The following excerpts from the writings of Maxie Dunnam are available on this page:

The Indwelling Christ
Christ Formed in Us
The Dynamic of Jesus Christ

Jesus came for one purpose and one purpose alone ­ to bring Himself to us and in bringing Himself to bring God. Not only does He justify us by providing full pardon for our sin, He indwells us to give us the power to be and do all those things God requires us to be and do. The message of justification by faith is our evangelistic proclamation, which must never be diminished. It is crucial. However, it is not complete.

We talk about becoming Christian in ways like "accepting Christ," "inviting Christ into our lives," "receiving Christ as Savior," "being born again by allowing Christ to be born in us." Whatever the language, the faith and experience is that as we confess and repent of our sins, we are forgiven. We are justified, accepted by God and enter into a new relationship with Him. He then lives in us through the power of His Spirit as the indwelling Christ.

How have we missed that crucial dimension of the Christian experience ­ the indwelling Christ? If we have not missed it, why have we been so dull in proclaiming it? If we have not missed it, why is there so little evidence of the power of this reality in our lives?

Whatever the case, the evidence, or the lack of evidence, convinces me ­ and I hope you ­ that the most desperate need of the Christian community is the discovery of this powerful reality, the astounding possibility of Christians being in Christ. Not only is the presence of God in Jesus Christ to be experienced occasionally, the indwelling Christ is to become the shaping power of our lives. This is the dynamic of our spiritual formation.

Spiritual formation is that dynamic process of receiving through faith and appropriating through commitment, discipline, and action, the living Christ into our own life to the end that our life will conform to, and manifest the reality of Christ's presence in the world.

Prayer, or I prefer saying, prayerful living, is recognizing, cultivating awareness of, and giving expression to the indwelling Christ. By giving expression to the indwelling Christ I mean actually reflecting His life within us in our daily living; living out of His presence so that His Spirit will be expressed through us.

From: Alive in Christ

"In Christ," "in union with Christ," "Christ dwelling in our hearts" ­ these recurring phrases capture Paul's conviction of the good news. Fullness of being, the fullness of God himself, is ours through Christ who indwells us. It is in this reality of the indwelling Christ that my understanding of spiritual formation is rooted. It is in this reality of the indwelling Christ that prayer as a specific act and prayerful living, for me, has taken on fresh, vibrant, and powerful meaning.

It was the passion of Paul's life ­ and I believe should be the passion of every Christian ­ to be formed in Christ. He stated this passion in a graphic way to the Galatians, using the metaphor of a mother giving birth to a child. "I am in travail with you over again until you take the shape of Christ" (Gal. 4:19 NEB).

Recall Jesus' metaphor of the vine and the branches. "It is the (person) who shares my life and whose life I share who proves fruitful. For apart from me you can do nothing" (John 15:5 Phillips).

In a Christmas Day sermon in the fourteenth century, Meister Eckhart put the truth in focus.

"We are celebrating the feast of the Eternal Birth which God the Father has borne and never ceases to bear in all Eternity: whilst this Birth also comes to pass in Time and in human nature But if it takes not place in me, what avails it? Everything lies in this, that it should take place in me."

The Word is to be enfleshed in me. Christmas Day is every day. Emmanuel, God with us, is a daily and continuous event.

From: Alive in Christ

To see the patterning of lives after Jesus as the essence of Christianity misses the point. This has been the major failure of the Christian Church since the second century on. To emphasize following Jesus as the heart of Christianity is to reduce it to a religion of morals and ethics and denude it of power. This has happened over and over again in Christian history ­ the diminishing of the role of Jesus to merely an example for us to follow.

This is not to say that following Jesus is not important; it is simply to say that the uniqueness of the Christian faith is at another point. That point is in the experience of being in Christ, of having our lives hid with Christ in God. Jesus is not only the example we follow, he is the enabler of a new quality of life.

The difference between vital Christianity, which is being alive in Christ, and Christianity as a religious system is that the latter is a dead burden we must carry, and the former is a dynamic power that carries us.

Spiritual formation is that dynamic process of receiving by faith and appropriating through commitment, discipline, and action, the living Christ into our life to the end that our life will conform to, and manifest the reality of Christ's presence in the world.

From: Alive in Christ