Download or read book The Ministry of the Word Vol 28 No 4 The Crucial Points of the Truth in Paul s Epistles First Corinthians written by Witness Lee and published by Living Stream Ministry. This book was released on 2024-05-16 with total page 146 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This issue of The Ministry of the Word contains the last eight of the sixteen messages given during the fall 2023 term of the full-time training in Anaheim, California. The general subject of this series of messages is “The Crucial Points of the Truth in Paul's Epistles—First Corinthians.” 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 and Israel.

Download or read book The Ministry of the Word Vol 21 No 12 written by Various Authors and published by Living Stream Ministry. This book was released on with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

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 27 No 09 The Crucial Points of the Truth in Paul s Epistles Romans written by Various Authors and published by Living Stream Ministry. This book was released on 2023-11-08 with total page 173 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This issue of The Ministry of the Word contains contains the last eight of the sixteen messages given during the spring 2023 term of the full-time training in Anaheim, California. The general subject of this series of messages is "The Crucial Points of the Truth in Paul's Epistles-Romans."

Download or read book The Ministry of the Word Vol 22 No 6 written by Various Authors and published by Living Stream Ministry. This book was released on with total page 245 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This issue of The Ministry of the Word contains the eight messages given during the international training for elders and responsible ones held in Anaheim, California, April 13-15, 2018. The general subject of this series of messages is "Taking Christ as Our Person and Living Him in and for the Church Life." God's intention in His economy is to work Himself into us not only as our life but also as our person. A wonderful person, Christ as the life-giving Spirit, came into our spirit, regenerated our spirit, and mingled Himself with our spirit, causing our spirit to become our inner man with Christ as the person indwelling our spirit. When we are strengthened with power into our inner man, the Christ in our spirit is able to spread into our heart. Our heart is the acting agent that represents us. As regenerated persons, our inner man is now our real person. Our inner man is now Christ as our person. If we live by the outer man, the old man, it is impossible to have the church life. In order for Christ to be our person, He needs to make His home in our heart; that is, He needs to be able to actually live in our heart. Then we will live Him by walking according to the spirit. When we allow Christ to actually live in our heart, He becomes our person in practice. The most important quality with regard to a leading one is his person, not his capacity, ability, or gift in carrying out a work, serving, or taking the lead. A leading one must have an enlarged heart. Pride, an expression of foolishness, comes from having a narrow heart. A leading one should have an enlarged and loving heart, and he should have a powerful and exercised spirit; that is, he should be dominated, governed, directed, led, and controlled by his spirit. When a leading one has been fully reconciled to God and has been enlarged in heart, he can represent God rightly in His economy. Every day we need to live Christ in and for the church life by walking according to the spirit. If we would live Christ, we must take Him as our person and live one person with Him. The Lord Jesus was the Pioneer, the model, example, and pattern of how all believers should live today. The first God-man lived out another person--the Father. In Jesus we see not only the man but also God living in, through, and as that man. Living Christ and walking according to the spirit are actually one matter. Living Christ requires that we love Him to the uttermost. If we do not love the Lord, we cannot live Him. The practical way to live Christ is to walk according to the spirit. Ultimately, the Bible requires only one thing of us--that we walk according to the mingled spirit. To walk in the spirit is to do everything in our daily life according to the spirit. The central thought of the Bible is that God desires us to live Christ for the building up of the Body of Christ. The Lord's shepherding in His heavenly ministry is to take care of the church, which is His Body. Christ has incorporated the apostolic ministry into His heavenly ministry in order to shepherd God's flock, the church, which issues in the Body of Christ. The elders must preach the gospel by the way of shepherding, and they must bring in a revival by the way of shepherding. They must shepherd the saints in everything and in every way for the dispensing of Christ into them. We all need to shepherd people according to the pattern of the Lord Jesus, cherish the saints in the humanity of Jesus, and nourish them in the divinity of Christ. If we all participate in Christ's shepherding, there will be a revival in the Lord's recovery. The Reports and Announcements section contains an announcement for a "Church Book Service Workshop" and an update on the construction of the Woodland Camp training facility in the northeast part of London, England. Also included at the end of this issue 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 26 No 03 written by Various Authors and published by Living Stream Ministry. This book was released on 2023-03-03 with total page 173 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This issue of The Ministry of the Word contains the first eight of the sixteen messages given during the fall 2021 term of the full-time training in Anaheim, California. The general subject of this series of messages is "Chapters Five through Eight of Romans--the Kernel of the Bible." These first eight messages and the subsequent eight messages (published in an upcoming issue) will focus on Romans 5 and 6. This general subject will then be continued in the messages of the spring 2022 term and will focus on Romans 7 and 8. The life and death form two contrasting lines in chapters 5 through 8, showing that man is at the center of a triangular situation between God and Satan, that is, between life and death. The tree of life and the tree of knowledge (the tree of death) issue in two lines--the line of life and the line of death--that run through the entire Bible and consummate in the book of Revelation. The line of life begins with the tree of life in Genesis 2 and issues in the New Jerusalem in Revelation 22 as the city of the water of life with the tree of life, the light of life, and the glory of life. Similarly, the line of death begins with the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in Genesis 2 and ends with the lake of fire in Revelation 20. The kernel of the Bible is that Christ has been revealed into us as life and that we live, have our being, and exist by Christ as the divine life. God put us into Christ with the desire that we would be transformed and conformed to the image of His Son so that we might be thoroughly one with Christ. In this way we are built up together as the living Body of Christ to contain and express Christ for the Father's glory and for our glorification in Christ. Romans 5 reveals that the result of our justification is the full enjoyment of God in Christ as our life.

Download or read book The Ministry of the Word Vol 22 No 10 written by Various Authors and published by Living Stream Ministry. This book was released on with total page 253 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This issue of The Ministry of the Word contains the final nine messages given during the spring 2018 term of the full-time training in Anaheim, California. The general subject of this series of messages is "Enjoying the Riches of Christ for the Building Up of the Church as the Body of Christ." These messages continue to emphasize the enjoyment of the indescribably rich and all-inclusive Christ as everything to us as seen in the New Testament. In the Gospel of Matthew, we see that we need to have a pure heart to see God, which is to gain God so that we may become God in life and nature. The more we experience and enjoy such an all-inclusive Christ, the more we will become the building material for and even the builders of the church, fulfilling the greatest prophecy in the Bible to bring in the kingdom of God.

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 24 No 04 written by Various Authors and published by Living Stream Ministry. This book was released on 2020-04-01 with total page 123 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This issue of The Ministry of the Word contains the final seven messages given during the Fall 2019 term of the full-time training in Anaheim, California. The general subject of this series of messages is “The Christian Life.” In these seven messages we continue to consider other aspects of the Christian life. In order to live the Christian life, we need to know the resurrected Christ and to know and experience the power of His resurrection. The first aspect in which we need to know Him is as the Son of God desig­nated in power with His human nature. Christ as the Son of God will make us the same as He is. He is the prototype, and He is in us as the law of the Spirit of life to shape, to conform, us to the image of the firstborn Son. The second aspect in which we need to know Him is as the firstborn Son of God born in resurrection. The first aspect emphasizes His person to be reproduced, and the second aspect is for His propagation. To live the Christian life is to live out the anointing. The anointing is the moving and working of the indwelling compound Spirit to apply all the ingredients of the processed Triune God and His activities into our inner being so that we may be fully mingled with Him for His corporate expression. Life moves, and when Christ as the Spirit entered into us, He came into us as the anointing. In order to experience the anointing, we need to know Christ as the anointed One, as the anointing One, and as the anointing. The Christian life is a life of abiding in Christ as the vine. The true vine with its branches—Christ the Son with the believers in the Son—is the organism of the Triune God in the divine economy to grow with His riches and express His life. As the branches of the true vine, we are the multiplication of Christ, the duplication of Christ, the spreading of Christ, and the enlargement of Christ. To abide in Christ as the vine is to dwell in Him, to remain in fellowship with Him, that we may experience and enjoy His abiding in us. The Christian life is a life of living in the mingled spirit. The essence of the New Testament is the two spirits—the divine Spirit and the human spirit—mingled together as one spirit. We can experience Christ, enjoy Christ, live Christ, and take Christ as everything because we have become one spirit with Him. Ultimately, the Bible requires only one thing of us—that we walk according to the mingled spirit. The key to everything is found in the wonderful Spirit who is in our regenerated spirit and who has be­come one spirit with our spirit. To live in the mingled spirit is to have the highest spirituality. The Christian life is a grafted life. God desires that the divine life and the human life be joined together to become one life. This oneness is an organic union, a union in life—a grafted life. Because our human life was made in the image of God and according to the likeness of God, it can be joined to the divine life. Our human life resembles the divine life; therefore, the divine life and the human life can be grafted together and grow together organically. As regenerated ones, we should live a grafted life—a life in which two parties are joined to grow organically. The Christian life is not an exchanged life but a grafted life—the mingling of the human life with the divine life. The most wonderful reality in the Christian experience is that the believers in Christ are united with Christ in the way of life. In the grafted life the human life is not eliminated but is strengthened, uplifted, and enriched by the divine life. As a result of our being grafted into Christ, there is a three-stage devel­opment of our relationship with the Triune God in Christ as the Spirit—​a union in life, a mingling of natures, and a coinherence, the mutual indwelling, of persons. As Christians, we live a life of coinherence in the Father’s house, which is the church as the house of God and the Body of Christ. To live in the Triune God and to have the Triune God live in us is the greatest blessing in the universe. The Christian life is a life fully according to and for the central work of God. God’s unique work in the universe and throughout all the ages and generations is to work Himself in Christ into His chosen people, making Himself one with them. We need God to build Himself in Christ into our humanity, working Himself in Christ into us as our life, nature, and per­son. God is working Himself into us through everything that happens to us so that He may become our constitution. As Christians, we experience the divine dispensing for God’s central work. The will of God concerning our Christian life is that we would know the all-inclusive, extensive Christ, experience Him, be constituted with Him, and express Him. The Reports and Announcements section contains “2020 FTTA Gospel Trips.” 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 23 No 11 written by Various Authors and published by Living Stream Ministry. This book was released on 2019-11-01 with total page 159 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This issue of The Ministry of the Word contains the three messages from the Southern California Blending Conference and Messages 4 and 5 from the special conference held in Anaheim, California, respectively, on June 10-11 and February 17-19, 2017. The general subject of the blending conference is "The Vision, Ministry, and Ministers of the Age." In every age there is a particular vision given by God, a specific ministry of that age, and a minister or ministers used by God to fulfill their commission to bear, release, and trumpet the ministry of that age. In every age God gives a particular vision that guards, controls, and governs His people so that they may serve Him according to the vision of that age. 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. The vision that the Lord has given to His recovery is an all-inclusive vision--the all-inheriting vision of the age. Our vision extends all the way from Adam's vision of the tree of life in the garden of Eden to the New Jerusalem with the tree of life. The ministry of this age builds up the Body of Christ, which is to build up the New Jerusalem; prepares the bride of Christ, which is to prepare the New Jerusalem because the New Jerusalem is the bride of Christ; and brings in the kingdom of God, the ultimate manifestation and consummation of which is the New Jerusalem. Therefore, the ministry of this age fulfills the direction of the Lord's move today. The ministry of the age ministers the present truth to God's people. The present truth, the highest peak of the divine revelation given to us by God through the ministry of this age, is the revelation of the eternal economy of God. God becoming man so that man might become God in life and in nature but not in the Godhead is the essence of the entire Bible, the "diamond" in the "box" of the Bible, the eternal economy of God. God and man will become one entity, and that one entity is the mingling of divinity with humanity, which will consummate in the New Jerusalem, the conclusion of the entire Bible. The ministers of the age are those who have the vision of the age and the ministry of the age and know what God is speaking and doing in the present age. The ministers of the age are patterns to the believers so that they may be perfected to do the work of the ministry for the building up of the Body of Christ. The ministers of the age have four characteristics: First, they are men who allow their natural ability to be terminated by the cross so that all their ability is in resurrection. Second, they are tree-of-life persons. Third, they know the central work of God. Fourth, they pay more attention to life than to work. The general subject of the special conference is "Special Fellowship concerning the World Situation and the Lord's Move." Messages 4 and 5 of this special conference were spoken in English and therefore are included in this issue. The following statement encapsulates the 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 22 No 5 written by Various Authors and published by Living Stream Ministry. This book was released on with total page 221 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This issue of The Ministry of the Word contains the final eight messages given during the fall 2017 term of the full-time training in Anaheim, California. The general subject of this series of messages is "The Crucial Revelation of Life in the Scriptures." God's ultimate intention is to gain a corporate God-man for His corporate manifestation. The intrinsic element of God's eternal economy is that the Triune God in humanity, the wonderful Christ as the Spirit of the glorified Jesus, is sown into God's chosen people as the seed of life, the seed of God, so that He might grow in them, live in them, develop in them, and be expressed from within them as the farm of God for the building up of the church as the house of God and the kingdom of God. The seed of life is actually God in Christ as the Spirit through His word sown into us. This seed contains everything related to God's economy, to the divine life, and to the growth, development, and function of that life. The seed of life is not only a substance, a reproductive element, or an essence but also a person--the all-inclusive Christ. The seed of life sown into us needs to grow to maturity so that we may be the kingdom of God. In resurrection Christ became a life-giving Spirit for imparting life. The life-giving Spirit is the extract, the essence, the concentrated form of the all-inclusive Christ. The totality of all that the all-inclusive Christ is as the life-giving Spirit is for our experience and enjoyment. Without the experience of Christ as the life-giving Spirit, the Lord cannot have His Body. If we never have any experience or enjoyment, we will never grow. There is always a spiritual war related to the growth in life. If the enemy cannot stop the sowing of the seed, then he will do everything he can with every believer to prevent the seed from growing to maturity. However, there is a fighting element in this seed. The only way to enter into the coming kingdom is to grow into the kingdom. Second Peter 1:5-11 reveals that our growth in life to maturity becomes an entrance into the kingdom richly supplied to us. The law of the Spirit of life is the subject of Romans 8. God's life is the highest life, and the law of this life is the highest law. The law of the Spirit of life is not a thing but a person--the processed and consummated Triune God embodied in Christ and realized as a living law in our spirit. This law of life is the spontaneous power, the natural characteristic, and the innate, automatic function of the divine life. While we remain in touch with the Lord, staying in contact with Him, the law of the Spirit of life works automatically, spontaneously, and effortlessly to dispense God as life into our being and to overcome the law of sin and of death (vv. 10, 6, 11). We activate the law of the Spirit of life by remaining in touch with the Lord. We need to cooperate with the indwelling, installed, automatic, and inner-operating God by prayer and by having a spirit of dependence, thus maintaining our fellowship with the Lord of life and the Lord of work. Romans 8 reveals that the processed Triune God as the law of the Spirit of life gives the divine life to the believers for their living. There are four laws in Romans 7 and 8. One law is outside of us, and the other three correspond to the three lives that are within us as regenerated persons. Outside of us is the law of God, the law of moral commandments, which is a portrait of God. Within us is the law of sin and of death in our flesh, the law of good in our soul, and the law of the Spirit of life in our spirit. The only way we can match and become the living portrait of God is by living according to the law of the Spirit of life in our spirit. God's desire and goal are that we live by the divine life and minister life to others for the building up of the church. The all-inclusive, indwelling Spirit is constantly transmitting this life into each one of us to build up the church, edify the saints, and minister the riches of Christ to everyone who contacts us. In Romans 8 we also see that the desire of God's heart is to have many sons for His corporate expression (v. 29). The Father sent His Son--who was born under the law and born through a woman--to redeem us out from under the law. Having redeemed us, He "sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, ‘Abba, Father!'" (Gal. 4:6). Now our spirit has become a spirit of sonship. As the divine life grows within us and transforms us, it spontaneously shapes us into the form, the image, of the firstborn Son of God. We are to be conformed to the image of God's firstborn Son, Christ as the first God-man, that we may be a group of God-men who are exactly like Him. Paul's Epistle to the Romans reveals God's complete salvation in two aspects. God's judicial redemption is the procedure of God's complete salvation for the believers to participate in God's organic salvation as the purpose of the complete salvation of God. Redemption entails the forgiveness of all our sins, reconciliation, positional sanctification, and justification. God's organic salvation is the organic aspect of God's complete salvation through the life of God (Rom. 1:17b; Acts 11:18; Rom. 5:10b, 17b, 18b, 21b) as the purpose of God's salvation, accomplishing all that God wants to achieve in the believers in His economy through His divine life (Gen. 2:9; Rev. 22:14). Organic salvation entails regeneration with God's life, sanctification with God's holy nature, renewing with God's element, transformation with God's being, conformation into God's image, and glorification, which is our full sonship. Glorification sonizes our whole being, from spirit to soul to body. All the items of God's organic salvation are carried out by Christ as the life-giving Spirit in His heavenly ministry organically and subjectively. Being saved in His life is actually the process of resurrection, with the resurrection life of Christ as the element, increasingly taking place in our inner being so that we are sanctified, which is to be saturated with God's holy nature. It is in resurrection that we are renewed, we walk in newness of life, and we serve in newness of spirit (Rom. 6:4; 7:6). The experience of God's organic salvation equals reigning in Christ's life. The issue of our reigning in life, living under the ruling of the divine life, is the real and practical Body life expressed in the church life (12:1-4, 9-12, 15, 18). 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 4 Chapters Five through Eight of Romans the Kernel of the Bible 2 written by Various Authors and published by Living Stream Ministry. This book was released on 2022-05-30 with total page 167 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This issue of The Ministry of the Word contains Messages 9 through 16 given during the fall 2021 term of the full-time training in Anaheim, California, as the continuation of the general subject "Chapters Five through Eight of Romans--the Kernel of the Bible." The sixteen messages in this term focus on Romans 5 and 6, while future messages will focus on Romans 7 and 8. The eight messages of the April 2022 issue draw from Witness Lee's understanding of Romans 5 and 6 in his earlier ministry. The eight messages of this issue present a further understanding of Romans 5 and 6 based on the latter part of his ministry, in which Brother Lee emphasized the matters of being saved in life and reigning in life (5:10, 17). In life indicates that both being saved and reigning are related to the organic aspect of God's complete salvation, which is the fulfillment of God's salvation through the life of Christ for the believers to be transformed and to grow and mature in the life of God. Brother Lee thus began to speak about God's salvation in life in a brand new way, especially in view of the great diamond of God's eternal economy. In his earlier ministry Brother Lee spoke about our being saved in life from particular items, such as worldliness, Satan, sin, and death. In the latter part of his ministry, he saw that organic salvation is our deification, a process that includes regeneration, feeding, sanctification, renewing, transformation, building, conformation, and glorification and that results in our becoming God in life and nature but not in the Godhead. The goal of organic salvation is the building--the corporate expression of the Triune God in Christ through the church, the mingling of God with man, and the enlargement and expansion of God. The secret of all the experiences of God's organic salvation and the building of God is the Spirit with our spirit, that is, the consummated Spirit being and working together with the believers' created and regenerated spirit. Romans further reveals that the believers need to reign in life over all things for the Body life (cf. 8:17, 29; 12:5). By experiencing grace upon grace, the believers reign in life not only over sin, death, and Satan but even over all things. To reign in life is to conquer, subdue, and rule over Satan, the world, sin, the flesh, ourselves, and all the environmental circumstances and to subdue all kinds of insubordination. The issue of our reigning in life, living under the ruling of the divine life, is the real and practical Body life expressed in the church life (16:1, 4-5, 16). 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 22 No 4 written by Various Authors and published by Living Stream Ministry. This book was released on with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This issue of The Ministry of the Word contains the first eight messages given during the fall 2017 term of the full-time training in Anaheim, California. The general subject of this series of messages is "The Crucial Revelation of Life in the Scriptures." The central thought of God in this universe and in eternity is to have Christ as His expression through the church with the shining in life. God's expression is based on life and light, and the light is the shining in life. In order for God to have an expression of Himself in Christ through the church, the divine life that expresses Him must be embodied and expressed in Christ and then dispensed into, worked into, and expressed through the church. Only the life of God can express God. Based on this principle, we will see the crucial revelation of life throughout the Scriptures. Genesis 1 and 2 are not merely a record of creation; actually, nearly every item recorded in these two chapters is a revelation of Christ who is life to God's people for the producing and building up of the church. According to Genesis 1, God created many forms of life, beginning with the lowest form and progressing to the highest form of created life, that is, man, whom God created in His image. The purpose of the creation of man with God's image is that this man would express God. However, the created man had only a human life. Any form of created life can only express itself; it cannot express another kind of life. This means that man is unable to express God if he has only his created human life. In order for man to express God and fulfill His purpose, man must obtain and receive the life of God as his life. God has to enter into man to be life to man. Genesis 2 reveals that the bride of Christ--typified by the woman built from the rib taken from the man--is produced and comes into being by life. The real Eve, the church, the counterpart of Christ, which will consummate in the New Jerusalem, is built with the resurrection life that was released by the Lord through His death and imparted through His resurrection. This counterpart of the Lord is a building of life. For God to gain His corporate expression through the church, He must dispense and work Himself into us, His people, His believers. This is accomplished through our eating and drinking Him. We need to pass through three stages of the enjoyment of Christ by eating Him. The first stage is the eating of Christ as the Passover lamb in Egypt, the second stage is the eating of Christ as the manna in the wilderness, and the third stage is the eating of Christ as the rich produce of the good land. By our eating in the first two stages, we are energized to leave the world and are constituted with Christ as the heavenly element. Only in the third stage of the enjoyment of Christ as our food can we fulfill God's purpose. It was not until the children of Israel entered into the good land and enjoyed the produce of the land that they were able to defeat all the enemies, build up God's dwelling place on the earth, and bring in the kingdom of God. Likewise, for us to reach the goal of God's economy, we need to progress until we enter into the highest stage of eating Christ as the all-inclusive Spirit, as typified by the rich produce of the good land. In this stage we overcome the spiritual enemies, we are built up to be God's dwelling place, and we establish God's kingdom on earth. The history of God's people is not only one of eating but also one of drinking. In the Old Testament, before coming into the good land and building the house of God, the children of Israel journeyed through the wilderness. During that journey they came to Marah, a place of bitter waters. Moses followed God's command to cast a tree into the bitter waters; the waters then became sweet. This tree signifies the tree of life, the crucified and resurrected Christ, who today is the Spirit mingled with our spirit. In our spirit we have the crucified and resurrected Christ as our Healer. He is the One who transforms our bitter circumstances and makes them sweet, and He also heals all our diseases. Before the building of the house of God, the Bible speaks of the springs of water (Exo. 15:22-27), the water out of the cleft rock (17:6), and the water from the well (Num. 21:16-17). Christ as the living, spiritual rock was smitten by the authority of God's law so that the water of life in resurrection could flow out of Him and into His redeemed people for them to drink. After God's people built the house of God in the good land, the Bible speaks of the river of God's pleasures (Psa. 36:8b), the river whose streams gladden the city of God (46:4), a fountain going forth from the house of Jehovah (Joel 3:18), and living waters going forth from Jerusalem (Zech. 14:8). We need to experience the flowing of the living water out of the house of God (Ezek. 47:1-5). In order to be in the flow, we have to be in the building; that is, we need to be in the church. In the New Testament we can see the crucial revelation of life in the book of Matthew. In the decree of the kingdom's constitution given by the Lord in chapters 5--7, He displayed the two possible ways people may live and work before God (7:13-14, 21-27). The broad way that leads to destruction is according to the worldly systems satisfying the natural tastes, to get the crowd, to maintain a career of man, and to achieve man's enterprise. The constricted way is according to the divine regulations. This way, which leads to life, fulfills the spiritual requests, brings in God's elect, bears the testimony of Jesus Christ, and carries out God's economy for the building up of the Body of Christ. We take this way by walking in the spirit; this will restrict us and cause us to live a normal Christian life. We will thereby become vital, healthy believers who take the way of life for God's building. There are three basic elements in Matthew. First, Christ is the King as the kingdom bringing in the reality of the kingdom. Second, He is the King in His all-inclusiveness. Third, He is the kingly bread. When we partake of this kingly bread, we eat, digest, and assimilate the King and the kingdom with its reality, and we eat and digest the King in His all-inclusiveness. The ruling element is in the food. When we take in this food, we gradually become the reality of the kingdom of the heavens. 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 28 No 6 The Christian Life written by Various Authors and published by Living Stream Ministry. This book was released on 2024-08-02 with total page 128 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 blending conference held in Bellevue, Washington, on May 24-27, 2024. The general subject of this series of messages is “The Christian Life.”

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 24 No 02 written by Various Authors and published by Living Stream Ministry. This book was released on 2020-02-01 with total page 115 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 held in Houston, Texas, November 28—December 1, 2019. The subject of this series of messages is “Know­ing and Experiencing the All-inclusive, Extensive Christ.” 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 27 No 07 An Overview of the Central Burden and Present Truth of the Lord s Recovery before His Appearing written by Various Authors and published by Living Stream Ministry. This book was released on 2023-08-12 with total page 259 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 July 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. The Reports and Announcements section contains "An Update concerning Europe," a "Summer 2023 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 and Israel.