Now Is the Time for the Church to Be the Glorious Church

Chapter 9

The Heart Is the Gateway

The process of transformation begins with the mind; however, there is little to no spiritual power in the mind. What powers the transformation is the heart. The purpose of the empowering of the Holy Spirit of verse 16 of Ephesians is so that Christ can dwell in our hearts by faith. The heart controls the flow of the Holy Spirit resident in our spirit. As we believe a certain area of the Word of God in our hearts, then the power of God can flow from our spirits to bring about the desired change. If our heart is hardened in unbelief in one area, then the flow of God’s power from the spirit is stopped.

Take healing as an example. If our heart is softened to believe God’s Word on healing, then our actions of faith and the words we speak will release the power of God, and we will experience the manifestation of the healing for which Jesus died. If, on the other hand, our heart is hardened in unbelief toward God’s Word on healing, then the power of God will not flow on our behalf. Just a sidenote: One can be healed miraculously by the power of God through the prayers and/or actions of faith by others (i.e., anointing with oil, laying on of hands, gifts of the Spirit, or intercessory prayer), but this may work only a few times. God expects his people to grow to believe his Word on healing and receive it by faith for themselves.

Remember that the end purpose of Paul’s prayer and the processes revealed in this prayer is that we may be that building of God, his holy habitation, showing forth his power and glory in these last days. I hope you desire as I do that the anointed one and his anointing may dwell in and possess your heart, your core value system, completely, by faith.

We have seen so far that we need the resurrection power of Jesus to strengthen our inner person and transform us into the image of Christ. According to this prayer, the power is given and needed so that Christ will dwell in our hearts by faith. This is one packed phrase. Let us start by unfolding it.

The title of Christ refers to the messiahship of Jesus and specifically emphasizes his anointing as the Messiah. It refers to him as the anointed one but also to the anointing that rested on him and is available to us. When I think of Jesus as the anointed one, I think of Luke 4:17–19:

And there was delivered unto him the book of the prophet Esaias. And when he had opened the book, he found the place where it was written, The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord.

Most people teach that these are the things that Jesus did during his earthly ministry because of the anointing of the Holy Spirit that was on him. While this is true, a closer look will show that these are not categories of different types of people he ministered to. Instead this refers to his ministry to the whole person, to the five parts of a human being: the spirit, heart, soul, mind, and body. He was anointed to minister and bring each part of a person to wholeness. He came to preach the gospel to the poor, the poor in spirit (Matthew 5:3), so their spirits could be reborn. He was sent to heal the brokenhearted so their hearts could be purified and set wholly on God. He came to preach deliverance to the captives, to those whose souls had been taken captive by the evil one, so he can deliver their souls from the strongholds of the enemy (2 Timothy 2:25–26). He came to preach recovery of sight to the blind, to those whose minds had been blinded to the truth of the gospel (2 Corinthians 4:4), so their minds could be renewed by the Word of God. He came to set at liberty them who were bruised, their bodies healed and made whole. He came to preach the acceptable year of the Lord, the year of Jubilee, the restoration of all that had been lost by the Fall in the Garden of Eden, so humankind could live in the fullness of all that Jesus has done.

When Paul is praying that Christ would dwell in their hearts by faith, he is praying that the anointing of the anointed one be allowed to complete the fullness of its work in each part of our being so that our spirit is reborn, our heart purified and set on God, our soul delivered and restored from every stronghold, our mind renewed so that we have the mind of Christ, and our bodies healed and made whole. This will result in the fullness of the salvation for which Jesus died.