The Reality of the Body of Christ
Message Five
Living in the Reality of the Body of Christ
by Living in the Inward Parts of Christ Jesus
Opening Word of the Prophesying Meeting
Reading the verses in each day.
Reading the main points in the outlines.
Pray-reading the verses:
Eph. 3:16-17 That He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit into the inner man, that Christ may make His home in your hearts through faith, that you, being rooted and grounded in love.
Phil. 1:8 For God is my witness how I long after you all in the inward parts of Christ Jesus.
Word of Appetizer
If we would live in the reality of the Body of Christ, we need to live in the inward parts of Christ Jesus; What is the inward parts of Christ Jesus?
[In Philippians 1:8 inward parts means] “bowels”; signifying inward affection, then, tender mercy and sympathy. As a man, Christ had the human inward parts with their various functions. Christ’s experiences in His inward parts is His experiences in His mind, emotion, will, soul, heart, and spirit, including His love, desire, feeling, thought, decision, motive, and intention.
Spiritual Burden
If we would have the reality of the Body of Christ, we must allow Christ to make His home in our hearts; and if we would live in the reality of the Body of Christ, we need to live in the inward parts of Christ Jesus.
Concluding Word of the Prophesying Meeting
The Revelation of the Truth
If we would have the reality of the Body of Christ, we must allow Christ to make His home in our hearts.
If we would live in the reality of the Body of Christ, we need to live in the inward parts of Christ Jesus.
The more we live in the inward parts of Christ Jesus, the greater will be our consciousness of the Body of Christ and the stronger will be our feeling for the Body of Christ.
The Experience of Life
When Christ makes His home in our hearts, we will be filled unto all the fullness of God; The Body of Christ is built up by Christ as the Spirit entering into our spirit and spreading Himself from our spirit into our mind, emotion, and will to occupy our entire being.
When others suffer or are blessed, we will identify with them and feel the same hardship or blessing if we have the consciousness of the Body.
Practice and Application
To live Christ requires that we remain in the inward parts of Christ Jesus; if we would be those who are in Christ, we must be in His inward parts, in His tender and delicate feelings.
If we exercise this sense, it will cause us to be conscious of matters related to the Body.
We cultivate the consciousness of the Body of Christ by living in the inward parts of Christ; by living in the inward parts of Christ Jesus, taking His feeling and view as our feeling and view, we will practice the church life in the reality of the Body of Christ.
Using Key Verses to Have a Bird’s-Eye View over the Whole Outline
Key Verses (1)
Eph. 3:16-17 That He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit into the inner man, that Christ may make His home in your hearts through faith, that you, being rooted and grounded in love.
4:16 Out from whom all the Body, being joined together and being knit together through every joint of the rich supply and through the operation in the measure of each one part, causes the growth of the Body unto the building up of itself in love.
I. If we would have the reality of the Body of Christ, we must allow Christ to make His home in our hearts
- The Body of Christ is built up by Christ as the Spirit entering into our spirit and spreading Himself from our spirit into our mind, emotion, and will to occupy our entire being.
- The reality of the Body of Christ is the inner experience of the indwelling Christ; it is only by the inner experience of Christ as life that we can have the reality of the Body of Christ.
- When Christ makes His home in our hearts, we will be filled unto all the fullness of God; this fullness is the church, the Body of Christ, as the corporate expression of the Triune God.
- The reality of the Body life is the issue of the immeasurable Christ making His home in our hearts.
Key Verses (2)
Phil. 1:8 For God is my witness how I long after you all in the inward parts of Christ Jesus.
2:5 Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.
1 Cor. 16:24 For who has known the mind of the Lord and will instruct Him? But we have the mind of Christ.
II. If we would live in the reality of the Body of Christ, we need to live in the inward parts of Christ Jesus.
- As a man, Christ had the human inward parts with their various functions. Christ’s experience in His inward parts is His experience in His mind, emotion, will, soul, heart, and spirit, including His love, desire, feeling, thought, decision, motive, and intention.
- Paul was a person who continually experienced Christ in His inward parts；Paul was one with Christ even in His inward parts—in His affection, tender mercy, and sympathy.
- To live Christ requires that we remain in the inward parts of Christ Jesus.
- Paul lived in the reality of the Body of Christ by taking Christ’s feeling as his own feeling; Christ’s feeling for the Body became his feeling for the Body.
Key Verses (3)
1 Cor. 12:26-27 And whether one member suffers, all the members suffer with it; or one member is glorified, all the members rejoice with it. Now you are the Body of Christ, and members individually.
Philem. 7 For I had much joy and encouragement over your love, because the inward parts of the saints have been refreshed through you, brother.
12 Him I have sent back to you—him, that is, my very heart.
III. The more we live in the inward parts of Christ Jesus, the greater will be our consciousness of the Body of Christ and the stronger will be our feeling for the Body of Christ.
- As members of the Body of Christ, we need to have the consciousness of the Body and a feeling for the Body; the Body is universal, and the consciousness of the Body and a feeling for the Body are also universal.
- In order to live in the reality of the Body of Christ, we need to be conscious of the Body of Christ.
- The consciousness of the Body of Christ is the sense of Christ’s life within us.
- When others suffer or are blessed, we will identify with them and feel the same hardship or blessing if we have the consciousness of the Body.
- We cultivate the consciousness of the Body of Christ by living in the inward parts of Christ.
Prophesying Topics—Twelve Topics per Week
D1
T1 Allowing Christ to make His home in our hearts—Eph. 3:17a
(Please illustrate that if we would have the reality of the Body of Christ, we must allow Christ to make His home in our hearts.)
T2 The church is not built up by knowledge and gifts—Matt. 16:18
(Please illustrate that the key factor of how the church will be built up is the inner experience of the indwelling Christ.)
D2
T1 “bowels”; signifies inward affection, then, tender mercy and sympathy—Phil. 1:8
(Please illustrate that what Christ’s experiences in His inward parts include.)
T2 Christ’s experiences in His inward parts—Luke 2:49; John 2:17; Matt. 26:39
(Please illustrate that what the above verses reveal about Christ’s experience in his heart.)
D3
T1 Paul was one with Christ in His inward parts—Phil. 1:8; 2 Cor. 11:10; 1 Cor. 16:24
(Please illustrate that Paul was a person who continually experienced Christ in His inward parts with the above verses.)
T2 To live Christ is to abide in His inward parts and there to enjoy Him as grace—Phil. 1:7, 4:23
(Please illustrate that to live Christ requires that we remain in the inward parts of Christ Jesus.)
D4
T1 Taking Christ’s feeling as his own feeling—Philem. 7, 12, 20 )
(Please illustrate that in the book of Philemon we have a picture of the Body life lived in the inward parts of Christ Jesus.)
T2 Cultivating the consciousness of the Body of Christ—1 Cor. 12:26-27
(How can we cultivate the consciousness of the Body of Christ?)
D5
T1 Being conscious of the Body of Christ—Rom. 12:4-5, 15
(Please illustrate that in order to live in the reality of the Body of Christ, we need to be conscious of the Body of Christ.)
T2 The consciousness of the Body of Christ is the sense of Christ’s life within us—Col. 3:4, 15
(Please illustrate that if we exercise this sense often, this sense will become the consciousness of the Body with experience.)
D6
T1 Cultivating the consciousness of the Body of Christ by living in the inward parts of Christ—1 Cor. 12:26-27
(Please illustrate that when others suffer or are blessed, we will identify with them and feel the same hardship or blessing if we have the consciousness of the Body with experience.)
T2 Once a Christian sees the Body, it will be impossible for him to be proud—Rom. 12:4-5
(Please illustrate that if we have Body consciousness, we immediately will see that the Body is one.)
