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Joe: In this segment we'll continue our fellowship from Chapter 3 in Volume 2 of the "Basic Elements
of the Christian Life." The title of this chapter is "The Way to Build up the Church."
Hector, in the last two segments we've laid a foundation for this segment, but can you
go ahead and explain to us from Ephesians chapter 3 what this way to build the church is?
Hector: Sure, so the way to build up the church
is by allowing Christ to make His home in our hearts. And we can see this in these two
verses in Ephesians 3:16 and 17. Here Paul is praying and he says in 16, "That He would
grant you according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His
Spirit into the inner man." So we need to be strengthened with power into our inner
man. We saw in the previous section that we can easily be distracted to outward things,
material things, even Biblical things of the Old Testament and the New Testament and not
focus on Christ. So, here we need to be strengthened into our inner man where Christ is, where
the life of God is. The problem is, when we're distracted then God has no way to flow from
our spirit into our soul (into our mind, our emotion, our will). So the first thing we
need to do is to repent. And repent is simply to turn back. Just to have a turn back to
Christ. And when we do that, right away our conscience bears witness of where we're wrong,
the things that are in the way of this flow of life. And then what we do is to simply
confess. So, when we confess our sins (we repent, we confess), and now the way is opened.
So, the Lord can flow, the life of God can flow from our spirit into our emotions, and
we begin to love the things of God again. And our will begins to choose the things of
God again. So now our whole being is opened, and then Christ can make His home in our hearts.
That's verse 17, you know, "Christ makes His home in our hearts through faith." So our
experience individually first is to repent, confess and then allow this life to flow in us.
Joe: This first point is related to Christ
making His home in our heart and is related to our individual experience but you also
mentioned that not only is this an individual experience but it's also a corporate experience.
Can you talk about this second part, this corporate experience?
Hector: Yeah, so verse 17 continues, "...that you being rooted and grounded in love," and
then verse 18, "may be full of strength to apprehend with all the saints what the breadth
and length and height and depth are." So, individually we can't apprehend all of the
riches of Christ. We can for sure experience the riches of Christ but to experience all
the riches to fully express God, we need all the members of the Body, we need every member.
So, it starts individually and then we need to be with the other saints, the other members
of His Body. And when we share with one another our experiences, when we pray, when we enjoy
that life together, then together we can apprehend
the breadth, the length, the height, and the depths of the riches of Christ.
Joe: These segments have been really helpful
to see that first of all that God's desire is to build the church and then in this last
segment we discussed how, first, He does this by making His home in our hearts, so He builds
Himself into us. And then as he builds Himself into us, He also builds us up with those around
us. So we experience Christ individually and then corporately we apprehend the breadth,
the length, the height and the depths of Christ.
Hector: Amen.
Joe: Amen. So, thank you for joining us and now we'd like to thank you all for joining us.
And we look forward to more segments from the "Basic Elements of the Christian Life."