Day: September 18, 2022
二零二二年国际国殇节相调特会走享受基督作生命树的路 第一周 走享受基督作生命树的路，为着成就神永远的经纶
Enjoying Christ as the Tree of Life – Week 1
Morning Watch — September 19 – September 25, 2022
Taking the Way of Enjoying Christ as the Tree of Life for the Accomplishing of God’s Economy
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Corporate Reading of “The Tree of Life” Chapter 15 – Sections:
Living Letters Of Christ By beholding And Reflecting His Glory; God’s Intention To Mingle Himself With Us
Living Letters Of Christ (paragraphs 1-5)
Living Letters Of Christ (paragraphs 6-11)
Mirrors Beholding And Reflecting the Glory Of The Lord
The Tree of Life, Chap 15, Section 2 of 2
On the one hand, it is easy to be disappointed when you look at the situation among the Lord’s children. Many Christians’ hearts are indifferent toward the Lord, and the Lord has gained very little ground within them. On the other hand, I am still joyful because the Lord is so gracious, patient, and merciful. The Lord is continually waiting for chances to mingle Himself with us. Whenever we call on His name, He takes the opportunity to mingle Himself with us a little bit. I have the assurance that sooner or later we will be transformed. If we are not transformed in this age, we will eventually be in the next age. The Lord is sovereign, and no one can stop Him from accomplishing His eternal purpose. His enemy may be able to frustrate Him a little bit, but this frustration gives Him an opportunity to display His multifarious wisdom (Eph. 3:10). The Lord will accomplish His purpose. He has chosen us, and we cannot retreat. He has called us, justified us, saved us, regenerated us, and indwelt us. Even if we wanted to divorce Him, He would not sign the divorce papers.
Sooner or later you will be subdued, convinced, taken over, occupied, and transformed by the Lord. Regardless of how much you love the world today, how much you are indifferent to the Lord, how cold your emotion is, and how stiff-necked your will is, I know that one day you will be absolutely gained by the Lord. He is merciful, and He is waiting. He has been waiting for two thousand years. We may feel that two thousand years are too long, but to Him one thousand years are just one day. One day He will purify us and clear us up. Today the Lord is within our spirit, and He is always waiting for opportunities to dispense Himself into us, to occupy our heart little by little. The all-inclusive, rich Christ is within us as the living Spirit. He is the heavenly ink waiting to inscribe Himself on the tablets of [207] our hearts of flesh. Whenever we turn to Him, the living Spirit will write something of Christ upon our mind, emotion, and will.
The Lord’s main concern is not for what we do outwardly but for what we are. He wants to dispense Himself, inscribe Himself, into our mind, emotion, and will all the time. One brother may be very good in his natural disposition. He may be nice, humble, and very stable. Since he got saved, he is so nice and humble all the time, and everyone likes him. He even comes to the church meetings on a regular basis. But it may be that this brother is always closed to the Lord. The Lord is within his spirit as a prisoner. Outwardly he is such a nice brother, and he is really stable. But the Lord has no way to write on his heart because he is not open to the Lord.
There may be another brother who is not good in his natural disposition. Right after he got saved, he may have backslidden. Then he came back to the Lord and confessed his sins, opening his heart to the Lord. This gave the Lord a chance to write on his being. Maybe a little later, this brother had a fight with some other brothers. Then he repented and realized that he was wrong. He confessed to the Lord and opened his heart again, so the Lord dispensed more of Himself into this brother. We have to consider where these brothers will be after fifteen years with the Lord. The one brother is so nice, humble, and stable, but always closed to the Lord. The other brother is not good according to his natural disposition, but gradually more and more of Christ has been wrought into him. The Christ who has been wrought into him will gradually swallow up his bad disposition, and there will be a real transformation with this brother. This shows us that the Christian life is not a life of outward doing, of outward working, but a life of inward transforming.
We need to be encouraged that no matter what kind of person we are, the Lord will work out His purpose of transformation in us. He is merciful, and little by little He will change us. He will transform us. I do not care for what you are outwardly or what you do outwardly, but I know there is One working within you inwardly. Praise Him for His inward working within us. He is taking every opportunity to write something of Christ within us little by little. I can testify that from observing many of the saints, more of Christ has been written into them year by year in a specific way. We need to be patient with one another in the church life because more and more of Christ is gradually being wrought into us. This is the Lord’s [208] transforming work. One person may be slow, and another person may be quick in his disposition. But before the Lord there is no difference. To be fast or to be slow does not mean anything. What means something is the Lord writing Himself into our being all the time to transform us. In the age of eternity all of us will become the complete letters of Christ. At that time the entire composition of Christ will be inscribed into our whole being. Christ alone will become the very content of our mind, emotion, and will.
MIRRORS BEHOLDING AND REFLECTING
THE GLORY OF THE LORD
The second illustration in 2 Corinthians 3 is that we are mirrors beholding and reflecting the glory of the Lord. We are mirrors beholding Christ and reflecting Him, but the problem is that sometimes our heart is turned away from the Lord. Thus, we have to turn our heart to Him. Whenever our heart turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away (v. 16). The Lord is waiting for us to turn our heart to Him. He is indwelling our spirit, and our spirit is the hidden man of our heart. Our heart must be turned inwardly to the indwelling Christ. Then we will behold Him and reflect Him. We have to turn our heart to Him all the time, morning and evening, day and night. Even while we are working or driving our car, we must turn our heart to Him. The more that we turn to Him and behold Him, the more we will reflect Him and be transformed into His image.
When we open ourselves to behold Him, He as the living Spirit imparts Himself into us. Whenever we behold the Lord, we return ourselves to the spirit. We need to look away from everything unto Jesus, who is the living Spirit in our spirit. When we behold Him, He has the ground and the opportunity to impart Himself into us. This imparting of Himself into us will transform us.
When tea is added to plain water, the tea becomes mingled with the water, and the tea transforms the water in color, in expression, and in flavor. The water is in the tea, and the tea is in the water. In the same way Christ is in us, and we are in Christ. Just as the tea and the water are mingled together, we and Christ are mingled together. The Lord is doing a mingling and transforming work within us. The Lord’s work is not a matter of outward adjustment, outward correction, or outward improvement, but a matter of Him imparting Himself into our being from within us. The more He imparts [209] Himself into us, the more He mingles Himself with us and the more He will transform us.
We are transformed by the living Spirit. Second Corinthians 3:18 tells us that we are transformed into the same image from glory to glory even as from the Lord Spirit. He is the living Spirit within us, so we have to pay our attention to the Spirit all the time. We have to learn to open to Him. If we open ourselves to Him, He will have a way to purify us, to purge us, to saturate us, to permeate us, to fill us, to mingle Himself with us, and to transform us. Transformation takes place by this living One imparting Himself more and more into us. He imparts Himself into us by our drinking Him, eating Him, and breathing Him in. To eat Him, drink Him, and breathe Him in is to allow Him to write Himself into us, to inscribe Himself into us, by our beholding Him. He is the living Spirit waiting within us, so we need to learn to turn ourselves to the Spirit and open to Him. Then He will saturate us, and we will be transformed.
The Tree of Life, Chap 15, Section 1 of 2
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
LIVING LETTERS OF CHRIST BY
BEHOLDING AND REFLECTING HIS GLORY
Scripture Reading: 2 Cor. 3:3, 6, 17-18
GOD’S INTENTION TO MINGLE HIMSELF WITH US
In the Scriptures a wonderful, mysterious, and glorious fact is revealed; that is, God’s intention is to mingle Himself with us human beings. This glorious, mysterious, and wonderful fact is the very central thought revealed in the Scriptures. The first illustration of God’s intention in the Scriptures is the tree of life, which is to be taken as food into our being. The tree of life typifies the Triune God with the Father as the source, the Son as the course, and the Spirit as the flow that we may partake of Him as our food. He is presented to us in the form of food that we may take Him in. Then He will be mingled with us. The best way to have something mingled with us is to eat that thing. In order to have a chicken mingled with our being, we have to eat the chicken. When we eat chicken, it becomes a part of our being, our very constituent. When we eat the Lord as the tree of life, He will be one with us, and He will be mingled with us.
Another illustration in the Holy Scriptures is the lamb (Exo. 12:3-4; John 1:29). Most Bible students know that the lamb is for redeeming. During the passover, the children of Israel slew the lamb, and the blood of the lamb was shed for their redemption. Under the covering of the sprinkled blood of the lamb, the children of Israel enjoyed the lamb by eating it. They feasted on the meat of the lamb. After a short time the entire lamb got into the children of Israel, who had been feasting on the lamb. On the evening of the passover, every home had a lamb, but within a short time all these lambs disappeared. They became one with the children of Israel. This illustrates that the lamb was mingled with the children of Israel.
There are two illustrations in 2 Corinthians 3 that also illustrate [204] God’s heart’s desire to mingle Himself with us. Verse 3 of this chapter says, “Being manifested that you are a letter of Christ ministered by us, inscribed not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tablets of stone but in tablets of hearts of flesh.” The first illustration is that we are the letters of Christ inscribed with the Spirit of the living God on our hearts. Second Corinthians 3:18 says, “We all with unveiled face, beholding and reflecting like a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, even as from the Lord Spirit.” The second illustration in 2 Corinthians 3 is that we are mirrors beholding and reflecting the glory of the Lord. These two illustrations show that God wants to mingle Himself with us.
LIVING LETTERS OF CHRIST
When ink is applied to paper, it is mingled with the paper. Christ Himself desires to be inscribed into our being so that we can become living letters of Christ. A letter of Christ is one composed of Christ as the content to convey and express Christ. All believers of Christ should be such a living letter of Christ, that others may read and know Christ in their being. Our heart, as the composition of our conscience (the leading part of our spirit), mind, emotion, and will, is the tablet upon which the living letters of Christ are written with the living Spirit of God. This implies that Christ is written into every part of our inner being with the Spirit of the living God to make us His living letters that He may be expressed and read by others in us.
Christ desires to be written into every part of our inner being, our heart, but we may be preoccupied by many other things. How can Christ be written into us and written on our heart when our heart is preoccupied with other things? Our heart may be preoccupied with our family, our material possessions, our education, our job, or our future expectations. There are many things that can usurp the place of Christ in our heart. How many preoccupations are in our heart, giving no room for Christ to write Himself into us? Furthermore, our heart may be closed to Christ. The preoccupations of our heart and the closing of our heart have to be dealt with. The filthiness, the uncleanness, of our heart also needs to be dealt with. Is our mind pure? Is our emotion clean? Is our will right? We all have to confess that to one degree or another there is dirt in our [205] mind, emotion, and will. Although we may come to the church meetings, we need to ask ourselves how much of Christ has been written into us. There may be no possibility, no ground, no opportunity, for the Lord to come in to write Himself into us because our heart is preoccupied with other things, closed to the Lord, and dirty, impure.
By the Lord’s mercy we need to open our being to Him. When we open our heart to Him, He gets in. He is waiting for us to open to Him so that He can write Himself into our inner being. We need to ask ourselves what our situation, condition, and relationship are with the Lord.
We have seen that the spirit is the very inmost part of our being, the hidden man of the heart (1 Pet. 3:4). Christ as the life-giving Spirit has come into our spirit to make us alive, to regenerate us, to indwell us. Christ lives in our spirit (2 Tim. 4:22). Ezekiel 36:26 shows us that the heart and the spirit are two things. God gives us a new heart and a new spirit. The heart is composed of the mind, the will, the emotion, and the conscience. The Lord wants to inscribe Himself as the Spirit into our heart, “in tablets of hearts of flesh” (2 Cor. 3:3). As the letters of Christ we are to express Christ. The letter is an expression. Thus, this letter is not written on our spirit but on our heart that Christ might be expressed and be read by others. A person expresses himself by his mind, emotion, and will. If Christ is written only on our spirit, He will be hidden; He will not be seen, read, or expressed. Christ as the living Spirit must be written on our heart, which includes our mind, emotion, and will, so that He can be expressed and be seen by others.
Christ is in our spirit as the life-giving Spirit, and as the Spirit He is the heavenly ink to be inscribed, to be written, on our heart, which includes the mind, the emotion, and the will. This means that Christ will be mingled with our mind, emotion, and will. Then in our mind there will be the description of Christ, in our emotion there will be the definition, the explanation, of Christ, and in our will there will be the expression of Christ. Then when people look at our mind, emotion, and will, they will see Christ. A wife’s love for her husband should be full of Christ. Her emotion should be describing Christ, expressing Christ.
We are the letters of Christ written by the living Spirit of the living God on our heart. People should be able to read Christ in our [206] being, in what we are. When we think, love, and make decisions, there should be the expression of Christ. When people notice our thoughts, our desires, our love, our hatred, the decisions that we make, and what we choose, they should be able to read something of Christ. For Christ as the Spirit of the living God to be inscribed into our being is for Him to mingle Himself with us. Christ is within us, but how much of Christ has been written into our mind, emotion, and will? It may be that our heart is preoccupied. We may listen to the ministry of the word and get nothing because we are preoccupied.