Download or read book The Ministry of the Word Vol 25 No 02 written by Various Authors and published by Living Stream Ministry. This book was released on 2021-07-30 with total page 170 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This issue of The Ministry of the Word contains the six messages from the Thanksgiving weekend conference, which was a web-hosted video teleconference held on November 26-29, 2020. The subject of this series of messages is "The All-inclusive, Extensive Christ Replacing Culture for the One New Man." The key statements in the following section embody the crucial truths and the main burden of the conference. The Announcements section at the end of this issue contains a list of upcoming conferences and trainings hosted by Living Stream Ministry and a website link for information related to similar events in Europe.
Download or read book The Ministry of the Word Vol 26 No 02 Crystallization study of First and Second Samuel written by Various Authors and published by Living Stream Ministry. This book was released on 2022-02-01 with total page 377 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This issue of The Ministry of the Word contains a complete record of the twelve messages given as the crystallization-study of 1 and 2 Samuel in the December 2021 semiannual training, which was streamed via webcast from Anaheim, California. The Key Statements on the following page embody and summarize the crucial truths and main burdens covered in these twelve messages.The Reports and Announcements section contains an announcement concerning Living Stream Ministry's digital newsletter, "Having This Ministry…," "An Update concerning Europe," and important information concerning upcoming conferences and trainings hosted by Living Stream Ministry with a website link to information on similar events in Europe.
Download or read book The Ministry of the Word Vol 25 No 05 written by Various Authors and published by Living Stream Ministry. This book was released on with total page 129 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This issue of The Ministry of the Word contains the six messages from the Memorial Day weekend conference, which was a web-hosted video teleconference held on May 28-31, 2021. The subject of this series of messages is "Knowing the Truth, Being Absolute for the Truth, and Proclaiming the Truth in the Present Evil Age." The key statements in the following section embody the crucial truths and the main burden of the conference. The Announcements section at the end of this issue contains a list of upcoming conferences and trainings hosted by Living Stream Ministry and a website link for information related to similar events in Europe.
Download or read book The Ministry of the Word Vol 25 No 03 Vital Factors for the Recovery of the Church Life written by Various Authors and published by Living Stream Ministry. This book was released on with total page 173 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This issue of The Ministry of the Word contains the eight messages of the international training for elders and responsible ones hosted by Living Stream Ministry on April 16-18, 2021. The messages were provided via webcast from Anaheim, California, and the mutual fellowship, prophesying, and studying by groups were practiced locally in the various churches that participated. The general subject of this series of messages is "Vital Factors for the Recovery of the Church Life." The ultimate goal in God's eternal economy is the building up of the church as the Body of Christ to consummate the New Jerusalem, the bride of the redeeming God. In the age of the church, there needs to be an understanding, experience, and application of various vital factors for the strengthening and full recovery of the church life. A factor is an element that actively contributes to the production of a result. In this series of messages, we will see eight vital, critical, and strategic elements that actively contribute to the recovery of the church life.
Download or read book The Ministry of the Word Vol 25 No 04 written by Various Authors and published by Living Stream Ministry. This book was released on 2021-07-30 with total page 285 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This issue of The Ministry of the Word contains a complete record of the twelve messages in our crystallization-study of the books of Joshua, Judges, and Ruth that comprised the July 2021 Semiannual Training, which was released via webcast from Anaheim, California. The Key Statements on the following page embody and summarize the crucial truths and main burdens covered in these twelve messages.The Reports and Announcements section contains "An Update concerning Europe," a "Summer 2021 Mass Distribution Update," and important information concerning upcoming conferences and trainings hosted by Living Stream Ministry plus a website link to information on similar events in Europe.
Download or read book The Ministry of the Word Vol 25 No 06 written by Various Authors and published by Living Stream Ministry. This book was released on 2022-01-02 with total page 182 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This issue of The Ministry of the Word contains the eight messages of the international training for elders and responsible ones hosted by Living Stream Ministry on October 8-10, 2021. The messages were provided via webcast from Anaheim, California, and the mutual fellowship, prophesying, and studying by groups were practiced locally in the various churches that participated. The general subject of this series of messages is “Meeting God’s Need and Present Needs in the Lord’s Recovery.” We must see that God has His need. No matter what our human needs or the churches’ needs are, God’s need is much greater. To see God’s need, we need to realize that God has a will, a good pleasure, which is His heart’s desire. God’s good pleasure, that which makes Him happy, is the fulfillment of His eternal purpose to have His eternal habitation for His eternal expression. In order for His will to be done on earth and for His eternal purpose to be fulfilled, God needs our cooperation. He has placed His almighty power under the limitation of the human will; hence, only when He has gained a people who will cooperate with Him by being totally responsive to Him will He have an unhindered way to accomplish His will. God also needs to recover the earth from His enemy by man’s dealing with Satan and subduing and conquering the rebellious earth. Moreover, God needs the “family of Noah” to build the church as today’s ark to terminate the present crooked and perverted age and bring in God’s kingdom. God needs the man-child, the overcomers in the church, as His dispensational instrument for His greatest dispensational move to end the age and bring in His kingdom. To be constituted as overcomers, we must realize that through regeneration we have been made a new creation. As such, we need to walk in newness of life, to serve in newness of spirit, and to be renewed daily. Furthermore, we daily need to labor on the all-inclusive Christ as the good land by seeking and enjoying Christ in every situation. Especially as elders and responsible ones, we should enter into Christ’s wonderful shepherding in His heavenly ministry by enjoying and ministering Christ to shepherd the church of God as a slave of God. In meeting the Lord’s need, prayer is our most direct and intimate cooperation with Him. Prayer is to absorb the elements of the soil of Christ [4] as the good land and to express what God has spoken within us by our contacting and fellowshipping with Him. The best prayer is to pray to God as a friend, as portrayed in Abraham’s glorious intercession, his intimate conversation with God. This kind of intercession expresses God’s desire and carries out His will. The Announcements section at the end of this issue contains a list of upcoming conferences and trainings hosted by Living Stream Ministry and a website link for information related to similar events in Europe.
Download or read book The Ministry of the Word Vol 25 No 01 written by Various Authors and published by Living Stream Ministry. This book was released on with total page 285 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This issue of The Ministry of the Word contains a complete record of the twelve messages given by webcast from Anaheim, California, as the December 2020 semiannual training on the crystallization-studies of the books of Job, Proverbs, and Ecclesiastes. The key statements in the following section embody and summarize the crucial truths and main burdens in these twelve messages. The Reports and Announcements section contains an update concerning Europe, reports from regions across Europe, and the winter 2020 mass distribution update. Also included is information concerning upcoming conferences and trainings hosted by Living Stream Ministry and a website link for information related to similar events in Europe.
Download or read book The Ministry of the Word Vol 22 No 02 written by Various Authors and published by Living Stream Ministry. This book was released on 2018-02-01 with total page 194 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This issue of The Ministry of the Word contains the nine messages given during the international training for elders and responsible ones held in Leipzig, Germany, from October 5-7, 2017. The general subject of this series of messages is "The Recovery of the Church." The intrinsic significance of the church is the corporate expression of Christ, who is the embodiment and expression of the Triune God. The reality of the church as the expression of Christ is heavenly, "Christly," and "resurrectionly." In time and space, however, the church can deviate and become degraded, deformed, and corrupted due to the enemy's work of producing substitutes for Christ, dividing the Body of Christ, and killing the function of the members of the Body of Christ. From the beginning, God's intention was to have the church, and this was taught by the apostles (Eph. 3:10-11). Although much of the truth concerning the church has been lost or distorted, our God is a God of recovery regardless of what the enemy has done. The Lord's recovery of the church brings us back to the beginning for the fulfillment of God's eternal purpose and original intention regarding the church. For the recovery of the church, we need to overcome the degradation of the church that was brought in according to the principle of Babylon--exercising human ability and effort, hypocrisy, self-glorification, and harlotry. The way to overcome the principle of Babylon is to take Christ as our burnt offering so that He can repeat the life of the burnt offering within us. By this way we can be "Christified" and become His duplication for the building up of the Body of Christ to consummate the holy city, New Jerusalem. The books of Ezra and Nehemiah record the return of the Israelites from Babylon to Jerusalem to rebuild the temple and the city. This return signifies the Lord's recovery of a remnant out of today's division and confusion back to the original ground of oneness for the building up of the genuine church as the house of God and the kingdom of God. To strengthen and enrich the recovery of the church, the Lord needs priestly scribes like Ezra--those who contact God, are saturated with God, and are skillful in the Word of God to reeducate and reconstitute God's people for His testimony and His corporate expression on the earth. The Lord also needs those who are pure and properly aggressive like Nehemiah to build the great and high wall of the holy city for our separation unto God, the protection of God's interests, and the expression of God. Practically speaking, in the Lord's recovery today, we are mainly recovering the proper church life and the proper living of the church. The church life is the corporate living of the perfected God-men, a living in the reality of the Body of Christ. The church life is the life of Christ being lived out through His members in a corporate way. It is our being headed up under the unique headship of Christ and enjoying the mutual flowing of fellowship in oneness as the continuation of Christ's being glorified by the Father so that we may be the corporate expression of Christ. In order for the Lord to return, He must recover the life and living of the church. The church has two main aspects--universal and local. The church is constituted of the universal God, but it exists on earth in many localities; in nature the church is universal in God, but in practice the church is local, in a definite place. 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. The genuine oneness is the Triune God who as the Spirit today is being added to us and is permeating us, taking us over, and filling us. Only the Triune God is the factor of the genuine oneness. The ground of oneness is simply the processed Triune God applied to our being. In Psalm 133 the fine oil, referring to the holy anointing oil in Exodus 30:23-33, signifies the all-inclusive compound Spirit. This anointing Spirit is the element of our oneness; when the compound Spirit applies Himself to us and spreads over and in our entire being in a gradual way, He makes us genuinely one. If we want to have the recovery of the church, we must have a clear revelation concerning the three most basic, essential, and crucial statuses of the church--as the Body of Christ, as the new man, and as the counterpart of Christ. The Body is the issue of the headship of Christ. Christ, as the One who fills all in all, needs His Body to be His fullness, the expression of the Head (cf. Eph. 1:22-23). For the building up of the Body of Christ, we need to practice the scriptural way to meet and to serve--the God-ordained way revealed in the holy Word. The new man is Christ in all the saints. This indwelling Christ permeates and replaces us to remove all natural distinctions and to constitute everyone with Himself. In order for us to experience the reality of Christ being all the members of the new man, we need to take Christ as our life and our person and live Him, not ourselves. The one new man fulfills God's eternal purpose of expressing God and dealing with His enemy. The church as the Body of Christ and the one new man will become the bride, the counterpart, of Christ. The Lord will return for His bride. The church, the counterpart of Christ, as typified by Eve, is a pure product out of Christ, built out of the uncreated life released by Christ through His death and resurrection. Only those who are regenerated of Christ and who live by Christ as the church can match Christ and complement Him. In the New Jerusalem the processed and consummated redeeming Triune God as the universal Husband will live a married life for eternity with this redeemed, regenerated, transformed, and glorified corporate person as His wife. This will be the consummation of the universal divine romance. The Announcements section of this issue contains a list of upcoming conferences and trainings hosted by Living Stream Ministry and a website link for information related to similar events in Europe.
Download or read book The Ministry of the Word Vol 27 No 02 Crystallization study of the Books of 1 and 2 Chronicles Ezra Nehemiah and Esther written by Various Authors and published by Living Stream Ministry. This book was released on 2023-04-02 with total page 261 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This issue of The Ministry of the Word contains a complete record of the twelve messages given as the crystallization-study of the books of 1 and 2 Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther in the December 2022 semiannual training, held in Anaheim, California. The Key Statements on the following page embody and summarize the crucial truths and main burdens covered in these twelve messages. The Announcements section contains important information concerning upcoming conferences and trainings hosted by Living Stream Ministry and a website link to information on similar events in Europe and Israel.
Download or read book The Ministry of the Word Vol 21 No 02 written by Various Authors and published by Living Stream Ministry. This book was released on 2017-02-01 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This issue of The Ministry of the Word contains the nine messages given during the International Training for Elders and Responsible Ones in Gold Coast, Australia, on October 6 through 8, 2016. The general subject of this series of messages is "Returning to the Orthodoxy of the Church." We urgently need to come back to the orthodoxy of the apostolic church. The orthodoxy of the church is the church according to the teaching and practice of the apostles. What is orthodox is the New Testament apostles' vision, revelation, teaching, practice, direction, and ministry. In the mid 1940s Watchman Nee gave the messages published in The Orthodoxy of the Church. In the preface to the English edition, Witness Lee writes, "What we urgently need today is to come back to the orthodoxy of the beginning and stand firmly on the ground of locality" (The Collected Works of Watchman Nee, vol. 47, p. 6). In The Orthodoxy of the Church Watchman Nee is one with the Lord to identify what is not normal and what is degradation; he also identifies what is the orthodoxy of the church--the apostolic church as revealed in the New Testament. In this issue we will see from Revelation 2 and 3 that only the church in Philadelphia returned to the orthodoxy of the church. We may already have some knowledge about this subject. However, we need to be in fear and trembling lest we would have confidence in our knowledge and understanding and think that there is nothing new to see, gain, or experience. To have such an attitude is to have the spirit of the Laodiceans, who boasted and said, "I am wealthy and have become rich and have need of nothing" (Rev. 3:17). In principle, the elders and responsible brothers are the messengers representing the church, are responsible for the church, have a heart to care for the church, and recognize that they are under the Lord's direct authority concerning the church. The Spirit speaks to the churches; the Son of Man, however, speaks to the messengers. The entire book of Revelation is the revelation of the person of Jesus Christ and not the revelation of locusts, beasts, or so many other things. It is the revelation of Jesus Christ, through Jesus Christ, and concerning Jesus Christ. If we [4] are to return to the orthodoxy of the church, we cannot merely return to teachings and practices; we must return by way of the person, Jesus Christ, the One who knows the situation of every local church and of every messenger of every local church. If we have an increasing vision of what is most on God's heart for His eternal satisfaction--the bride, the wife, the New Jerusalem--we will be beside ourselves in the Spirit. In the first three chapters of Revelation we can see how the Lord cares for the churches. Even in His awesome majesty, He must judge them in order to gain them. In the final two chapters the Lord Jesus sent His angel for the particular purpose that all His dear churches would see the final vision (cf. 22:16). From the beginning to the end, the Lord cares for the churches. This word should at least give us a heart to see what John saw and to treasure and care for it. The Reports and Announcements section at the end of this issue contains the winter 2016 mass distribution update, a list of upcoming conferences and trainings hosted by Living Stream Ministry, and a website link for information related to similar events in Europe.
Download or read book The Ministry of the Word Vol 23 No 02 written by Various Authors and published by Living Stream Ministry. This book was released on 2019-02-01 with total page 187 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This issue of The Ministry of the Word contains the nine messages given during the international training for elders and responsible ones held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, on October 4 through 6, 2018. The subject of this series of messages is "Propagating the Resurrected, Ascended, and All-inclusive Christ as the Development of the Kingdom of God." We are propagating a person—the resurrected, ascended, and all-inclusive Christ, who is emphatically revealed in the book of Acts. To propagate Christ is not merely to spread the truth concerning Him; it is actually to reproduce Him, just as a husband and wife propagate by bringing forth children who are the same as they are in life and nature. Today we are the reproductions, the increase, of the resurrected Christ as the firstborn Son of God. The propagation of Christ can be carried out only by His witnesses, by those who have seen Him. In the book of Acts the Lord charged His disciples to be His witnesses. In the New Testament the meaning of witness is primarily to bear a living testimony of Jesus Christ in His crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension. We need to live by the divine life in our human life so that we would be witnesses, those who bear a living testimony of the resurrected and ascended Christ in our human life. Through death Christ entered into another realm, the realm of resurrection. The reality of resurrection is the all-inclusive life-giving Spirit. Thus, the realm of resurrection is the realm of the Spirit, which is also the divine and mystical realm. We all have been begotten, regenerated, in Christ's resurrection, and we all have been ushered into the same realm. Moreover, the church is in this realm; the church exists in the realm of resurrection. Christ's resurrection was the focus of the apostles' testimony. The Lord's ascension was His initiation into His living and ministry in the heavens; this initiation brought Him into a new realm, that is, into the heavens where He now has His living and is ministering there. Whereas resurrection is a matter of life, Christ's ascension is a matter of position, and position is a matter of authority. The resurrected Christ is in the heavens executing God's administration. The resurrected Christ ascended to the heavens to be exalted by God and to be given the kingship, the lordship, and the headship over all things. The ascended Christ has also obtained the throne, the glory, and all the authority in the universe. The ascended Christ is God's Anointed to carry out God's commission to work out the spreading of the gospel and the building up of the church. The Christ revealed in Acts is the all-inclusive Christ. He is the Author of life, God's Servant, the Leader and Savior, the Son of Man, God, the Lord of all, the Judge, and the object of the believers' faith. The resurrected, ascended, and all-inclusive Christ whom we are propagating is the kingdom, and we are propagating Him as the development of the kingdom. The development of the kingdom of God, that is, the kingdom of the divine life, is the spreading of Christ as life into His believers to form a realm in which God rules in His life. The kingdom of God is the main subject of the apostles' preaching in Acts; this is indicated by the fact that the resurrected Christ, in His appearing to the apostles through a period of forty days, spoke to them concerning the kingdom of God. The kingdom of God is the Savior as the seed of life sown into His believers, God's chosen people, and developing into a realm over which God can rule as His kingdom in His divine life. The entrance into the kingdom of God is regeneration, and the development of the kingdom is the believers' growth in the divine life. The kingdom of God is the church life today, in which the faithful believers live, and it will develop into the coming kingdom as a reward to be inherited by the overcoming saints in the millennium. Eventually, the kingdom of God will consummate in the New Jerusalem as the eternal kingdom of God, an eternal realm of the eternal blessing of God's eternal life, which all of God's redeemed will enjoy in the new heaven and new earth for eternity. What kind of Christ can be reproduced through us depends on what He is to us in reality. If we know Him as resurrection and the power of resurrection and if we know Him in His heavenly ministry with His supreme authority, realizing that He is the center of God's governmental administration in the universe, we will announce and propagate this kind of Christ. If we realize, know, experience, and enjoy the all-inclusive Christ, spontaneously this Christ will be reproduced through us. The Reports and Announcements section at the end of this issue contains a report entitled "The Ministry of the Word Literature Exhibition." Also included is a list of upcoming conferences and trainings hosted by Living Stream Ministry and a website link for information related to similar events in Europe.
Download or read book The Ministry of the Word Vol 28 No 02 Laboring on the All inclusive Christ Typified by the Good Land for the Building Up of the Church as the Body of Christ for the Reality and the Manifestation of the Kingdom and for the Bride to Make Herself Ready for the Lord s Coming written by Various Authors and published by Living Stream Ministry. This book was released on 2024-02-29 with total page 246 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This issue of The Ministry of the Word contains a complete record of the twelve messages given during the December 2023 semiannual training, held in Anaheim, California. The Key Statements on the following page embody and summarize the crucial truths and main burdens covered in these twelve messages.
Download or read book The Ministry of the Word Vol 28 No 01 The Enjoyment of Christ and Our Growth in Life unto Maturity written by Various Authors and published by Living Stream Ministry. This book was released on 2024-02-07 with total page 131 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This issue of The Ministry of the Word contains the six messages from the international Thanksgiving blending conference held in Dallas, Texas, on November 23-26, 2023. The subject of this series of messages is "The Enjoyment of Christ and Our Growth in Life unto Maturity."
Download or read book The Ministry Vol 12 No 02 written by Various Authors and published by Living Stream Ministry. This book was released on 2008-02-01 with total page 194 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This issue of The Ministry contains a complete record of the nine messages given during the 2007 International Training for Elders and Responsible Ones in Mexico City, Mexico, October 4-6, 2007. The general subject of the training was "Knowing and Caring for the Church." This knowing is a knowing by revelation and by the experience of life. We need to know the Lord, to know God's economy, the divine dispensing, and to know the church. Our care for the church is limited by our knowing of the church, and our behavior and proper conduct in the church as the house of God is determined by our knowing of the church. This is a set principle. The burden in these messages is that we must first know the church in order to care for the church. If we do not know the church, we cannot care for the church in a proper way. Therefore, we need to be those who know the church in the way that God knows the church, and then we need to care for the church in the way that God cares for the church. Our knowing the church according to revelation and the experiences of life brings in the proper caring. We must care for the church according to the revelation, the vision, and the experiences of life that have constituted our inner knowing of the church. Therefore, our knowing of the church, which is progressive, must increase. We also include letters from Romania concerning the Lord's move there.
Download or read book The Ministry Vol 09 No 02 written by Various Authors and published by Living Stream Ministry. This book was released on 2005-02-01 with total page 156 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This issue of The Ministry contains a complete record of the nine messages given in Auckland, New Zealand during the International Training for Elders and Responsible Ones in October 2004. The general subject of these messages is the uniqueness of the Lord's recovery (see The Ministry, February 2004, and June 2004). The burden for these messages can be summarized in the following fellowship from Message One, from excerpts of Practical Talks to the Elders by Witness Lee: We don't know how long the coming days will be; only the Lord knows. But for as long as the Lord tarries, the recovery will be on this earth...With these future days and future new ones especially in mind, I feel there needs to be a basic vision or basic knowledge of the Lord's recovery. Just five years ago a distraction came in which confused some dear ones who were concerned for the Lord's recovery. Since such a thing could happen in the past right before our eyes, how can we have the assurance that such a thing will not be repeated in the future? Thus, while the Lord still grants me the days, I would like to do as much as I can to put things clearly into writing. Then the dear ones who are in and who will be brought into the Lord's recovery can have a clear view about what it is. (pp. 51-52) God is unique. His plan is unique. His work is unique. His way to carry out His work is unique. And the very instrument used for His way is the ministry. Thus this ministry is also unique. In the New Testament, there is the unique Christ, the unique way, and the unique focus to carry out the unique circumference, the church, by the unique ministry. (p. 57) In the Lord's recovery...we are doing one work, carrying out one ministry. We are serving one Lord, worshipping one God. We are in His unique plan, in His unique economy, in His unique work, in His unique way. We minister His unique focus. (p. 60) If we are not in the focus and if we do not experience what we preach to others, we face two perils. One, sooner or later there will be divisions. Two, if we don't practice the focal points, the saints have no way to practice them. The things we teach will eventually become doctrines in the Lord's recovery. There will be no reality. The recovery will be just empty. If we don't care for the Lord's recovery by paying heed to all these unique points, then we will care for the spreading of our work. To care for the spread of our work is dangerous. It will produce different works to build up different ministries. Then division will result...I am fearful and trembling of these two perils: the peril of different works being produced to cause division and the peril of emptiness. (pp. 62-63) May the Lord speak to us in these messages to show us the uniqueness of His recovery. May the Lord keep us secure in this vision, and may He keep His recovery from division and from emptiness. Last of all, in the sections regarding reports and announcements, we include a schedule of the upcoming conferences and trainings in Europe for 2005.
Download or read book The Ministry Vol 11 No 02 written by Various Authors and published by Living Stream Ministry. This book was released on 2007-02-01 with total page 194 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This issue of The Ministry contains a complete record of the nine messages given during the International Training for Elders and Responsible Ones, held in Whistler, British Columbia, Canada, October 5-7, 2006. The general subject of the training was "Shepherding the Flock of God." These messages are a continuation of the training given in the spring of 2006 (see The Ministry, Vol. 10, No. 5). The burden of these messages is not about the technique of shepherding but about what we are in our person and how we behave in the church. This is according to Paul's word to the elders in Ephesus in Acts 20. He said, "Take heed to yourselves and to all the flock" (v. 28). We first need to take care of ourselves, to be shepherded in our own person before we take care of all the flock. Messages 1 and 2 show us that our shepherding must be according to the plan of God and the word of God, according to the teaching of the apostles, and according to God. These form the basis of our shepherding. Messages 3, 5, and 7 show us that our shepherding is in our living by the grace of God, in an organic way according to His initiation and with our cooperation, and in dealing with peculiarity. These are the conditions of our shepherding. Messages 4, 6, and 8 show us that our goal must be to shepherd the saints into the faith of the truth, into a life of living through dying, and into a life of prayer for the organic practice of the God-ordained way in the vital groups. Finally, in Message 9, if the elders are constituted with the basis, the conditions, and the goal of shepherding, the flock of God will be shepherded to know the Body of Christ. May the Lord speak to us His light-shedding and life-imparting word. Last of all, we include letters and reports concerning the recent gospel move in the Russian-speaking world.
Download or read book The Ministry Vol 02 No 02 written by Various Authors and published by Living Stream Ministry. This book was released on 1998-02-01 with total page 96 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this issue of The Ministry, we continue the line of fellowship on the present practice and practical outworking of the building up of the church. We include a message spoken by Brother Lee to the serving ones in the church in Taipei in 1960 on the building up and the need for consecration for the building. All the work in the New Testament is for the building up of the church as God’s habitation, and the practical building requires that we offer ourselves up in consecration to God. This consecration is twofold: According to Romans 6, it is the presenting of our specific members to live a life of sanctification and righteousness in Christ, and according to Romans 12, it is the presenting of our whole being to be the material for God’s building. The following six messages are from the first half of the Living Stream Ministry’s Summer Training of 1997, entitled The Crucial Contents of God’s New Testament Ministry. On June 9, 1997 our Brother Lee rested from his labors and went to be with the Lord. This training, which followed immediately after our brother’s departure, was a thorough review of the contents of the New Testament ministry, which he brought to us over many years. In 2 Timothy 3:14 Paul says, “But you, continue in the things which you have learned and have been assured of, knowing from which ones you have learned them.” The messages in this series are a tribute to and a reminder of the ones through whom we learned the things of God’s New Testament ministry. In this training the local churches raised up under this ministry resolved anew to continue in these things. Lastly, we report on the Lord’s move in His ministry on the earth. Letters from Berlin, Germany and Warsaw, Poland testify of the opened door in Europe through the blending of the churches and the publications of the ministry.