That Christ May Dwell in You Richly

This past Sunday Pastor Don preached to us from Eph 3:17. It was a convicting sermon dealing with Christ dwelling in the hearts of believers and asking ourselves if Jesus is at home in our hearts... “So that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith-that you, being rooted and grounded in love”

Pastor Don said there were different ways cultivate Christ being at home in us and allowing him to have access to every portion of our life; we aren't to sit around wait. But we cannot just decide to make Christ the center of our being..Like a food you do not like - you can choose to eat it, but you can't just choose to like it. It is part of our affections, the more we eat it the more we grow to like it....the more time we spend with Christ and in his word, the more or affections change and he is able to take control of our being and be the center and our desire.

Two of the main ways to spend time with Christ and let our affections be controlled by him are through prayer and Bible Study.

1. Prayer – through prayer we can ask Christ to dwell in – to be at home in our hearts. As Christ dwells in us he is going to change us. He's going to help us throw away those things that are not glorifying to him and that we desire above him.

There are a couple ways praying can facilitate this

• A. We can ask Christ to dwell in us. We can pray: Christ – may passions are all wrong, I desire this rather than that, I desire money rather than you, I desire respect more than the word of God, I desire this more than you – change that in me God, I can't change it myself!

• B. Prayer time itself will facilitate Christ living in our heart. You get know know others by spending time with them. The more intimately we know Christ the more at home he is going to be in our heart.

2. Bible Study – This is how we get Christ in our minds. As we look at the Word we begin to store it in us. The memorization of scripture is huge in storing God's Word in our heart “I have hidden your word in my heart that I might sin against you.”

Memorization is one area that Pastor Don emphasized that is so important, but not focused on enough by most believers (including myself). I've recently begun getting up earlier so that I have time to spend with the Lord and focus on prayer and scripture study. I used to memorize a lot, but have not done that as much as I ought to recently, so I will be adding that to my daily Bible study time.

Take a couple minutes to listen to Pastor Don urge the people of Lakeshore Baptist Church to make memorization a priority in their life, it's a great admonition to treasure God's Word.