Day: January 22, 2023

Our inner man, in brief, is our regenerated spirit. Consider how much you remain in your spirit every day. Psychologists classify human beings, according to human disposition, as introverts and extroverts. A so-called introvert is a person whose interest is not in the things outside of him but in the things within himself; he does not like to talk and does not have much to say. A so-called extrovert is a person whose interest is more on the things outside of him than on the things within himself; he likes to talk and has many things to say. Actually, the “inner man” referred to in the Bible is the real “introvert.” In the biblical sense, a person is an “extrovert” regardless of whether he speaks much or speaks little; only when he turns to his spirit is he truly an “introvert.” Many times it requires the combined strength of nine oxen and two tigers for us to return to [402] our spirit. Sometimes even in the meetings we are not in our spirit, and it usually takes us half an hour to return to our spirit.

Ephesians 3:16 is profound and hard to comprehend. Paul prayed for us to be strengthened into the inner man and not to remain in the outer man. When you talk endlessly, surely you are in your outer man, yet even when you sit in meditation without praying or fellowshipping, you are in your mind and are therefore still in your outer man, not in your inner man. It is hard to comprehend the difference between the outer man and the inner man, and we often mistake one for the other.

For this reason Paul prayed that the Father would grant us to be strengthened, in particular to be strengthened into our inner man. When we are weak, obviously we are in our outer man. In the meetings once we criticize, judge, or despise others, this proves that we are weak. Yet even if we do not criticize, judge, or despise others, merely sitting in the meeting without functioning, having no strength to pray or call on the Lord, also shows that we are weak. At this time we really need the Spirit to strengthen us. Who directs the Spirit to strengthen us? It is the Father; He initiates, directs, and manages, causing the Spirit to stir us up and fan us into flame.

We all have the experience of being weak most of the time. Even though we know that the Lord does not want us to buy a certain thing, we still buy it. When we pick up something in the department store and the Lord tells us to put it down, we just cannot put it down. The strangest thing is that we have the strength to pick it up but do not have the strength to put it down; we are strong to pick it up, but we are weak to put it down. However, sometimes we also have another kind of experience. While we are struggling, suddenly there is a surge of strength within us so that we are able to put the item down and leave without saying a word. I believe that this is the effect of Paul’s prayer. Not only so, many times when you are about to quarrel with your spouse or argue with another believer, you begin to say something and suddenly stop half way. This is because you have been strengthened into your spirit. Then you go back to your room and pray, “Lord, forgive me because I almost acted out of my flesh. Thank You for being merciful to me and preserving me.” This is the Spirit strengthening you from within. Once you are strengthened, you are able to enter into your inner man. [403]

Christ Making His Home in Our Hearts through Faith 
That We May Be Rooted and Grounded in Love

Paul uses the word that repeatedly in Ephesians 3; he uses it four times in verses 16 through 19 alone. The first time he uses it is in verse 16 when he prays that the Father would grant us “to be strengthened with power through His Spirit into the inner man.” The second time, in verse 17a, he says, “That Christ may make His home in your hearts through faith.” The third time, in verses 17b through 19a, he says, “That you…may be full of strength to apprehend…and to know the…love of Christ.” The fourth time, in verse 19b, he says, “That you may be filled unto all the fullness of God.” In these verses the word that may also be translated as “in order that,” meaning that the second that is the result of the first that, the third that is the result of the second that, and so forth.

Verse 17 says, “That Christ may make His home in your hearts through faith, that you, being rooted and grounded in love.” This is the result of our being strengthened into the inner man (v. 16). What does it mean for Christ to make home? Making home has a deeper meaning than staying in a certain place; it does not merely mean to stay somewhere but to settle down there. Christ is in you, but He may be like a guest merely sitting in a chair, leaning against the wall, or standing in the corner. However, once your whole being is strengthened into your spirit, He has the ground and the right to settle down and make home in you. For example, suppose I am moving to a new house, but the original owner will not vacate the house. If this is the case, I will not know where to put my furniture; the most I can do is to put it in the living room. Not until the house is empty will I be able to unpack and put everything in order, thus making home and settling down there.

Has Christ settled down and made His home in us? Sometimes He is at home within us, but sometimes He is not, because we often struggle with Him. When we are joyful, we may pray, “Lord, I love You.” However, we should not think that we have prayed well and that this is enough, because when we struggle with Him, we may not love Him anymore. Sometimes when we struggle with the Lord, we may even force Him into a corner. Although He comes back again a few days later, we do not have peace in our spirit, because we always have this kind of struggle within. Before we were saved, we [404] may have seemed to be at peace all the time. If we wanted to scold someone, we would just do it, and we were very happy after doing it; we were free to do whatever our heart dictated. But after we became a Christian, even the thought of blaming others, let alone scolding them, causes us to have no peace within, because it interrupts the Lord’s making His home in us. Once He is prevented from making His home in us, He does not have peace, and we also do not have peace.

In Matthew 11:28 the Lord Jesus said, “Come to Me all who toil and are burdened, and I will give you rest.” When I was young, even before I was saved, I had already heard this word being preached, and I also loved to preach it to people. Now when I think back, I realize that I simply did not know what I was talking about. The only way for you to genuinely receive rest from the Lord is to let Him make His home in you. If you do not let the Lord make His home in you, it will not be possible for you to find rest. The rest that the Lord gives is His making home in you. If you let Him settle down in you peacefully, you will be blessed. However, today among thousands and millions of Christians, it is rare to find one or two who are willing to let the Lord make His home and settle down in them.

In order to let the Lord make His home and settle down in us, we need both faith and love (1 Tim. 1:14). Through faith we apprehend Christ, and through love we enjoy Christ. However, neither faith nor love is from us; both are from Christ. For this reason we need to be strengthened into our inner man. In this way His faith becomes our faith, enabling us to believe Him, and His love becomes our love, enabling us to love Him. When we are rooted and grounded in Christ’s love, we grow in life and are built up in His life.

The Glorification of the Lord 
Being the Bearing of Much Fruit

The glory of God is truly a great topic. In His thirty years of human living and three and a half years of ministry, the Lord gave many profound and excellent messages. Among them, there are two that are most impressive and delightful. One is in Matthew 5—7, the teaching on the mountain concerning the truth of the kingdom; the other is in John 14—16, the Lord’s speaking to His disciples on the night that He was betrayed concerning the mystery of the union of the Triune God with His believers. Before He was going to speak this long final message, He had already referred to glory several times. For example, in John 12:23 He said, “The hour has [399] come for the Son of Man to be glorified,” and in verse 28 He prayed, “Father, glorify Your name.” Thus, in His speaking and in His prayer He had already referred to glory.

Following this, in chapter 13 before Judas went out, the Lord pointed out that Judas was going to betray Him, and gave him a morsel. Most Bible readers do not understand this. They think that the Lord’s dipping the morsel and giving it to Judas was a sign to let the disciples know that Judas was the one who would betray the Lord. However, that was not what the Lord intended to do. The Lord’s intention was to send Judas to betray Him, for the Lord also said to him, “What you do, do quickly” (v. 27). The Lord seemed to say, “Are you going to betray Me? Now the hour has come; go and betray Me.” What was the hour that had come? In 12:23 the Lord said, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.” This was the hour, so the Lord asked Judas to do what he was going to do. Thus, having taken the morsel, Judas went out. Immediately after that, the Lord said, “Now has the Son of Man been glorified, and God has been glorified in Him. If God has been glorified in Him, God will also glorify Him in Himself, and He will glorify Him immediately” (13:31-32). What the Lord meant was that Judas would go to betray Him and that He was very happy, because as a result, He would be glorified.

From this we can see clearly what glory is. In fact, we can say that the subject of John 12 and 13 is the unveiling of God’s glorification of Christ with His glory and the issue of the glorification of Christ through His death and resurrection—a grain of wheat producing many grains (12:24). To the Lord, glory was His being sown as a grain of wheat into the ground as a result of Judas’s betrayal. When men killed and buried the Lord, they sowed the Lord into the ground. However, when the Lord was sown into the ground as a grain of wheat, that was not His end. As the grain sown into the ground, the Lord died, but as a result, He bore much fruit; this “much fruit” is His glory. The life of God, the element of God, and everything of God that was originally in the Son are now expressed through His becoming the many grains. This is glory.

After Judas went out, the Lord said, “Now has the Son of Man been glorified” (13:31). Following this, He spoke the message in John 14 through 16 to the disciples. Then after this speaking, at the very beginning of chapter 17 He prayed, “Father, the hour has come; [400] glorify Your Son that the Son may glorify You” (v. 1). When He prayed this, what He meant was, “O Father, may You accomplish this matter. Let them arrest Me, put Me on the cross, and bury Me, for only then can I be resurrected and glorified, and You can also be glorified!” This was the Father glorifying the Son that the Son might glorify the Father.

Removing the Veils That Hinder 
the Glory from Being Expressed

This glory was fully expressed in the Lord Jesus, but it has not yet been fully expressed through us today. God has already wrought Himself into us, and He desires to be lived out from us. Sadly, however, He has been “detained” in us and has no way to come out. Our self, our natural man, our flesh, our temperament, our disposition, our habits, our opinions, our insight, and our preferences have become factors that hinder the release of the divine glory. Our sins, trespasses, and covetousness are not the only obstacles to the expression of the divine glory, but even the brothers’ inappropriate shirts and ties and the sisters’ improper hairstyles and adornment are as well.

This kind of speaking is not too much. I know too well the story of the young people. For example, when the sisters enter into the department stores, they are totally disarmed and defeated. Not to mention how they were in the past, even after being saved they still buy many things that the Lord does not want them to buy. Even though they know clearly that the Lord does not want them to buy those things, they still give the Lord many excuses, such as, “It is on sale,” “I will regret it if I do not get it,” and “It is going out of stock.” Eventually, they buy everything. We all have to confess that too many times we refuse to do what the Lord wants us to do; instead, we do all the things that the Lord forbids. If this is the case, how can the Lord be glorified from within us? How can He be expressed through us?

I would like you to know that people in business put out advertisements so that they can transfer other people’s money into their own pockets. Therefore, when the sisters go shopping, they should buy things only according to their need and the Lord’s leading. They should not be influenced by the advertisements. Whenever we do things according to our own desire instead of according to the Lord’s [401] leading, we are covered by a layer of veils. Every time we are covered with one more layer, until layer after layer the veils become so thick that the glory within us has no way to be expressed. How many times today, not to mention in the past or even in our entire history since being saved, did we go ahead and do something, big or small, that we clearly knew the Lord did not want us to do? And how many times did we know clearly that the Lord wanted us to do something, yet we would not do it? If during the course of one day we have been covered by so many layers of veils, how can the Lord be expressed through us?

In light of our condition, Paul asked the Father to work according to His glory. This means that he asked the Father to remove the veils layer by layer from within us. Many Bible readers acknowledge that Paul had a very high level of scholastic ability in Greek. When he wrote the book of Ephesians, he used the Greek language to the fullest extent. Paul prayed to the Father “according to the riches of His glory”; in Greek this means that the glory of the Father is not poor but rich and unsearchable. He asked the Father to work according to the riches of His glory so that the Triune God may be expressed from within us.

Being Strengthened with Power through His Spirit

Moreover, Paul asked the Father to grant us to be strengthened with power through His Spirit into our inner man. Our inner man is our regenerated spirit, which has God’s life as its life and is indwelt by the Holy Spirit. It is also our new person.