The Unlimited Heart By Joel M. Killion e-mail, joel@cherubimnetwork.com website, cherubimnetwork.com/innerlife
	Oliver Wendell Holmes once said, “What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.” This statement is loaded with meaning and is truer than we know. As one man once said, “The human heart is the universe in reverse.” Its height, depth, width and breadth, like the love of God, cannot be measured for, as Solomon said, “God has planted eternity in the hearts of men” (Eccl. 3:11). Thus, it has no boundaries for it is as time without end; it is literally as big as eternity. Needless to say, many have no idea how big their hearts are and yet day by day, they go on living as if their world is so small. And so because they do not know the vastness of their life in God, they neglect His gift by letting just about anything fill their eternity – good, bad and indifferent. But within the earth, there are some who have chosen to be filled with the greatest Treasure known to man. This Treasure is unlike any other fortune for He is the only One for whom the human heart was created. His name is Emmanuel which means “God with us.” As Paul stated, He is “Christ in you, the hope of glory.” More specifically, His name is Jesus [1]. To His disciples, Jesus said, “…I am with you…(perpetually, uniformly, and on every occasion)…I will not in any way…leave you…[I will] not, [I will] not, [I will] not in any degree leave you…nor forsake…you… [Assuredly not!]” (Matt. 28:20; Heb. 13:5, Amp). This is powerful! If you are His disciple - if you belong to Him, if He is yours and you are His - then you are now living in the wake of this promise through faith (Eph 3:17). Over and over, He has pledged to His people… “…I will dwell in and with and among them and will walk in and with and among them, and I will be their God, and they will be My people” (2 Cor. 6:16, Amp). “…See! The abode of God is with men, and He will live (encamp, tent) among them; and they shall be His people, and God shall personally be with them and be their God” (Rev. 21:3, Amp). Think about it: God Himself wants to set up camp within your life; He wants to pitch His tend within your heart so that He can personally be in and with you. This is awesome! These are His expressions of affection for you and for me. This is His promise. As A. W. Tozer once wrote, “The Message ‘Christ in you, the hope of glory,’ needs to be restored to the church. We must show a new generation of nervous, almost frantic Christians that power lies at the center of the life.” HIM IN US…US IN HIM Notice… Who Christ is in us deals with His life in us. Who we are in Christ deals with our life in Him. When Christ within is given absolute permission to do as He pleases within one of His servants, without resistance, a revolution will automatically develop from the inside out. Like a tidal wave caused by an earthquake, the heart of the believer will shift and burst from Divine pressure, causing the depth of their heart to surge outward toward all who surround them. As a result, everyone and everything around them, will be gloriously traumatized from deep inside. Said another way - When the life of Christ fills our existence to the degree that He is in complete control of all that we are, everything around us will inevitably change or implode. As He arises within us, everything that is not directly connected to Him will bow to Him, starting from the inside out (Ps 68: 1). When a man or woman fully abandons their life to the Lord to the degree that they are, in fact, living and moving intimately within Him [2], every cell of their existence will undergo an automatic reformation; once this change has set in, they will find themselves no longer in control as they once were; the atmosphere of their life will be completely set and maintained by the Lord so long as they remain in Him, in His heart. Remember – There is a big difference between pursuing the Lord, entering into the Lord and actually staying in the Lord. The latter requires a complete surrender of ones self to Christ’s Cross. Only the crucified life can actually remain in Him. As Madam Jeanne Guyon once said, “An external religion, with its rules and forms, has taken the place of an inward experience with Christ. The Saints of old - Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Enoch and Job - knew and experienced God inwardly in a personal and vital way. For Christ to truly reign within you everything must be submitted to Him without reservation.” (Page 3 of “Intimacy with Christ” a.k.a. “Guyon Speaks Again”) This is about being both fully obsessed with Him and fully possessed by Him where we dwell continually in Him and He, in like manner, dwells continually in us (Jn. 6:56; 1 Jn. 3:24). When both are attained and maintained within a life, the outflow of Christ’s love and power is inevitable – this is the key to true spiritual ministry. When combined, these two elements make for a dynamic spiritual duo.      HOW BIG IS HE, IN US? As unbelievable as it may seem, “the immeasurable and unlimited and surpassing greatness of His power” – the same power that raised Jesus from the dead and lifted Him up into omnipotence – now lives in all who are filled with His Spirit (Eph. 1:18-20). And if the Spirit of Him Who raised up Jesus from the dead lives and rules within your life, then He Who raised up Christ Jesus from the dead will also bring back to life your mortal, perishable bodies through His Spirit Who dwells in you (Rom. 8:11). In other words, He will add His life to your life, thereby lifting it above the law of death itself. Contrary to popular opinion, which loves to place limits on Christ, if you are filled with Christ, your body – your whole life – is wholly filled and flooded, through all your being, with all the fullness of God Himself (Eph. 3:19, Amp). All that is in Christ – all the fullness of God, the sum total of the divine perfection, powers and attributes – is in you and there is no lack in Him [For more details, check out Endnote no. 3]. Therefore, those who are a part of the Bride of Christ are light-years beyond their time. Since “God is within her, she will not fall…” (Ps. 46:4) – she cannot fail, so long as she lives deeply and surely in Him by keeping His commands (Jn. 3:24, Amp). APPLICATION The statement – “Christ in you” – is beautiful, revolutionary and dangerous all at once. Beautiful to Christ and those who agree with Him, revolutionary to this earth and all that is in it and dangerous to anything and everyone who would presume to limit the Lord in the hearts of His people. The greatest threat to the natural and religious systems of men, is the expression of Christ through seemingly weak, frail and foolish people who simply love Him – “That no flesh should glory in His presence” (1 Cor. 1:26-29). Notice, the Lord is not interested in living through superstar Christians or well-trained, well-to-do clerics as much as He desires to express Himself through simple, ordinary people, just like you and me. Only then will He get all – and I do mean all – the glory. If the Lord were “the average human master-mind,” He would only work through those who are wise, strong and popular; He would chose to work through the degreed, upper-class, clean-cut, credentialed, religious professionals – but this is not how He works. His ways are wiser, stronger and greater than all that man has to offer for “man at his best is merely a breath” (Ps. 39:5). This reality is the greatest truth of all time: that God almighty wants to live with mere men; and not only that, but He wants to live in them too – not just in theory, but by experience and a man with an experience is never at the mercy of a man with an argument. Since the beginning, this has been God’s purpose – to commune with men, to be known even as He knows, to share Himself with those who love Him more than anything and everything, even life itself. His intention has never been to love us from afar but to live in us in a place of unrestrained intimacy. Think about it: We are His friends and He is living within us and He is greater and stronger than all! (1 Jn. 4:4) This brings new meaning to the age-old statement: “…There is a friend who sticks closer than a brother” (Prov. 18:24). Those who are fully filled and flooded with God Himself have been enriched in all things and in every way so that they can be generous in the effectual communication and demonstration of all that is within them (1 Cor. 1:5; 2 Cor 9:11; Philemon 6). If we are filled and flooded with the Holy Spirit, then this applies to us. Our almighty, loving God lives and remains within us and His love, which is essentially His, is being brought to it’s full maturity within our hearts so that we can truly love one another even as we are loved by Him (1 Jn. 4:12). Again, that is awesome! As Christians, we possess this precious Treasure within our frail, human hearts so that the grandeur and exceeding greatness of His power may be shown to be from Him and not from ourselves so that, again, we cannot boast, except in Him (2 Cor. 4:7). There is no limit to all that God wants to do through those who love Him with all their heart, soul, mind and strength. As one man once said, “There is no finality to the Christian life this side of eternity.” But in order for Christ to be purely expressed through a person, the Spirit must first be given absolute mastery within that person to the degree that He directs and controls them in every way, every day (Rom. 8:9). This confirms the earlier quote from Madam Guyon - “For Christ to truly reign within you, everything must be submitted to Him without reservation.” This is how Jesus lived – He only spoke what He heard the Father speaking. He only did what He saw the Father doing. He did nothing of His own accord. As His Father lived, He lived (Jn 5:19; 14:24). This is how He did always those things that pleased His Father for He did only that which He saw and learned at His Father’s side (Jn. 8:26-29; 12:49-50). As He heard, He judged and His judgments were always right because He did not seek or consult His own will. He had no desire to do what pleased Himself; He only willed to do the pleasure of His Father (Jn. 5:30). And as a result, His life was a perfect reflection of His Father to the degree that when people saw Him, they literally saw His Father (Jn. 8:18-19). But how could Jesus do this? Was it because He was God in the flesh? No, because, according to Philippians 2:7, when Jesus put on flesh, He stripped Himself of His essence - His omnipotence, omniscience and omnipresence, which is His unlimited power, unlimited knowledge and unlimited ability to be everywhere at once. In short, Jesus became fully human so that, as a man wholly dependant on His Father, He could show us that it is possible to be just like Him. Jesus’ life-secret is plain and simple - He was in His Father and His Father was in Him. Every word, every action did not happen of His own accord, but the Father who lived continually in Him did His works through His Son (Jn. 14:10). Like the counter-reality of demonic possession, Jesus was fully and voluntarily possessed by His wonderful Father; Jesus possessed Divine possession. He lived in full agreement with His Father, only doing what His Father instructed Him to do, because He loved Him, plain and simple. This is what motivated Him every moment of every hour of every day – Love for His Father. As Jesus Himself said, “…I do as the Father has commanded Me, so that the world may know (be convinced) that I love the Father and that I do only what the Father has instructed Me to do…” (Jn. 14:31, Amp). If this same devotion becomes our devotion and Jesus lives within us, there is no reason why we cannot live as He lived, speak as He spoke or do as He did; there is no reason why we cannot do the greater works Jesus spoke of in John 14:12. Sure, this is a “tall order,” but by His grace, it is possible. Jesus spent countless moments in conversation with His Father. Together they shared as friends and partners in life. This was how Jesus lived. Prayer was not an appendage, simply attached to His life; it was who He was, from inside out. And so He always made time to simply BE with His Father Who was His Tree of Life. He knew, experientially, that His Father was the Source of His Supply. He knew that without His Father (the Vinedresser), He (the Vine) could produce no good thing (Jn. 15:1-5). And so the Father gave His grace to His Son for God always gives His grace (power) to the humble. CONCLUSION There is no limit to the potential of Who Christ is within our lives. His Love, His Word, His Kingdom and His power are now within our hearts through the Holy Spirit [3]. He Who did not spare His own Son, has freely given us all things that pertain to life and godliness in Christ (Rom. 8:32). Clearly, the Father has invested a lot into us. He has planted the seed of His Son into the ground of our hearts. And now He is awaiting the harvest. He is patiently longing for the precious fruit of the earth. Like a good investor, He is waiting for a return on His glorious investment. Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your heart and do not allow anyone to keep you from His call. He wants to speak to you. He wants to show you what He is doing so that you can do it with Him as a friend and as a partner. All He needs is for someone to love Him as much as He loves them so that He can live purely through them as only He can. He needs those who are willing to endure the process of brokenness, in the Secret Place, so that He can stand up in the midst of the rubble. Will you be the one? Remember, the golden opportunity you’ve been seeking your whole life is in Christ, in you. It’s not in your environment. It’s not in good luck or chance. It’s not in anyone else. It’s not even in you personally for you must be broken. It is in Christ alone who lives within you. He’s your “big break.” Everything you lack, He has, and so much more. And don’t worry, if you resign yourself to Him, you will not fail in your purpose (Ps. 46:4). With Him, nothing is impossible. Selah (pause and think on this). e-mail, joel@cherubimnetwork.com website, www.cherubimnetwork.com/innerlife    ENDNOTES: 1. Jesus Christ the Lord Himself lives in the heart of every born again, Spirit-filled Christian (see Jn. 17: 26; Col. 1:27; 2 Cor. 13:5)   2. Those who abide permanently in the Lord Jesus Christ can only do so based on the conditions of obeying His living Word and so living as He lived (Acts 17:28; Col 2:6-7; 1 Jn. 2:5-6; 3:24; 5:20).   3. This is a brief list of all that is “in Christ”: Redemption (Rom. 3:24), no condemnation (Rom 8:1), the law of the Spirit of life (Rom 8:2), the love of God (Rom. 8:39), truth (Rom 9:1; 1 Tim. 2:7), unity (Rom 12:5; Gal. 3:28), sanctification (1 Cor. 1:2), all the promises of God (1 Cor. 1:20), life (1 Cor. 15:22), victory (2 Cor. 2:14), enlightenment (2 Cor. 3:14), a new nature (2 Cor. 5:17; Gal. 6:15; Eph. 2:10), simplicity (2 Cor. 11:3), freedom (Gal. 2:4), all spiritual blessings (Eph. 1:3), a kingdom posture in the heavens (Eph. 1:6), divine union (Eph. 2:13), the mind of Christ (Phil. 2:5), the high calling (Phil. 3:14), the fullness (Col. 1:19; 2:9-10), perfection (Col. 1:28, 1 Jn. 3:5-6), faith and love (1 Tim. 1:14; 3:13; 2 Tim. 1:13; 3:15), the promise of life (2 Tim. 1:1), His own purpose and grace (2 Tim. 1:9; 2:1), salvation (2 Tim. 2:10), boldness (Philem. 8) and light (1 Jn. 1:5). All these things are in Christ and Christ is in you. But there are two other very important things that are in every Spirit-filled heart: The Kingdom of God and the Word of God (Lk. 17:20-21; Deut. 30:12-14). Also, consider this – Christ Jesus has every spiritual gift and every divine ability within Himself; He is the Apostle, the Prophet, the Evangelist, the Pastor and the Teacher; He is and has every good and perfect gift from the Father – And He is in you. Thus, it is our responsibility to allow Him to be whatever He wants to be through us to whomever He wishes. If He wants to use you to raise the dead with the gift of miracles and the gift of faith; if He wants to prophesy through you as the Prophet that He is; if He wants to use you to plant a church or start a revolution with the apostolic gift that He alone has; if He wants to teach through you in front of multitudes – DO NOT STOP HIM!