Your Heart as His Dwelling Place
God’s Heart
Open your heart to the verses we read together from God’s Word. Opening your heart to God’s Word is a beautiful, life-altering experience. His Word reveals the very heart and character of God to us. God’s Word is His heart. As we read it and reflect upon it, the Holy Spirit speaks to our hearts and guides us according to His perfect will for our lives.
Our first Scripture for this gathering is part of a prayer for spiritual strength that the apostle Paul prays over the church - the body of Christ. It is a beautiful prayer that expresses what the Lord wants for our hearts - what He created our hearts to be.
Ephesians 3:14-19:
14 For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, 15 from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, 16 that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, 18 may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, 19 and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
Paul prays that we will be strengthened with power through the Holy Spirit in our inner beings and according to the riches of the glory of God in order that Christ may dwell in our hearts through faith. Paul’s prayer expresses his care for the hearts of Christ followers.
We learn from his prayer that having Christ dwell in our hearts will:
1) root and ground us in love,
2) strengthen us to comprehend the magnitude of His tremendous love for us, so that we may know His love, and
3) fill us with all the fullness of God.
These are not small things. The result of having Christ dwell in our hearts is profoundly life-altering. Paul prays for us to be strengthened by the Holy Spirit in our inner beings in order for us to comprehend the magnitude of God’s love. It is difficult for us to fathom such perfect love dwelling within us. Yet, that is the Lord’s deepest desire for His people - intimate relationship with Him.
We may even wonder whether He could possibly find our sinful bodies fit to hold Him. The truth is we are far from worthy in our own right, but that’s why Jesus came. He came to justify us - to put us in right standing with the Father. Because of Jesus’ death and resurrection, we are declared righteous by the Father. We are deemed spiritually fit to hold Him in our hearts because, as His followers, He declares us to be so.
Romans 3: 23-24:
…for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus
He came to free us from the sin that resides in our hearts, to take up residence in these very hearts and fill us with His presence - with all of Himself.
In the Old Testament, the presence of God dwelled in the Most Holy Place in the tabernacle, also called the Holy of Holies. That area was separated from everything else with a curtain, and only the high priest could enter and make sacrifices there. Even he, the high priest himself, had to go through all sorts of ritualistic cleansing to purify himself before he could safely enter the presence of God. In short, a barrier was placed between God’s people and the dwelling of His presence because their sinful human natures were not worthy of it - so much so, that they could not physically survive the holiness of His presence.
So when Jesus came to earth, everything changed! God put on flesh. He dwelt among the people. They could see Him and touch Him and eat with Him and talk to Him. John 17:26 teaches us that Jesus made the Father known to them - that His love would be in them, just as it was in Him and that He, Jesus, would be in them.
John 17:26:
“I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.” (Words of Jesus to the Father)
When He died on the cross, that curtain that separated the Holy of Holies was torn in two.
Matthew 27:51 says regarding the moments following the death of Jesus,
And behold, the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. And the earth shook, and the rocks were split.
It was a new day! Christians were given a new level of access to God that applies to each and every one us as believers today. Once Jesus paid for our sins in full with His shed blood on the cross, the boundaries keeping us from His presence were permanently removed. They no longer existed. The righteousness of Christ became our own, and a door to His presence was unlocked.
After Jesus’ ascension to the Father, the Holy Spirit came, and it was then that God began to live, not only among His people, but within His people. There were no more boundaries, no more barriers, no more curtains, no more rituals and laws, no more getting cleaned up and purified before approaching His Presence. He literally began to dwell within us.
Scripture shows us that our very own hearts are meant to be His dwelling place. They were, in fact, created to be His dwelling place. Jesus desires to take up residence in our hearts. May we welcome Him in to the innermost part of ourselves.
Share Your Heart
Consider the following discussion starters as you share your hearts with one another:
Paul prays for us so that Christ may dwell in our hearts. What does he pray in Ephesians 3:16 in order for that to happen?
In Ephesians 3:18-19 Paul prays that Christ will dwell in our hearts. One of the reasons He prays this is so that we have the strength to comprehend the breadth and length and height and depth of Christ’s love for us - that we may know that love. He indicates that it is a love that surpasses knowledge. Paul wants us to know Jesus’ love. Why do you think Christ has to dwell in our hearts in order for us to have the strength to know his love - a love that surpasses knowledge?
When Jesus came to earth, everything changed! His life and death gave us new access to God. It was a new day. How can we live every day like it’s a new day in Him?
The Cries of Your Heart
At Hearts Together Women, we believe that the Lord hears the cries of our hearts.
We also believe in prayer partnership because God’s Word teaches us that partnering with one another in prayer is powerful.
James 5:16 says, “Therefore…pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.”
And Jesus encourages us, “When two of you get together on anything at all on earth and make a prayer of it, my Father in heaven goes into action. And when two or three of you are together because of me, you can be sure that I'll be there” (Matthew 18:19-20, The Message).
What amazing promises!
Here is how prayer partnership works at a Hearts Together Gathering:
After we share in the Word and discussion, your facilitator will ask each woman for her prayer requests. All you need to do is share your own requests - the cries of your heart - because we all have them.
We encourage you to request prayer for 1) your own needs; 2) the needs of your family and loved ones; and 3) the needs you see around you - in the workplace, the school, the neighborhood or even the nation.
After the requests are shared, your gathering facilitator will lead in a prayer for the needs that were put forth.
In the following days, we encourage you to pray for the requests of the other women in your gathering. They will do the same for you. That’s what prayer partnership is all about!
As we unite in prayer, we trust the Lord will meet with us, dwell among us and answer us in accordance with His perfect will.
Your Heart to His
Maybe you felt the Holy Spirit stirring something in your heart during this gathering. It doesn’t have to end here. Take it home. In the followings days, continue to pursue Him. Spend some time alone and quiet, away from the noise of life - just you and Jesus.
Tell Him the cries of your heart. He is listening; He cares, and He does answer. Praying is kind of like having a conversation with your best friend. He created you, so He already knows everything about you. He just wants to be with you.
After you pray, reread the Scriptures and thoughts under God’s Heart. Reflect upon the verses and how they speak to you and your life.
Here are some things you might contemplate and pray about:
Reflect upon the incomprehensible love it took for Jesus to put on flesh, to suffer and to die on the cross in order to give you full access to His presence. Do you think you live in the new day He has provided for you? Pray that you may be strengthened by the power of His Spirit in your inner being, that you may know His love. Open your heart to Him today. He truly desires relationship with you.
This is just between you and Jesus - your heart to His. Make space in your busy days to spend some time with Him.
