The House

6/6/1998

“For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put My laws in their mind and write them on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people” (Hebrews 8:10).

To experience Christ is to touch His willingness and zeal for the Father’s house. Christ is in a perpetual state of building that house. He must always be about His Father’s business. This is His nature. So whenever willingness surfaces in your heart—willingness calibrated to the church, God’s house, His dwelling place—you have met Christ in your mind, emotion, and will. You meet Him as that disposition of willingness surfacing within you. The evidence that He is taking you over and possessing your heart is your feeling of willingness to lay down your life for the saints and for His house. When willingness springs up, you have met Christ. The Lord Jesus is not just a name on a piece of paper. The Lord Jesus is a Person, and He feels like willingness. This is how you know you are touching the real Person and not a mere concept or belief—you find God’s disposition springing up within you. Our highest privilege and dignity is to participate in this willingness which is Christ Himself.

Christ works His disposition of willingness into us. He works with the grain of our being, not against the grain. Living the church life described in the New Testament requires willingness. Nothing is forced. Willingness springs up from within us and we pour ourselves out in a spontaneous way to meet the needs. This is because Christ in us is this way.

Willingness for the Lord, willingness for His interest, is not in you and me. This should relieve us. It should relieve the pressure that comes from being in a false position and taking condemnation because we feel unwillingness in us. Of course we are not willing. No one is naturally willing for the church life. This is an impossible life to live. But God has imparted the Impossible Life into our spirit. And now this willingness is being written into our disposition. He is writing His very nature and life into our mind and into our heart. So willingness is ours in the new covenant as we participate in and enjoy Christ.

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