sweetly, submissively, trustfully; To drink the bitter cup, with the eye fixed on the Father’s face, without a murmur or complaint: this needs patience, which mere stoicism could never give.

We cannot live such a life till we have learned to avail ourselves of the riches of the indwelling Christ. The beloved apostle speaks of being a partaker of the patience in Jesus. “I, John, your brother and partner in the tribulation and the kingdom and the patient endurance that are in Jesus, was on the island called Patmos on account of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus. (Revelation 1:9). So may we be that calm, unmurmuring, unreviling patience, which made the Lamb of God dumb before His shearers, is ours.

Robert Hall was once overheard saying amid the heat of an argument, “Calm me, O Lamb of God!” But we may go and say, “Lord Jesus, let Your patience arise in me, as a spring of fresh water in a salty sea.” There are riches of grace. Alone among the great cities of the world, Jerusalem had no river. But the glorious Lord was in the midst of her. He became a place of broad rivers and streams, supplying from Himself. All that rivers gave to cities at the foot of whose walls the welcome water lapped.

This is a picture of what we have, who dare to reckon on the indwelling of our glorious Lord, as King, Lawgiver, and Savior. He makes all grace abound toward us so that we have sufficiency for all emergencies and can abound in every good work. In His strength, ever-rising within us, we can do as much as those endowed with the greatest mental and natural gifts, and we escape the temptations to vainglory and pride by which they are beset.

The grace of purity and self-control, of fervent prayer and understanding in the Scriptures, of love for men and zeal for God, of lowliness and meekness, of gentleness and goodness—all is in Christ; and if Christ is in us, all is ours. Oh, that we would dare to believe it, and draw on it, letting down the pcher of faith into the deep well of Christ’s indwelling, opened within us by the Holy Spirit! It is impossible, in these brief limits, to elaborate further on this wonderful thought. But if only we would meet every call, difficulty, and trial, not saying, as we so often do, “I shall never be able to go through it,” but saying, “I cannot; but Christ is in me, and He can,” we should find that all trials were intended to reveal and unfold the wealth hidden within us, until Christ was formed within us and His life manifested in our mortal bodies (Colossians 1:27).

How do we become more conscious of His life within us? 1. Be still each day for a short time, sitting before God in meditation.

Ask the Holy Spirit to reveal the truth of Christ’s indwelling. Ask God to be pleased to make known what the riches of the glory of this mystery are (Colossians 1:27).

Revere your nature as the temple of the indwelling Lord. As the Easterner bares his feet, and the Westerner his head, on entering the limit of a temple, so be very careful of anything that would defile the body or soil the soul. No beasts must be herded in the temple courts.

Get Christ to drive them out. “Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you? If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him. For God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple.” (1 Corinthians 3:16–17).

2. Hate your own life. “If anyone…does not hate… even his own life,” said our Lord, “he cannot be My disciple” (Luke 14:26). And the word translated “life” is soul, the seat and centre of the self-life with its restless energies and activities, its choices and decisions, its ceaseless strivings at independence and leadership. This is the greatest hindrance to our enjoyment of the indwelling Christ. If acquire the habit of saying no, not only to our bad but to our good selves.If we daily deliver ourselves up to death for Jesus’ sake; if we take up our cross and follow the Master, though it be to His grave, we shall become increasingly conscious of being possessed by a richer, deeper, and more divine life than our own.