In Him, you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.
– Ephesians 2:22
Yes. What a verse. What a picture of the church. So in our church family, we walk through this verse a few weeks back and just meditating on this one verse and what it says about us as the church.
Ephesians 2:22 Teaches that we were chosen to be united with Christ.
Think about this. In him, so that’s talking about in Christ, which leads to everything that Paul has written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit in Ephesians 1 and 2. Up to this point. He’s talked about how we are chosen in Christ. Ephesians 1:4, before the foundation of the world and love predestined for adoption as children through Jesus. In Jesus, we have redemption. Through his blood, we have forgiveness. We have the riches of his grace in him. We’ve obtained an inheritance. We’ve been predestined according to purpose of him who works all things according to the council of his will. We have hope in Christ. I can keep going on. So this is what it means to be in him. Just think about your life today as a follower of Jesus.
You are in Christ and Christ is in you. You have union with Jesus himself. This is your identity. Remember Galatians 2:20. “I no longer live. It’s Christ who lives in me.” So in him, you also are being built together. So we’re a part of a body that’s being built up. The importance of the local church. If you’re not a committed member of a local church, change that ASAP.
Ephesians 2:22 Teaches that we were chosen to be united with other believers.
Being built up together, this is what God’s design is for every one of us as followers of Jesus in Christ, to be built up in the body of Christ into a dwelling place for God. Oh, what a phrase. A place where God dwells in our midst. That’s the church. This is a house for the Lord. Not talking about a physical building, but this people that make up a church are a dwelling place for God by his Spirit, his Spirit dwelling among us.
The wonder of how God has taken you and me from our rebellion and sin, we deserve to be in hell right now and instead, we’re in Christ, Christ in us, a part of a church being built together as a dwelling place for God by his Spirit. Oh God, we want to experience the fullness of Ephesians 2:22 in our lives. God, we want to experience the fullest of what it means to be in Christ in our lives, individually and together. We want to be built up by your Spirit.
So God, we want to experience the wonders and the depths of supernatural natural Spirit filled community. God, please don’t let us settle for routine, monotonous, mundane church attendance and activity. God, help us to realize when we gather together, we’re a dwelling place for you by your Spirit. Help us to experience all that you designed for us as a supernatural Spirit filled community that is glorifying your name as we dwell with you, as we experience the fullness and the beauty and the power and the wonder of your presence in our midst.
Prayer for the Keji People
God, we pray for this reality in our christian lives and this reality in our churches and God, we pray for this reality to spread around the world, for more and more people to come to know Christ, to be in Christ, for more and more churches to be planted in our cities and to the ends of the earth, God, for the Keji people of East Asia, this Tibetan speaking, Muslim people, small people group, 2,500 of them who have little to no knowledge of Jesus, where there’s no christian and no church among them that we know of.
Oh God, we pray that disciples would be made in Christ among the Keji people and we pray that a church will be planted among the Keji people as a dwelling place for you by your Spirit in the middle of the Keji people. God, we pray for that. We pray for that in every people group in the world, that they would all have a church where men and women, children are in Christ together, being built up as a dwelling place for you by your Spirit. We pray all this according to your Word in Ephesians 2:22. In Jesus’ name, amen.
David Platt serves as a Lead Pastor for McLean Bible Church. He is also the Founder and Chairman of Radical, an organization that helps people follow Jesus and make him known in their neighborhood and all nations.
David received his B.A. from the University of Georgia and M.Div., Th.M., and Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. Some of his published works include Radical, Radical Together, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, and Don’t Hold Back.
He lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area with his wife and children.
