The Church

I'm praying these days for the church. That the Lord will have his heart's desire, a church without spot and wrinkle. A church which is His counterpart. One where the riches of Christ are expressed by the saints. Where the saints function as the genuine priesthood offering up sacrafices of the Lord's riches and victory in their lives.

Our God is yearning for churches throughout the earth where Christ is experienced by the saints and where the saints offer these riches to God and to one another. Where each one has a hymn, a song, a teaching and a word of prophesy, speaking out something of God and for God.

In other words, the church becomes the enlargement of Christ. According to Eph. 5, Eve is a type of the church. And she was 100% out of Adam. Therefore the church is only that which comes out of Christ. Nothing natural does the church life allow. Everything natural must go to the cross and only that which is out of Christ passed through.

This can only come into being by and through saints who learn to experience Christ in their spirits. Every Christian brother and sister must learn to know their human spirit and recieve the divine supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ throught the Word of God. Jesus said, "He who masticates me shall live because of me." And, "My words are spirit and they are life." Learn to take Him in by praying the Word into your spirit.

Paul said the same thing in Eph. 6:17-18. "Take the word of God...by means of all prayer and petition." Only thought the Spirit can life produce the church.

The Law of the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus

The Law of the Spirit of life is like the law of gravity or the law of aerodynamics. It simply is. It operates spontaneously. When we are in our spirit, the law operates to keep us out of or above the law of sin and death. It depends on our seeing as Paul did that the Lord Jesus Christ has accomplished all in His life, death and resurrection and He lives in us to be our righteousness and everything wee need. The key is in Rom. 7:25.

Paul tried to keep the law and failed. He discovered another law in his flesh that whenever he tried to keep the law evil rose up and defeated him. Eventually he received revelation that the answer was in Christ. He had a paradigm shift in His view of things. That's why he said, "Thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord." Watchman Nee once said that the Christian life is altogether a matter of seeing.

In Rom.8:7 Paul uses the Greek word "phronema" (Strong's number 5427). It means to think, to have a mind set. The tendency or inclination of the mind, its bent. If a Christian has the mind-set to be good, improve himself, to fix himself or herself up, this is to have a law keeping mind-set and will eventually bring defeat. No matter how much you pray and beseech the Lord or even obey the Spirit you will still experience failure because your mind-set is to keep the law.

So everyone needs revelation to see that Jesus did it all and will live the life in you if your mind-set is one that rests in Him and His complete and finished work. He has achieved all and accomplished all that we need. We simply look at Him and He by the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus life will live the life in us. What a wonderful Person He is. Praise Him. I am freed from all effort. Now I live in Another life in which is this marvelous law in my spirit which is one with the Spirit (1 Cor. 6:17).

Freed from the Law

Paul, in Galatians 5 says that we are freed from the the yoke of bondage which is the law. We are to stand firmly in this freedom which is Christ Himself. We are not free to indulge in the license of the flesh but we are free in Christ to live a joyous life full of Him.

When we remember how full of joy we were when we first found Christ or rather when we were found by Him, we should realize that the Lord intends that we would live in that joy throughout our entire Christian life.

Be careful that you are not persuaded to keep the law. No one will say to you, "Keep the law." But they may encourage you to do something to improve your self. Don't fall for it. No one can possibly improve themselves to come up to the standard of the righteousness of God. It is impossible. Just read about Paul's experience in Romans 7. Paul said that the answer to his dilemma was to see that it is Christ Jesus who has accomplished everything on the cross and now is our life.

Our only requirement is to stay in that life. His life is now in the depths of our being, our spirit. Remain there. You might ask, "How do I get there, and how do I remain there?"

In the first place, if you are a believer in Jesus Christ, you are already there. Read 1 Corinthians 1:30. It says of God are you in Christ Jesus. To remain there is also so simple. Just receive the supply of the divine life through prayer. Pray with the Word of God. Paul said in Ephesians 6:17-18, "Take the sword of the Spirit, which Spirit is the Word of God by means of all prayer and petition, praying at every time in spirit." Simply take the Word of God as your prayer, turning you heart to Him who is in the depths of your being, in your spirit.

For example take the twenty third Psalm and pray, "O Lord you are my shepherd. I shall not want. Amen. O Lord, I thank you that you are my sheherd. Amen. Praise You. My shepherd. O Lord I love you. Hallelujah! You are my shepherd." And so forth. You will touch the Lord. He will fill you with the Spirit.

Day by day as we take Him in this way in the morning He becomes our life. We don't need to strive to become better or to overcome any failure. We simply need to live in Him. He became a man, lived a perfect human life, died on the cross to terminate everything of the natural humanity and then rose from the dead bringing in a new humanity. He then ascended to the throne of God and poured out the Spirit so that we might enjoy Him and all He went through. It is so wonderful that we fallen people can live in His life and all that He is becomes ours.

A footnote in the Recover Version of the New Testament reads referring to Rev. 2:7:

"Religion always teaches, but the Lord feeds (John 6:35). The apostle Paul did the same thing; that is, he fed the believers (1 Cor. 3:2). For the proper church life and the recovery of the church life, that is, for the proper growth in the Christian life, what we need is not merely the mental apprehension of teachings but the eating of the Lord as our bread of life in our spirit (John 6:57). Even the words of the Scripture should not be considered merely as doctrines to teach our mind but as food to nourish our spirit (Matt. 4:4; Heb. 5:12-14). Here in this epistle the Lord promised to give the overcomer to eat of the tree of life. This points back to Gen. 2:8-9, 16, which concerns the matter of eating ordained by God. In the epistle to the church in Pergamos, the Lord promised the overcomer that he would eat of the hidden manna (v. 17), which refers to the eating of manna by the children of Israel in the wilderness (Exo. 16:14-16, 31). And in the epistle to the church in Laodicea, the Lord promised to dine with the one who opens the door to Him. To dine is to eat not merely one kind of food but the riches of a feast. This may refer to the eating of the rich produce of the good land of Canaan by the children of Israel (Josh. 5:10-12). This indicates that the Lord desires to recover the eating of the proper food by God's people, the food ordained by God and typified by the tree of life, the manna, and the produce of the good land, all of which are types of the various aspects of Christ as food to us. The degradation of the church distracts God's people from the eating of Christ as their food and turns them to the teaching of doctrines for knowledge. In the church's degradation there are the teaching of Balaam (v. 14), the teaching of the Nicolaitans (v. 15), the teaching by Jezebel (v. 20), and the teaching of the deep things of Satan (v. 24). Now in these epistles the Lord came to recover the proper eating of Himself as our food supply. We must eat Him not only as the tree of life and the hidden manna but also as a feast full of His riches."

The Cross in Our Experience

The Lord Jesus said we must all bear the cross. In our experience it is borne both inwardly and outwardly. Inwardly we experience the putting to death of Jesus in our spirit. This works to kill our self-life. Outwardly the cross is the will of God realized in our circumstances. Everything in the circumstances of the believer's life is arranged by God to produce him into the image of Christ. Because what we need is a termination of the self and a bringing in of the life of Christ.

On the one hand we experience Christ inwardly as the Spirit which has the element of the death of Christ to operate in us putting to death the deeds of the body. On the other all the varied circumstances are aspects of the cross and, if we embrace them, work on us to allow the Lord to cross us out and gain us more completely.

Praise Him for the cross!

Thanks

I haven't posted for quite awhile due to my being very sick. But through the prayers of the saints and the Lord's mercy I am mostly recovered. Thank you all for the love, concern and your prayers.

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of the heavens. (Matt. 5:3)

The Lord starts His speaking on the mount to the disciples describing the nature of the people who are possessors of the Kingdom of the Heavens. First these people are poor in spirit.

The word for poor in Greek means to be a beggar with utterly no hope of improvement. It is a person who in the depths of his being, his spirit, he realizes that he is nothing, he has nothing and he can do nothing. It is not simply a matter of mentally acknowledging this, but through many sufferings and failures comes to the point where he is so convinced that he is such a person that he could never go to his own resources to accomplish anything, even things that are commanded by the Lord.

In every situation you spontaneously go to the Lord to receive the supply of His life for only in that life are you able. Without that life you can’t even say a proper word. You are completely dependent upon Him.

The ones who have been brought to this point in their Christian lives by the Lord are in the reality of the kingdom of the heavens. They don’t have to get in. They are already in. May the Lord so work in all of us that we might arrive there.

“What can be done in the modern church that could help curb the current drop out and go someplace else where its peaceful mentality?”

The answer is simply that the saints do not see what the church is. The Christian life is a matter of seeing. If you see that Jesus is the living savior you will be saved. In the same way, every Christian must also see the church. They must receive a vision of the church. “Without vision the people run wild” (Prov. 29:18)

The church is constituted of the universal God, but it exists on earth in many towns and cities. In nature the church is universal in God, but in practice the church is local in a definite place. Therefore, the church has two aspects, the universal and the local. Without the universal aspect, the church is void of content; without the local aspect, it is impossible for the church to have any expression and practice. Hence, the New Testament stresses the local aspect of the church also. (Recovery Version, footnote 2 of verse 1:2)

The church in each locality is simply the expression of the universal church. Anything in addition to that is not the church. Since there is only one universal church on earth and all born again believers belong to it, there can only be one expression of that one church in every locality and all believers are born into it, whether they meet in it or not. Once the saints see that and the church drops every other affiliation that is not the church and takes the standing that it is the expression of the universal church, the saints will not leave it to go to some place that is not the church.

So it is a matter of the churches standing as the one church in a city and the vision that is imparted thru the ministry that will save the saints from wandering and give them the opportunity to be built up together in the reality of the church. This is confirmed by all the epistles of Paul.

Abide in Me

When the Lord said, "Abide in Me," what did He mean? This is a big question. Did He mean to abide in His word? Did He mean to abide in the Spirit? Did He mean to abide in the church? Did He mean to keep our mind set on Him? Or did He mean to pray without ceasing? What did He mean?

In John 15 Jesus said to keep His commandments. The first commandment in this chapter is to abide in Him. The next is to love our brothers. If we keep the first we will be able to keep the second. Yet what is the way to keep the first?

"The just shall live by faith," Paul said in Romans chapter one. This not only refers to our initial salvation experience but to our entire lives with the Lord. Therefore to abide in Him is to continually believe that you are abiding in Him. The fact is that we have been placed in Christ by God. (1 Cor. 1:30) This is our place and it never changes. Our feelings change but God does not and our position is Christ does not.

Of course we should rise early and spend time with the Lord enjoying Him and feeding on His word to receive the divine supply of life. But the fact that we are in Christ should be our constant belief.

When I was first saved I asked myself and others how do I get into Christ that I may abide in Him. I think that many young Christians may have this kind of thought. But the fact is that we are all in Christ, placed there by our Father. We do not have to get in we already are in.

By harboring the thought or the feeling that you are not in Christ and not abiding you cut yourself off from the supply of life and will experience failure. Don't let the devil cheat you. Of God you are in Christ Jesus who has been made to you wisdom, both righteousness, sanctification and redemption. (1 Cor. 1:30)

Fishing for Men

In John 21 Peter decided to go fishing and the others said that they would go with him. After they had fished all night they had caught nothing. When the morning came and they looked over at the shore they saw that Jesus was there. This is the first indication that they were not in God’s will. Jesus was not in the boat with them!

Even worse, they didn’t even know that it was Jesus on the shore! They were so out of the spirit that they couldn’t tell that it was the very one that had been with them for three and a half years. John was the first one to realize that it was the Lord.

They had gone off on their own fishing for men that they thought would be good and had utterly failed. Why? They never asked the Lord if He were doing it. Obviously He was not. Without Him in the boat how could they succeed in the Lord’s work?

This story is a picture of our service to the Lord in fishing for men. Whatever we do without the Lord will be a failure. Only He can say to cast the net on the right side of the boat. When He leads He not only told them when to through the net but even on which side of the boat to through it. He will give the when and the where and all the details if we will spend the time with Him. We not only need Him to give the direction but we need Him in the boat with us. Then there will be success.

The disciples had not yet learned the lesson that the way to success in any venture that is for the benefit of the Kingdom of God is by the cross. All the self, the opinions and all the natural means and energy must go to the cross. Before there is life there must be death to self. Everything of self must be brought to the cross, pass through death into resurrection life. Then out of our innermost being will flow rivers of living water to supply people with what they need so badly: Christ who is our salvation.

If we would begin to do a work for God and we discover that there is no blessing and we don’t even realize that the Lord is not in what we are doing, we should stop, trace back our steps until we are with the Lord again. Then find out what He is doing and proceed remaining in Him We all make these kinds of errors and we learn more of our Lord. Then by His mercy begin to know more and more the way we should go on with Him.

God’s Way

1 Tim. 1:4 “…God’s economy, which is in faith”

God has His way. It is the only way in which God will work. If any man will work the work of God he must enter into God’s way. All other ways will eventually become corrupt and collapse. This is a principle that cannot be broken. No matter how much anyone tries to produce something by any means other than God’s way, eventually, the thing that is produced will not look like something of God. It will have the touch of man and that touch will kill. It is the touch of death.

You can see this in the Old Testament when David attempted to bring the Ark to Jerusalem on a cart drawn by oxen which was not the way revealed by God to carry the Ark. The revealed way was that the priests should carry it on their shoulders. So when the cart began to tip over and Uriah tried to keep the Ark from falling, he was slain. Man’s touch kills the move of God. Only in God’s way can the Ark be moved.

On the other hand, man has his ways. You can see this wherever you look in today’s Christian world. There are projects, teachings, programs, counseling, worldly music, mission trips, all kinds of meetings to build relationships, building programs, fund raising, home meetings, correct forms, all aimed to produce good things that man deems are for God. But anything other than God’s way is doomed to failure.

It is therefore imperative for us to find out what God’s way is and conform ourselves to it. To do otherwise is at the best foolish and at the worst rebellion toward God. If He has revealed His way who are we, fallen men, to attempt another way.

Paul says in 1 Timothy, “…charge certain persons not to teach differently, nor to devote themselves to myths and endless genealogies, which promote speculations rather than an economy of God which is by faith.” (1:3-4)

The word “economy” (ojiconomiva) comes from two Greek words, house and law. It means the arrangement and management of a household. It means that it is God’s arrangement or way for His house, the Church.

The problem in the churches by the time 1 Timothy was written was that the churches had taken a different way. They were drifting into Gnostic teaching, hierarchy and legalism. They had fallen from God’s way and were becoming an outward religion instead of a living organism with Christ as the Head.

The same problem exists today. Not only have the churches fallen into all kinds of things other than God’s way, it seems that they don’t even know what God’s way is.

What then is God’s way? Although God’s way is clearly revealed in the Word, it takes revelation to see it. Revelation removes the natural religious veils from our eyes. Unless this happens, we may hear or read about God’s way, but continue on our old path.

Revelation came to Peter on the road to Caesarea Philippi. When Jesus asked the disciples, “Who do men say that I am?” Peter replied, “You are the Christ, the son of the living God.” Jesus said that this was revelation. It was not something thought up by Peter, but it was revelation received by him from God.

We need the Word unveiled by our Father concerning His son Jesus Christ who is God’s way. Our assignment from God is to live and walk in God’s way. To put it another way, in his second epistle Peter says that we are to participate in the divine nature. The apostle Paul says it even another way. He says rejoice in the Lord and always rejoice. The writer of the book of Hebrews said we are to look away from everything else unto Jesus. Others have said that our participation in the Lord is simply to enjoy Him.

Jesus Christ is the sum of all spiritual things. He is the All. Eventually He will become all in all. Every spiritual blessing is received and experienced only through Him. We are to walk in spirit where Christ dwells in our inner being. All our focus is to be on Him. He is the beloved of the Father, and we are beloved by God in Him. Nothing is obtained from God outside of Christ, and we can do nothing apart from Him. (John 15:5)

We all need revelation to see that this wonderful Person is the center and circumference of God’s purpose. Obtaining Him is to receive the divine life. To gain more and more of Him is the process of transformation. Experiencing Him together with other saints is the way the church is built up. God approves of nothing outside of the realm of Christ.

Look at the way Paul writes his epistles. He always shows that everything God does and we receive is through Christ and in Christ. We are not to attempt to please God or work for God independently from Christ. Christ is our life and our living with the called-out ones.

Every morning we come to our dear Lord Jesus praying and reading His word. We participate in the divine nature through His precious promises. As we pray and read the Word, the divine life flows into our spirits and then out through our souls. This is the supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ. (Phil. 1:19) Then out of that supply we are enabled to supply others with all they need: the very Person of our Lord Jesus Christ who is God’s way.

Meeting in the Lord

Our meeting this morning was with the Lord's presense. We sang several songs and pray-read form Ephesians 1:9-10. We touched the Lord in the Spirit with our spirits. Just like the Lord Jesus said to the woman at the well in Samaria in John 4, that the Father is seeking worshipers to worship in in spirit and in reality.

It is so interesting that when the Lord is flowing in the spirit you are filled and energized throughout the day and then He is able to flow out through you to touch others. It is not about you but totally about Him. He is the Christ, the annointed one to carry out God's economy. You and I are simply vessels of clay carrying about this wonderful treasure.

Pleasing God

The Lord of all, Jesus Christ, has been waiting and working for two thousand years for the reality of the church to appear. A church where the oneness of John 17 has become reality. This is an organic, life-oneness. Oneness where the Father is in the Son and the Son is in the Father and they are in us and we are in God and in one another. This is a oneness where our spirits join together and you could say that your sin is mine and mine is yours. We have literally been made members one of another.

This is the church where Christ actually is head of His body. He makes the decisions and rules in His kingdom. It is the place where the brothers live so much in Him and have been dealt with to the point where they keep their opinions, their reasonings and their choices on the cross and allow Christ to head them up.

It is a place where the members have left the world and sin behind them and where, if these things creep in, they are dealt with by the members if necessary. For where there is sin and the world there can be no moving of the Spirit. Undealt with sin blocks the free flow of the Spirit. The world makes us an enemy of God and an adulteress. This is one who has betrayed her future husband and is not fit to be the bride of Christ. How could the Lord flow if there would be such lazy and rebellious Christians who would not deal with offenses like this? Unless we Christians are willing to deal thoroughly with the world, sin and our self, we have no way to experience the church that the Lord desires.

The Lord desires a church where the Spirit is free to flow and direct as He wills. Where there is no forcing but only flowing based on the principle of the flowing myrrh in the Tabernacle in the wilderness. All the motion toward the Holy of Holies where God dwelt was by His dynamic flowing. Unless the trespass and sin offering was presented there could be no devotion offering. In our experience when all known sin is confessed and abandoned we joyously devote ourselves utterly to God. But otherwise we can only force a kind of half-hearted consecration. Everything of God is free flowing without any convincing, demanding or forcing.

Just like the river in Ezek. 37, once you reach the stage of swimming, the river carries you along. There is no effort in going along to God. It is all in the flow of the spirit. Our only responsibility is to confess the sin that the Lord reveals to us leave the world and receive the supply of the divine life contained in the Word. Then we cooperate together to live in that stream of God in our homes and in our meetings.

Wherever the stream goes we go. We drop all religious concepts and let the river of the Spirit have its way. This brings us under the throne of God and the Lamb and supplies us with the water and tree of life. It also provides the way for the people of the world to be healed of every negative thing. (Rev. 21)

A New Beginning

If we would consider the bottom line of our Christian experience, we would have to say that it is altogether related to our knowing Christ. He is the center and circumference of all God desires and all we experience. And that experience begins with the regeneration of our spirit.

John 3:6 says that the Spirit gives birth to our spirit. When that happens we are regenerated and have received the diving life. In addition to our natural life we now have another life deep within the depths of our being. We now have Christ as life in our spirit. We are born again.

We have not been simply given a ticket to heaven nor has our natural life been made everlasting. These are both natural concepts. What has happened is that we have been given another life which is actually Christ Himself as our life. (Col.3:4)

This life is totally different from our natural life. It likes and desires only the things of God. It abhors sin and the world. It has already overcome these things and defeated the devil. It doesn’t have to attain to victory over the flesh, self, sin and the devil. This life has already defeated all the above.

This means that we too do not need to get the victory. The victory has already been given to us in His life. “Thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” (1 Cor. 15:57) We simply believe what the Bible tells us. We are already victorious.

Regeneration is altogether a matter of the divine life coming into us. When we receive that life we are saved. That life is the eternal life of God. It is not only everlasting but has the quality of eternity. Nothing can damage or hurt His life. It can even go through death and not be harmed. The more you attempt to kill it the more it will rise in resurrection for it is itself the resurrection life.

Death cannot hold the resurrection life,
The life of God eternal manifest;
‘Tis uncreated, indestructible,
‘Tis Christ Himself, unconquerable, expressed.*

This is the life that Jesus lived when on the earth. The more He was attacked and mocked, the more that life in Him lived in victory overcoming every obstacle. When we received Him and were born again, we received that same life. Now, if we remain and abide in that life we too overcome anything that presses us down, even death.

By receiving His life we enter the kingdom of God. That kingdom is one of life not of rules and regulations. From that moment God intends that we live not by right or wrong but by the life that He imparted into us when we believed in His Son, Jesus Christ. We become people of the life of God not people of religion.

* Hymns, # 639, The Stream Publishers, Los Angeles, CA