I.　The emphasis on the church being the Body of Christ is on life, whereas the emphasis on the church being the one new man is on the person— 1 Cor. 12:12; Eph. 4:4; 2:15; 4:24:

A.　As the Body of Christ, the church needs Christ as its life; as the one new man, the church needs Christ as its person—Col. 3:4; Eph. 3:17a.

B.　The goal of the Lord's recovery is to bring forth the one new man—2:15; 4:24; Col. 3:10-11:

1.　In His recovery the Lord is bringing forth the one new man with Himself as the life and the person for God's expression—Eph. 3:17-19; Col. 3:4.

2.　The one new man will usher in the kingdom of God and bring Christ, the King, back to this earth—Rev. 11:15.

II.　In the one new man, there is only one person—the all-inclusive Christ—Col. 2:17; 3:4, 10-11:

A.　The all-inclusive Christ is the center and circumference, the centrality and the universality, of God's purpose and economy—1:15-18.

B.　God's intention in His economy is that Christ be everything; therefore, it is crucial for us to see that God wants nothing but Christ and that in the eyes of God nothing counts except Christ—Matt. 17:5; Col. 3:10-11.

C.　We need to be infused, saturated, and permeated with the all-inclusive Christ until in our experience He is everything to us—2:16-17.

D.　The all-inclusive Christ is in us, but we need to see Him, know Him, be filled with Him, and become absolutely one with Him—1:27; 3:4.

E.　As the embodiment of the Triune God, the all-inclusive Christ is the reality of every positive thing in the universe—2:9, 16-17:

1.　Everything we do day by day should remind us of Christ as the reality of that thing and should remind us to contact Christ, to experience Christ, to enjoy Christ, and to have Christ as our everything.

2.　If we follow the practice of taking Christ as the reality of all the material things in our daily life, our living will revolutionized and transformed; it will be full of Christ.

F.　The record in Joshua 22:10-34 about building another altar shows us that we must avoid division and that to experience and enjoy the all-inclusive Christ we must be one people, one Body, one universal church—1 Cor. 12:12; Eph. 4:3-4.

G.　God's ultimate goal in His economy is to gain the one new man constituted with the preeminent, all-inclusive Christ wrought into a corporate people—Col. 3:10-11; 1:18; 2:9, 16-17:

1.　In the one new man Christ is all and in all; we have no place—3:11.

2.　The one new man is just Christ—Christ spreading and Christ enlarged.

III.　The way to experience the indwelling Christ, to be constituted with Christ, and to live Christ in the one new man is to pray in a genuine way—1:3, 9; 4:2-3, 12:

A.　We need the kind of prayer that brings us into contact with the Lord—prayer that causes us to be one with Him in our spirit—1 Cor. 6:17; 2 Tim. 4:22.

B.　A life of genuine prayer stops our natural being; a life of prayer is a life that revolts and rebels against our natural being:

1.　To pray means to realize that we are nothing and that we can do nothing—Mark 9:28-29.

2.　Prayer is the real denial of the self; thus, to pray is to deny ourselves—8:34.

3.　To pray is actually to declare, "No longer I but Christ"—Gal. 2:20.

C.　Paul prayed that the saints would "be filled with the full knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding"—Col. 1:9:

1.　In this verse the will of God is concerned with the all-inclusive Christ as our portion—v. 12.

2.　The will of God is profound in relation to our knowing, experiencing, and living the all-inclusive Christ:

a.　God's will for us is that we know Christ, experience Christ, enjoy Christ, live Christ, and have Christ become our life and our person—Phil. 3:7-10; 1:21a; Col. 3:4; Eph. 3:17a.

b.　Christ should be our life and our person; this is the will of God.

D.　Paul charged the saints to persevere in prayer—Col. 4:2:

1.　As we persevere in prayer, the living person of Christ becomes our experience and enjoyment—1:27.

2.　Because prayer involves a battle, we need to persevere in prayer.

3.　In order to persevere in prayer, we need to exercise our spirit continually, praying at every time in spirit—1 Tim. 4:7; Eph. 6:18.

E.　We need to respond to Christ's intercession by seeking the things that are above and by setting our mind on them—Col. 3:1-2:

1.　Because Christ is so active for us in the heavens, we should seek the things that are above and set our mind on them.

2.　Christ's ministry of intercession in the heavens requires our response; when we seek the things that are above, we respond and correspond to Christ's heavenly ministry.

3.　When Christ prays in heaven, we should pray on earth; this means that there is a transmission between the Christ praying in heaven and us praying on earth.

4.　Through our prayer, Christ, the Head, is given a way to carry out His administration through His Body—1:18; 2:19; 3:1-2; 4:2.

5.　If we seek the things that are above and have one life and living with Christ, we will be wholly occupied with our Master's enterprise—3:1-4.

6.　We need to focus our attention on the things above and remain open to the divine transmission from the heavens; then the all-inclusive Christ will be transmitted into us, and we will be constituted with Christ for the one new man.