Week of 2 May 2021

HWMR

The Intrinsic Significance of Fearing the Lord in the Economy of God

The first principle for man to live a proper human life is for him to fear the Lord, to revere the Lord. To fear the Lord is to be in fear of offending Him, of losing His presence, and of not receiving Him as our reward in the next age. To fear the Lord is to consider and regard Him in everything, never forgetting that He is the wonderful God who has created us. Fearing the Lord stops us from doing evil. It also causes us to be touched by the sufferings of others and to show mercy and compassion to them. To fear the Lord is not only fleeing from sins but also, and even more, rejecting the self. The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding; knowledge, wisdom, and understanding come from God. Isaiah prophesied that the Spirit of Jehovah would rest upon Christ. The Spirit was with the Lord Jesus all the time and was one with Him. The Lord Jesus walked by the Spirit and lived a life in, with, by, and through the Spirit. In His human living, Jesus was filled with the Spirit of the reverential, obedient fear of the Lord; He also delighted in the fear of the Lord. In His resurrection He is now the all-inclusive, bountifully supplying Spirit of Jesus Christ as the Spirit of the fear of Jehovah. Day by day we need to completely and absolutely open to the Father and ask Him to fill us with the resurrected Christ as the all-inclusive Spirit.

To fear God is to trust in Him. Proverbs 3:5-8 charges us to trust in the Lord with all our heart and not rely on our own understanding. In all our ways we should acknowledge Him, and He will make our paths straight. We should not be wise in our own eyes; we should fear the Lord and depart from evil; this will be healing to our body and refreshment to our bones. “Blessed is the man who trusts in Jehovah, and whose trust Jehovah is.” He who gives heed to the word will find good, and blessed is he who trusts in the Lord. The Lord will be our confidence, and He will keep our foot from being caught. To fear the Lord means that we also honor Him:

Proverbs 3:9-10 says that we must honor the Lord with our substance and with the firstfruits of all our produce; then our barns will be filled with plenty, and our vats will burst open with new wine. At least one-tenth, the firstfruits, of our produce must be given to God. We should beseech the Lord to make our heart single in fearing His name. “Cleanse ourselves from all defilement of flesh and of spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.”. To be in the fear of Christ is to fear offending Him as the Head; we need to serve the Lord with fear. We all should have a proper fear of God because we believers in Christ will all appear before the judgment seat of Christ. Fearing the Lord is a way to lengthen our life.

The holy fear of the Lord is actually a source of joy as a fountain of life and as a tree of life to dispense God into us for the carrying out of His economy. The fear of the Lord is a fountain of life, that one may turn aside from the snares of death. The fear of the Lord leads to life; it is the constricted way. The ways of death are the ways of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, the source of which is Satan and which is manifested in our self. To live in the self is to be without God’s presence, to walk in the ways of darkness, and to be void of life. God promised to give us, His people, one heart and one way, to fear Him all the days, for our own good and for the good of our children after us, and He puts His fear into our hearts, so that we will not turn away from Him. We, the chosen people of God, should all have one heart to love God, to seek God, to live God, and to be constituted with God that we may be His expression; and one way, the Triune God Himself as the inner law of life with its divine capacity. This one heart and one way are the one accord. God made an eternal covenant, the new covenant. It is by this covenant that God will not turn away from us, and He puts His fear into our hearts, so that we will not turn away from Him. When we fear God, we are instructed by God concerning the way that we should choose, and we are able to know God’s intimate counsel and His covenant

The fear of the Lord and the love of the Lord are two wonderful results of the forgiveness of our sins. God’s forgiveness does not cause man to become audacious and reckless; the grace of God’s forgiveness brings man into the fear of the Lord. The grace of God’s forgiveness also causes us to love God; the reason the sinful woman in Luke loved the Lord much is that she was forgiven much by the Lord. The more the Lord forgives us, the more we fear Him; and the more we fear Him, the more we love Him. Proverbs 31 presents to us two models of those who fear the Lord; on the one hand, we should be like a king, a royal man like the Lord, having the authority to rule; on the other hand, we should be a worthy woman, knowing how to arrange, manage, take care of, and provide for the needs of the saints in the house of God.

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

Experience of Christ

The Whole Church Being Priests

You must see what the church is. I believe the light is very clear now: The church is everyone being a priest. This type of universal priesthood has been preached for more than a hundred years. From 1828 until today, a period of one hundred twenty years, the eyes of God’s servants have been opened to see that the priesthood is universal. However, even today the priesthood is still not widespread. The church is the Body of Christ. The recovery of this testimony has been going on for more than one hundred years. Of course, within the last ten or more years some have especially seen its spiritual weight. However, in the church it is very possible that the Body of Christ is still merely a doctrine. In actuality we are far from bringing it into the church life.

Every Member Functioning

Therefore, you need to ask God to open your eyes to cause you to know what the Body is. The Body is every member functioning. In the body there is not one member that does not function; likewise, there is not one person who belongs to the Lord who is not a priest serving the Lord. All the members function. All the priests serve.

Being Able to Find the Church Everywhere

After you go out, you should completely change the brothers’ and sisters’ way of thinking. Formerly, they thought that there were many workers in the church. Today we need to turn this around and say that everyone in the church is a worker. I have said before and I repeat it today, you have to speak this kind of word until one day everyone understands it inwardly. If the church does not endeavor until everyone in the church is working and everyone in the church is serving, then there is no church. If the whole church rises up to work and serve, you will immediately see the Body of Christ. Everywhere there will be three or five or seven or eight people serving God; you will be able to find the church everywhere.

(Church Affairs, chap. 4)

Gospel

The Ways of Death, The Paths of Life and the Grace of God’s Forgiveness

Proverbs 14:12 and 16:25 both say, “There is a way which seems right to a man,/But the end of it is the ways of death.” Walking in the ways of death is to be wise in our own eyes and rely on our own understanding.

The paths of life are in contrast to the ways of death....To fear the Lord, trust in the Lord, and take refuge in the name of the Lord is to walk on the paths of Life. The opposite of this is to walk in the ways of death.

The paths of life are the paths of the tree of life, the source of which of which is God Himself; the ways of death are the ways of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, the source of which is Satan and which is manifested in our self. Thus, we must ...be delivered from the self so as to live in God.

People think that God’s forgiveness will cause man to become audacious and reckless. Little do they know that the grace of God’s forgiveness is to bring man into the fear of God. Our experience tells us that the more we are forgiven by God, the more we fear Him; the more we have received the grace of God’s forgiveness, the more we have the fear toward God. Only those who have never been forgiven by God and who have never tasted the grace of God’s forgiveness can behave in an audacious and reckless manner, doing whatever they please. Once we have tasted the grace of God’s forgiveness, we immediately have a fearful heart and we also hate sin.

The grace of God’s forgiveness causes us not only to fear God but also to love God. On the negative side, because we fear Him, we refrain from doing things that are displeasing to God; on the positive side, because we love Him, we do things that are pleasing to Him. In Luke 7, the sinful woman, having been forgiven by the Lord, not only ceased from her sinful living but also poured out all she had and all he was on the Lord to express her love toward Him. The law, which condemns us, cannot free us from sin, but grace, which forgives us, can... The more we have been forgiven by God, the more we love God. The reason the sinful woman loved the Lord much was that she was forgiven much by the Lord. Therefore God’s forgiveness of man results in man’s fearing Him and loving Him

(Truth Lessons – Level One, vol.3 . pp.122-123)