Week of 16 May 2021

HWMR

The Intrinsic Essence of the Church for Its Organic Existence

The intrinsic essence of the church is the divine life, the indestructible life, which the processed Triune God has dispensed into us and is now dispensing into us; this divine life is actually the processed and now-dispensing Triune God. The divine life generates us by the regeneration of the Spirit in our spirit; the divine Spirit begets the human spirit, and these two spirits are mingled as one. When we are regenerated, we are made the children of God as the bride of Christ, who is the Bridegroom, for His increase, as typified by Eve as the counterpart to Adam. Christ became the intrinsic essence of the church through the release of His divine life as the one grain of wheat falling into the ground and dying there for His multiplication. Christ became the intrinsic essence of the church through the impartation of His divine life as the firstborn Son of God in His resurrection, that God may have many sons as the many brothers of Christ. The many brothers of Christ are His many branches grafted into Him, the true vine in the universe, to bear much fruit for His enlargement in His spreading so that they might express the Triune God as His organism; when the branches of the vine receive a sufficient supply of the life-giving Spirit as the life-juice of Christ, they bear fruit as the overflow of the inner life supply. This organism of the Triune God is the organic Body of Christ, constituted with His many brothers as the many members of His organic Body. We need to see and experience the organic existence of the church.

The church exists in the universe as the one universal church of God for His universal expression, the fullness of God. The church is spreading in many localities on the earth as the many local churches to be His local expressions. All the churches are the unique, one organism of the processed and dispensing Triune God. When we come back to the intrinsic essence of the church for its organic existence, we will not talk wrongly about the erroneous teaching that the local churches could be different from one another. According to the Scriptures, the practical, sevenfold oneness is for us to be (1) one in teaching , (2) one in practice , (3) one in thinking , (4) one in speaking , and (5), one in essence (6), one in appearance and (7) one in expression.

We must continuously exercise our spirit and turn our heart to the Lord in order to stay on the way of life in the reality of the intrinsic essence of the church for its organic existence. We must walk in the way of life to live by the tree of life according to the spirit, not in the way of death to live by the tree of the knowledge of right and wrong according to the self. We stay on the way of life by loving the Lord to the uttermost; to believe in the Lord is to receive Him as life; to love the Lord is to enjoy Him as life. The love between us and the Lord depends on our thoughts. In 2 Corinthians 11:2 Paul says that he betrothed us to one husband to present us as a pure virgin to Christ with a proper love toward Him in order to enjoy Him. Then in verse 3 Paul tells us that it is possible for our thoughts to be corrupted from the simplicity and the purity toward Christ. The symptoms of problems with man’s thoughts are all hindrances to the enjoyment of Christ as life. The first symptom of problems with man’s thoughts is having hardened thoughts. The second symptom is being blinded by Satan. The third symptom is rebellion. The fourth symptom is corruption. We should pray, “O Lord, search my thoughts, and rescue my thoughts so that they can focus solely and entirely on You.” To enjoy Christ as the intrinsic essence of the church, we must have a burning love toward Him by giving Him the first place in all things. May we continuously receive the merciful compassions of our God so that we may remain on the way of life, the line of life, and in the maintenance of life by enjoying Christ as the tree of life in the flow of life for God’s building in life by our growth in life; this is for us to remain in the intrinsic essence of the church for its organic existence.

(Source: https://www.churchintaipei.org/bible-truth/conference-training.html)

Experience of Christ as Life

Benefits of Pray Reading The Spirit Being Exercised

We should read through the verses and then immediately enter into prayer. In the past we would spend an hour reading the Bible, but we would rarely pray. Some saints, who regularly attend the meetings for Bible-reading and Bible- study, understand the Bible, but it is still not easy for them to pray, because their spirits have not been exercised. This can be compared to a person who spends his entire day in a chair, sitting without much movement. When he wants to walk, his legs will not have much strength. Similarly, if we only listen to messages, read the Bible, and fellowship with one another, but we do not pray, our spirits will be very weak when it is time to pray. The present way of pray-reading is very simple: we pray immediately after reading, and we all pray. If we read the Bible for ten minutes, we need to pray for twenty minutes. This exercise greatly benefits the saints.

Understanding the Thought in the Bible and Receiving a Supply

As a result of pray-reading, our spirits will be exercised, and we will have a thorough understanding of the thought in the Bible. When we turn the words of the Bible into prayer again and again through pray-reading, our spirits will be exercised, and the thought in the Bible will be transmitted into us. In this way we will have clear thoughts, rich utterances, and a strong spirit. By pray-reading in this way, the divine word will spontaneously be assimilated in our spirit to be our supply.

Blending Pray-reading into our Practical Living

After we pray-read, the Lord’s words will be spontaneously realized in our daily living. For example, when speaking of the Lord being the light of life, someone can pray, “Lord, You are the light. When we touch You, You shine in us. Your light guides us every moment to minister and to serve, and it also releases us and restricts us.” In this way the Lord’s words will become part of our living and will even be realized in our daily living. When a saint is in the middle of a painful situation, for example, the words from his pray-reading can shine within and enable him to turn from his present situation and afflictions to prayer. There are still many details related to how to receive the best benefits from pray-reading, but pray-reading will help the saints greatly. In summary, we need to endeavor to turn our Bible-reading into prayer. This is a simple way to exercise our spirit, to receive the supply from the Word, and to enjoy the Lord practically.

(The Priesthood and God’s Building, chapter 21)

The Practical Way to Experience Christ

If the Lord is not the Spirit, how could we be one spirit with Him? If we are going to enjoy Christ, to experience Christ, first of all we have to realize that this Christ today is the anointed One, full of the Spirit, and that we are joined to Him as one spirit. Prior to the day we heard the gospel and were inspired to believe in the Lord Jesus, we did whatever we desired by ourselves. On the day we called on His name, we were saved and attached to the anointed One. We were made one spirit with our Savior. We may realize this fact, but the way we talk to others exposes whether or not we know the way to experience Christ. The right way to talk to others is to exercise our spirit. How do we exercise our spirit to contact the Lord? How do we practice this? According to my experience, the best way is to pray. To pray does not mean that I have to go into my bedroom and close the door. I can pray spontaneously, “Lord, I am going to have a time with my brother. Lord, be with me. Be one with me.” Before going to see my brother, I may have to go to the restroom. While I am going to the restroom, I can pray, “Lord, thank You that You are my life and You are my utterance.” While I am in the restroom, I can pray. All the time I can pray. Then while the brother is in the next room, I pray, “Lord, be my talk. Lord, be my utterance. Even, Lord, be the sentences that I am going to speak to my brother.” We should practice this way all the time, realizing that the Lord is really one with us. Eventually, we will experience that this very Christ to whom God has attached us and with whom we have become one spirit is just our conversation. Our conversation with a brother is just Christ. Christ is so rich. He is our utterance, our thought, our word, and our expression. He is the very content of our conversation. He is the entire conversation. This is an experience of the riches of Christ.

Suppose that while you are speaking with a brother, someone tells you that your wife wants you. You should begin to pray, “Lord, go with me. Go with me to meet my wife. Lord, be one spirit with me. I believe that I'm one spirit with You. Lord, now is the time for You to prove it, so You have to be one with me to meet my wife. Lord, be my utterance and be my eyes looking at my wife.” Then you go to meet your wife. That meeting with your wife will be just Christ. While your wife may be so poor to you, you can still pray, “Lord, You are with me. Yes, Lord, this is Your situation.” Then you will experience Christ as your patience, your endurance, your long-suffering, and your knowledge- surpassing love. If at that time your cousin is there and sees the situation, he would be surprised. He would admire the way you meet with your wife. In this way you will experience Christ when you meet with anyone in any kind of situation.

Even a young student has to learn how to experience Christ in the study of his lesson books. He may pray, “Lord, here is the lesson book, and tomorrow will be the final. Lord, prove that You are one spirit with me. Lord, read this book with me.” If he does this, I assure you that he will experience Christ as his understanding and as his wisdom to take in all the secrets of his lesson book. He will even experience Christ as his good memory. Then the next day when he takes the exam, he does not need to be so pressed and so trembling. He just needs to pray, “Lord, I am one with You and even one spirit with You. Not only in speaking, Lord, but even today in the classroom, taking the exam, I am one with You. Lord, make it so real. Make it so real to the angels. Make it so real to the entire universe that I am one with You.” I assure you that he will experience Christ as his wisdom and quite often as his answer. This is the way.

According to my observation, not many Christians experience Christ and enjoy Him today in this way. Even among us I am very concerned. Message after How can the home meetings be strengthened, refreshed, and made new? How can message has been given, but when we come to the practical things in our daily life, we are persons without Christ. In dealing with our wives, we are persons without Christ. In handling things, we are persons without Christ. In studying lesson books, we are persons without Christ. We practice being one spirit with the Lord only at our ordained time for prayer. Even in most of the meetings, we do not practice this enough. I could not come to a meeting to speak to the saints without praying, “Lord, You have to vindicate that I am one spirit with You. I do not like to go there, Lord, to speak by myself. You have to go with me. You have to be my thought there. You have to be my feeling there in my speaking. You have to be the words, even the terms and the expressions of my speaking. Lord, even You have to be the speaking.” Without such a prayer, I just would have no boldness to come to speak. Even though I have obtained a lot of knowledge of the Bible, I do not trust in that. Of course, we need Bible knowledge. But we have to speak not just with the words or verses from the Bible. In our speaking, we must be one spirit with the Lord.

I beg you all to practice this. Do not take this as just another message. Since I came to this country, over three thousand messages have been given and printed. Yet the living of some of the saints makes me sorrowful. So many have heard and read the messages and even participated in the trainings in which they were given. Yet in daily life the messages are gone. The messages could be lived out only when you have the practical experience of being one spirit with the Lord.

The reason today's Christian meetings are so weak and so poor is that most of the Christians do not have this kind of experience of Christ. Every seeking saint is a genuine believer with a thirsty spirit created by God. Only God Himself, that is, the items of the riches of Christ, can satisfy people. So we must have the experience of Christ. Then when we come to the small group meetings, we all can spontaneously say something and minister something that is Christ Himself. I recently read the testimony of a prominent government official in Taiwan. When he was close to forty years of age, he felt that he was short of nothing physically, yet deep within him he was hungry for something of the real human life. At this time he and his wife visited many Christian meetings in Taipei but felt that they had received nothing. One day they were brought by some brothers to the meeting of the church in Taipei. On the first visit they realized that the Spirit of God was there. From that day he was saved and began to attend the meetings. I just give you this testimony to show you what we need in our meetings. We must have something in spirit to pray or to sing or to say that can satisfy the hunger of the real seeking ones. This hunger is not in our mentality but in the depths of our being, that is, in our God-created and God-seeking spirit. For the home meetings we need the very Christ whom you and I experience. they be so attracting, full of power, with might to uphold? There is no other way than to experience Christ. Just to have a list of all the items of the riches of Christ does not work. The only thing that works is what you have experienced. I hope that I have made this clear.

I hate to pass on to you another message of doctrine. I surely expect that you all would take this word and pray, “Lord, minute by minute I want to live a life praying to You all the time.” This is why Paul says to “unceasingly pray” . Years ago I did not understand what it meant to pray unceasingly. How could this be? Although I never received the proper instruction, gradually, by groping I touched the way. To pray unceasingly is just to pray all the day in all things. While I am writing, I pray, “Lord, be one with me in this writing. I am going to study a verse that is too deep. It is hard for me to apprehend. Lord, be one with me. I am studying a Greek word that is too deep. I have exhausted all the reference books, yet I cannot get the proper, right, spiritual significance. Lord, be one with me.” Even when I am speaking, I have a praying spirit: “Lord, right now, be my utterance. Be my instant utterance, a present utterance, an utterance just for now, an utterance for some definite persons. Lord, be one sentence for a certain person I don't know.” I have prayed quite often in this way. The Lord answers and honors this kind of prayer. Quite often people have come to me and told me, “Brother Lee, tonight just one sentence out of your mouth caught me. That was exactly what I needed.” We must be ones attached to God's Anointed and one spirit with Him. Then we will live such a daily life, in everything experiencing Him in specific ways.

In certain situations you need humility, wisdom, forbearance, slowness, or quickness. If you pray in the way I have described, you will experience Christ as certain items. In one kind of environment you will experience Him as your forbearance. In others you will experience Him as your wisdom, your humility, or your long-suffering. With some weaker ones you may experience Him as your sympathy, as your mercy, as your compassion. On all different occasions and in everything, you will be one with Him and realize that He is one with you.

Gospel

To Announce Christ as the Good News

After this kind of experience we will come to the meeting with something of Christ. We will come to the meeting with the riches of Christ, not in our mind but in our very being, because we have experienced Him and we have enjoyed Him. If we come to the meeting with these riches, we will surely have something to say. So we have to learn how to pick up the phrases, the terminology, and the expressions from the Bible. This is why we all have to study the Bible. We all may have something to say, yet if we do not have the expression, we have no way to utter it. For instance, if I am in an English-speaking meeting, yet I do not know any English, I may have something of Christ, but it would be impossible for me to utter it to you. Even if I have the knowledge of English, I also need the terminology, expressions, words, phrases, clauses, and sentences from the Bible. This is why we all have to read the Bible and the valuable spiritual books. From those books, spontaneously we will pick up many things. Even today in the elementary schools the teachers teach the young ones composition by reading. They have to read and read and read. In the same way we must have the experience and enjoyment of Christ's riches as an accumulation, a storage, in us. Then we must read the Bible, and this will enrich our store. Also, we must read some spiritual books such as the Life-studies to pick up not only the knowledge but also the expressions and terminology to express what we have enjoyed of Christ. Then surely the home meetings will be rich. We will not be able to avoid it. We will have the riches and the utterance, and these riches and utterance will match the filling in our spirit and the strengthening into our inner man. If we have these four items, we will be the enriching, strengthening, refreshing, and renewing factors of the home meetings.

Now we are equipped with four things: the filling up in our spirit by the all- inclusive God; the strengthening into our inner man with might through the Holy Spirit; the experience, the enjoyment, of Christ's riches; and the speaking. We have to realize that when we speak the experiences of the riches of Christ, our speaking is just the announcing of Christ as the gospel. Whatever we speak will be the gospel, the good news, the glad tidings. Acts 5:42 says, “They did not cease teaching and announcing the gospel of Jesus As The Christ.” In this verse the Greek word translated “announcing the gospel” is the same word translated “announce...as the gospel” in Ephesians 3:8. In Ephesians 3:8 it is to announce the riches of Christ as the gospel; in Acts 5:42 it is to announce Jesus Christ Himself as the good news. This word in Greek really means something stronger than preach, so Darby renders it “announcing.” Some other translations use the word proclaim. The Greek word is a predicate indicating that we are announcing, we are proclaiming, we are preaching, we are speaking Christ and His riches as the gospel, as the glad tidings, as the good news. The Concordant Literal Version translates this word as “bringing the evangel.” Evangel means the “gospel, the glad tidings, the good news.” Evangelize is the predicate. This is to evangelize with the riches of Christ. Evangelize means “to preach, to proclaim, to announce something as the gospel.”

Therefore, in all the home meetings, whatever we would speak would be the gospel, the good news to the hearers. I often have been hungry to get something in the home meetings. If one would speak Christ, that would be a glad tiding to me. If we are full of the enjoyment of the riches of Christ as we are going to a meeting, when we open our mouth, it will be the announcing of the riches of Christ as glad tidings to the attendants. This surely will enrich, strengthen, refresh, renew, and make our home meetings attracting and full of power to hold and to uphold.

(The Home Meetings—The Unique Way for the Increase and the Building Up of the Church, Chapter 3, Section 3)