Week of 25 April 2021
HWMR
Living a Godly Life
If we want to live a godly life, we must first have a vision. In the Bible vision denotes an extraordinary scene; it refers to a special kind of seeing, a glorious, inward seeing and to the spiritual scenery that we see from God. In order to have a vision, we need revelation, light, and sight. The heavenly vision governs us, restricts us, controls us, directs us, preserves us, revolutionizes us, keeps us in the genuine oneness, and gives us the boldness to go on. Under the heavenly vision we are directed toward God’s destination, and our life is controlled according to God’s economy. The governing vision of the Bible is the Triune God working Himself into His chosen and redeemed people in order to saturate their entire being with the Divine Trinity for the producing and building up of the Body of Christ consummating in the New Jerusalem.
Second, we need to pay the price to buy truth. If we want to please the Lord and stand for the truth, we must pay the price. The divine truth is absolute, and we must be absolute for the truth and uphold the absoluteness of the truth. The truth is the unique standard, and we must stand on the side of the truth to oppose ourselves; upholding the absoluteness of the truth is possible only when we are delivered from ourselves. For the consummation of the divine economy, we need to be absolute for the present truth. The present truth is the truth that is present with the believers, which they have already received and now possess. The present truth includes the revelation concerning the eternal economy of God, the Divine Trinity, the person and work of the all-inclusive Christ, the consummated life-giving Spirit, the eternal life of God, the church as the Body of Christ, and the New Jerusalem; it also includes the high peak of the divine revelation, the revelation that God became man so that man may become God in life and nature but not in the Godhead, to produce and build up the organic Body of Christ for the fulfillment of God’s economy to close this age and bring Christ back to set up His kingdom.
Third, we must learn to know our spirit, live in our spirit, and exercise to use our spirit. Man’s spirit is God’s lamp within man. The Spirit of God is also a lamp, with a sevenfold intensity to His shining. When we exercise our spirit to pray properly, there is a lamp shining. The lamp may shine on our thoughts, emotions, and will, and our inward parts will be thoroughly searched by the Lord. After such a time of prayer, we will feel bright and transparent, filled with God.
Fourth, we must take care of our heart. The soul is the person himself, but the heart is the person in action. The heart is the entrance and exit to our whole being. It is through our heart that our real being comes out because the traffic of our being is through our heart. Our spirit is the source of our being, but our heart is the passage, the entrance and the exit, through which the traffic in our being passes. In order to be a proper Christian, we need to exercise our spirit and guard our heart by keeping it with all vigilance. The Hebrew word rendered “keep” in Proverbs 4:23 means “guard”. We should guard our heart above all because out of it are the issues of life. We guard our heart by caring for our heart and having a thorough dealing with our heart before the Lord in the way of life; the more we deal with our heart, the more we guard our heart. In order to grow in life for God’s building, we need to love the Lord, take heed to our spirit, and guard our heart with all vigilance to stay on the pathway of life.
Finally, we must live out the God of love. “He who covers a transgression seeks love, / But he who repeats a matter separates close friends”. To cover is love; to uncover is not love. Covering brings in blessing, but uncovering brings in a curse. “Love covers all things,” not only the good things but also the bad things. The elders need to realize that in their shepherding, they have to cover others’ sins, to not take account of others’ evils. We need to shepherd others according to God, with a love that covers all transgressions. “Above all, have fervent love among yourselves, because love covers a multitude of sins”.
(Source: https://www.churchintaipei.org/bible-truth/conference-training.html)
Experience of Christ as Life
Christ Becoming Our Humility
We can take humility as an example. Suppose I am a very proud person. I am aware of my pride, yet I cannot humble myself. Therefore, I pray, "God, be merciful to me. Please send the Lord Jesus to help me so that I can be humble." Brothers and sisters, have you seen this? I have made Christ my help in trying to be humble. I think that with His help I can become humble. Therefore, I ask Christ to help me to become humble. But this is my concept; this is not God's way of salvation. God does not ask Christ to help me to become humble. God gives me Christ, who is my humility. God has not given us Christ as a power so that we can produce humility; God has given us Christ to be our humility. Brothers and sisters, does the Lord have power? Yes, every one of us knows that He has power. Has He given us this power? Yes, He has given us this power. Then why are we still so weak? We have to realize that He has given all the power to us already, but we cannot use this power. The Lord's power is real, but we cannot use it. If we try to be humble by the Lord's power, we find that we cannot make it. At the most we perform some outward acts which we call humility. But inwardly, there is no such thing as humility. God's Word shows us that our humility is not the power of Christ, but Christ Himself.
What does it mean for us to say that humility is just the Lord Himself? It means that I do not have any humility and I cannot be humble. Even if the Lord gives me the strength to humble myself, I still cannot be humble. I can only say to the Lord, "You are my humility. I allow You to become my humility." Brothers and sisters, what is the meaning of Christ becoming my humility? Simply put, it means that Christ replaces me and expresses His own humility in my place. When we ask God for power to humble ourselves, we may be able to humble ourselves for a while, but this humility is merely good behavior, a good attitude, a good intention, and a good condition. This humility is not Christ. When we ask the Lord to be our humility, we lift up our heads and say to Him, "Lord, I do not have any humility in me. Even if You give me the strength to humble myself, I still would not have humility. Therefore Lord, I ask that You come and be my humility and that You be humble in my place." After we look to the Lord this way, any humility that we begin to have will be a spontaneous humility. Such humility will not be a work, but a living person—Christ Himself.Take patience as an example. I do not have any patience, and I cannot be patient. My patience is just Christ Himself. The same is true with meekness. I do not have any meekness, and I cannot be meek. My meekness is just Christ Himself. Brothers and sisters, have you seen this? God has made Christ my patience. God has made Christ my meekness. All our virtues are just Christ.
Christian virtues are different from common human virtues. The virtues that we commonly speak of are individual things, but Christian virtues are not individual, fragmentary things, but a living person, who is Christ Himself. Our virtue is not plural in number, but singular in number. Our virtue is not fragmentary things, but a person. Brothers and sisters, if we do not have Christ, we do not have anything.
(Christ Becoming Our Wisdom, chap. 1)
Gospel
The Outlet for the Gospel
Now we want to see what the mouthpiece and the outlet for the gospel are. The mouthpiece for the gospel is man. Moreover, the outlet for the gospel is the homes. We are the mouthpieces for the gospel, and our homes are the outlets for the gospel. If your home is not given for the Lord's use, and you preach the gospel only individually, then there will be a mouthpiece but no outlet. Acts shows us that at the time of Peter, the disciples not only broke bread “from house to house” but also announced Jesus Christ as the gospel “from house to house” In Greek the word announce is the verb form of the word gospel, meaning that they announced the gospel of Jesus as the Christ. If we announce the gospel of Jesus as the Christ from house to house, then all our houses will be speaking Christ. Hence, we should not only preach the gospel but also open our homes.
Luke 5 gives us an excellent example. The Lord Jesus saw a tax collector named Levi, who was a slave to money, and He called him to follow Him. Upon hearing the Lord's calling, Levi left all, rose up, and followed the Lord. In this way he was saved. Once he was saved, he gave a great reception for the Lord Jesus in his house. However, he did not invite Jesus alone, nor did he invite prominent officials and famous persons. Instead, he invited many tax collectors and sinners. Because he himself was a vile sinner, he did not have good men as his friends but rather a crowd of wicked men, all of whom he invited to recline at table with the Lord. The Lord was the guest of honor, and all the other guests invited to keep Him company were sinners. This is a good example of opening the homes for the preaching of the gospel. Once we open our homes, the gospel will have an outlet; without the homes the gospel will have no outlet. Now we have many mouthpieces, but what we need is the outlet. Hence, we must open our homes.
I hope that all the saints, especially those who are newly saved, will do this one thing—hold a reception for Jesus and invite all your friends, even the friends who are disreputable. You and I do not have reputable friends. What we have are “sinner-friends,” such as drinking friends, gambling friends, dancing friends, playing friends, and deceiving friends. Seriously speaking, where can you find good people on this earth? All are sinners. We did not have good friends before we were saved, but after we got saved, the Lord Jesus became our good Friend. We should hold receptions at our homes for the Lord Jesus and invite our sinner-friends so that they may receive the Lord Jesus as their Friend.
The Bible not only has examples of sinners preaching the gospel; it also has examples of “good men” preaching the gospel. In Acts 10 there was a good man, Cornelius. The Bible does not mention any sin of his; it speaks of only his good points. He was a devout man who feared God, gave alms to the people, and always prayed and petitioned before God. One day an angel came to him and said, “Your prayers and your alms have ascended as a memorial before God. And now send...for a certain Simon, who is surnamed Peter” It is true that Cornelius was truly a good man, but he was not saved and still needed the gospel. Therefore, he needed to ask Simon Peter to come and tell him how to be saved. When Peter came, he was surprised because Cornelius was already waiting there, having called together his “relatives and intimate friends”. Relatives and intimate friends is a very good expression and a good example to us. The house of Levi, a tax collector, and the house of Cornelius are excellent examples to us. Regardless of whether we are slaves of money, like the tax collectors who were vile sinners, or we are those who often pray to God and give alms to the poor, like Cornelius, who was a virtuous person, we are all sinners before the Lord; we all need salvation. We also need to open our house and hold a reception for Jesus, inviting all our relatives and intimate friends. I believe in that day when the Lord Jesus was with the group of tax collectors, there must have been many who eventually were saved. Perhaps even all of them were saved. I also believe that those relatives and intimate friends who were at the house of Cornelius that day were also saved, with no one left out. Therefore, the way to contact people with the gospel is in the homes. If there are no homes, the gospel will not have a way. When there is a home, the gospel has a way.
(Rising Up To Preach The Gospel, chapter 4)
