Ephesians 3:16-19 That he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man; That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, May be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God.

The inner man is the dwelling place of God. He does not push you aside and occupy your inner being, He is spirit and adds that fourth dimension. It only takes three dimensions to define the limits of any object. Breadth, length and depth define you as an object, it is the height that makes you more than just an object.

John 14:23 Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.

2 Corinthians 3:3 Forasmuch as ye are manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart.

This is where your spiritual life happens, in the inner man, with Christ. To grow in Christ is to allow His presence to change the inner man, to go beyond knowledge, to be intimate in ways you cannot be with anyone else. When the inner man changes the outward expressions, the appearances, speech, communications and actions of the outer man begins to reflect the new man in Christ.

Outward and seeming, inward and real.

Acts 11:26 And when he had found him, he brought him unto Antioch. And it came to pass, that a whole year they assembled themselves with the church, and taught much people. And the disciples were called Christians first in Antioch.

What does it mean to be a Christian?

Did you ponder that question before you moved on to this paragraph? Do you consider it to be a family name? Do you consider yourself to be a member of the family of Christ? Some time ago I pointed out that whomsoever is betrothed to the Son is treated as a daughter. That is family. We are of the adoption, that is family. Don’t you feel like family?

Being in a family, especially a large family, can be a complicated affair. It is different being the oldest child than it is being the last born. Every position within a family brings about a different set of attitudes and adjustments. Being born again into the family of Christ is not any different.

Do you have family members that just never seem to grow up? You know what I mean, maturity has nothing to do with age, it is about accepting responsibility and acting responsibly. If you think about being born in the spirit in the same way, then someone who just came to the family at the age of forty is a baby. No one of that age likes to be called a baby. In the spirit they are babes.

1 Corinthians 3:1-3 And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ. I have fed you with milk, and not with meat: for hitherto ye were not able to bear it, neither yet now are ye able. For ye are yet carnal: for whereas there is among you envying, and strife, and divisions, are ye not carnal, and walk as men?

Paul is calling out the Corinthian Christians for their failure to grow in Christ. There actions, while mature in a worldly sense did not glorify God and showed a great deal of disrespect for the family name, Christian. Envy, strife and division were named here as example but there are many actions that can be called out indicating there is no growth in any babe in Christ.