For God wanted them to know that the riches and glory of Christ are for you Gentiles, too. And this is the secret: Christ lives in you. This gives you assurance of sharing his glory
Col 1:27 NLT
Christ in the Christian is a faith-grounded, Spirit-empowered, Christ-dependent, heart-surrendered, fruit-bearing, trial-overcoming, daily-sustained life (Gal. 2:20). “Christ in You,” is another way of describing the life of abiding in Christ (Col. 1:27), or praying continually (1 Thes. 5:17), or enjoying the life of faith (Heb. 11:6).
Abiding in Christ is daily experiencing the presence of Christ and allowing him to live his life in and through us (1 John 4:9). Christ lives the Christian life in us because by our efforts alone, we cannot produce righteousness, bear fruit, or convince the lost (Gal. 5:22-25).
Abiding in Christ is holding steady in the presence of Christ trusting his promises by faith irrespective of the challenges, trials, and tribulations of our lives. Remaining in faith and looking to Christ to be our sufficiency in the midst of our inadequacy keeps us in his constant, conscious presence. Only by abiding can our ministry efforts have an outcome that will last for eternity (John 15:1-5).
Abiding in Christ is an on-going conversational relationship with Jesus Christ which is maintained through continual dependence on the Holy Spirit and a constant looking to God’s grace for power in our weakness (2 Cor. 12:7-10). Qualities of abiding in Christ are gratitude in life disappointments, sweetness in God’s presence, and joy in the daily, mundane tasks of life.
To get light from an oil lamp, filling it first with oil is entirely reasonable. To get a car to provide you with transportation, filling the tank with gas is completely logical. In the same way, a divine logic affirms that obtaining righteousness from a man or woman happens only when that person is filled with God. Oil in the lamp, gas in the car . . . and Christ in the Christian. It takes God to be a man, and that is why it takes Christ to be a Christian, because Christ puts God back into man, the only way we can again become functional.
Major W. Ian Thomas, The Indwelling Life of Christ: All of Him in All of Me (Colorado Springs, CO: Multnomah Books, 2006), 21.