Download or read book The Ministry of the Word Vol 21 No 05 written by Various Authors and published by Living Stream Ministry. This book was released on 2017-05-01 with total page 173 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Ministry of the Word Vol 21 No 07 written by Various Authors and published by Living Stream Ministry. This book was released on 2017-07-01 with total page 266 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Ministry of the Word Vol 21 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 2017 term of the full-time training in Anaheim, California. The general subject of this series of messages is "The Mending Ministry of John." The overall subject of John's writings, which include his Gospel, his Epistles, and Revelation, is that the Triune God wants to dispense Himself into His chosen people as their life and life supply to make them divine so that they may express Him in full and for eternity. In Revelation John presents the consummate vision in the Bible and the ultimate fulfillment of God's eternal economy--the New Jerusalem. The mending ministry of John, carried out in the divine and mystical realm of the consummated Spirit, is for the living out and the working out of the New Jerusalem. The New Jerusalem is lived out by the believers becoming the New Jerusalem, and the New Jerusalem is worked out by the believers building the New Jerusalem. The New Jerusalem is the ultimate answer to the Lord's prayer in John 17 for the glorification of the Triune God through the oneness of the believers built into the Triune God. This city is the City of Jehovah, the city of life, the holy city, and the city of glory. Even in the Old Testament the prophets describe this city as a person that is one with Jehovah. Isaiah says, "They will call you the City of Jehovah" (60:14), and Ezekiel concludes his prophecy by declaring that "the name of the city from that day shall be, Jehovah Is There" (48:35). The City of Jehovah means that Jehovah is in His redeemed, regenerated, transformed, and glorified tripartite people and that they are in Him. Jehovah Is There refers to the presence of Jehovah Himself who will be united, mingled, and incorporated with His people to be one entity--the great, corporate God-man. The New Jerusalem is also the city of life. The Christ ministered by John is for the dispensing of the Triune God as life into man's tripartite being. Out of such a ministered Christ, the children of God are brought forth by receiving the eternal life. They then partake of the fellowship of the eternal life by abiding in the Lord and walking in the light. They are taught by the anointing to enjoy the virtues of the divine birth with the divine seed. As a result, they become the testimony of Jesus--the lampstands as the expression of the Triune God--to be the firstfruits and the harvest as the expression of life and the bride of the Lamb as His increase and satisfaction. Moreover, the New Jerusalem is the holy city. God's living word--His breathing out as the divine breath into the believers--works within them to separate them from the world and to saturate them with the divine nature to make them a holy city, the corporate and ultimate Holy of Holies as the reality of Zion. To live out and work out the New Jerusalem, the believers partake of the divine nature of the Father by exercising their spirit to enjoy God as Spirit (the nature of God's person) and by remaining in the divine fellowship to enjoy God as love (the nature of God's essence) and as light (the nature of God's expression). Furthermore, the New Jerusalem is the city of glory. The Lord wants to occupy every room in our being, and He desires that we would be filled with His riches unto the fullness of God so that there would be glory to God in the church. The Father will be glorified when His many sons are thus filled with the Triune God. To be filled with the Triune God of glory for His corporate expression, the believers must cooperate with the Spirit, who is daily operating in them, by their allowing the Spirit to infuse and transmit all the riches of the Triune God into them. All believers need to be open to this Spirit to allow the Triune God to fill them, to flow through them, and to overflow out of them so that there would be the full expression of the Triune God in the church as the reality of the Body of Christ. This Body will in turn consummate in the New Jerusalem as the ultimate expression of the consummated Triune God in and through man. The New Jerusalem is the church as the reality of the Body of Christ in its ultimate state and consummation. To live out the New Jerusalem is to grow up into Christ, the Head, by the mingling of God with man, and to work out the New Jerusalem is to function out from the Head for the building up of the Body of Christ. Only the Body of Christ will remain forever as the unique mutual abode of God and man so that God as the Spirit and man as the bride, becoming a married couple, are mingled and incorporated together to be one entity--a great, corporate God-man. Thus, the issue of John's mending ministry is the accomplishing of the goal of God's economy, which is to obtain the enlarged, universal, divine-human incorporation of the consummated Triune God with the regenerated believers--the New Jerusalem in eternity.

Download or read book The Ministry of the Word Vol 21 No 06 written by Various Authors and published by Living Stream Ministry. This book was released on 2017-06-01 with total page 178 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Ministry of the Word Vol 21 No 04 written by Various Authors and published by Living Stream Ministry. This book was released on 2017-04-01 with total page 180 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 2016 term of the full-time training in Anaheim, California. The general subject of this series of messages is "The Failures in the Churches, the Degradation of the Church, the Overcomers in the Church, the Recovery of the Church, and the Stages of the Church." This issue comprises the first three components of this fivefold subject. This general subject unveils the decline of the church and illuminates our need to return to the orthodoxy of the church. The term orthodoxy refers to God's way for the church as ordained by Him and revealed in His Word. The practice of the church that is according to God's original intention was present in the early years of the church before degradation set in. We may say that orthodoxy is the equivalent of the word normal. Thus, the orthodoxy of the church is the normal Christian church life. The overcomers are normal Christians in a time of abnormality. Moreover, the principle of returning to the orthodoxy is the same as that of recovery. In order to be faithful to the Lord and to His word, we must forsake mere tradition and return to what God originally intended for the church. Concerning the actual practice of the church life, three particular matters must become clear to us and real within us. First, we need to have a genuine vision of the church and see the church as the Lord Himself sees the church. From the Scriptures that have been opened and rightly expounded to us through the ministry, may we have the veil lifted from our heart, receive the shining of the divine life, and have the sight under the anointing. Then we will begin to realize what the church is to Christ and how He views the church in its actual condition. In Revelation 2 and 3 the Lord Himself addressed many matters in the church, but before doing so, He presented to John a vision of the church as golden lampstands. In the eyes of the Lord all seven churches--including Thyatira, Sardis, and Laodicea, as actual local churches--were seven golden lampstands. This indicates that intrinsically, these seven churches were the embodiment and expression of the Triune God. Second, we need Christ's view and understanding concerning the degradation of the church. The Lord Jesus is absolutely clear about the degradation in the churches; nevertheless, it is He who regards the churches intrinsically as golden lampstands. Although the churches, in their history and actual practice, may be degraded in various ways, we need to see everything not from our natural perspective but as the Lord sees. Third, we need to know and carry out His way to care for the church in its condition. We are able to do so because we are governed by the vision of the church and have the Lord's view and understanding of the degradation in the church. We need to know how to minister life, how to conquer the satanic chaos, and how to present the truth. The co-workers in particular need to learn of the Lord how to represent Him and how to carry out His administration to establish and maintain the order in the churches. We need to be one with the Lord to minister Him according to the various situations. Message 1 identifies that the weaknesses and failures in the churches are due to the principle of Babylon, which is hypocrisy. To overcome this principle we must take Christ as our burnt offering. As the burnt offering, Christ is the One who is absolute for God and for His satisfaction. When we take Christ as our burnt offering and consecrate ourselves to, in, with, by, and through Him as our burnt offering, we become ashes. The ashes of the burnt offering were handled by the priests in a very stately and dignified way by placing them on the east side of the altar. The east side is the side toward the sunrise and is an allusion to resurrection. By being brought into resurrection, we are brought into the transformation of the Triune God to become gold, pearl, and precious stones, which are the building materials of the New Jerusalem. Hence, the ashes eventually become the New Jerusalem. This should be our daily experience. Messages 2 through 4 show that we need to consider the degradation of the church so that we may be inoculated against the decline. This divine and mystical vaccine will prevent us from repeating the failures in the churches and from falling into degradation. This inoculation will bring us back to the straight way of God's economy concerning the church. We need to take the straight way to be one with the persecuted Jesus by going outside the camp and bearing His reproach. The straight way is for the believers to be brought into the church in the way of life and built up in this life into the Body of Christ to bear the testimony of Jesus. The Lord's recovery is for the preparation of the bride, and in order for the bride to be prepared, the local churches must become in reality both the Body of Christ and the one new man. The Body is an organism through which the Lord can move to carry out His administration, and the one new man is a corporate person who will fulfill Genesis 1:26, expressing God with His image and representing Him with His dominion. In God's wise organic salvation, the Body and the one new man become the bride. Messages 5 through 8 consider the overcomers in the church. Instead of expressing a hope that everyone in the church will suddenly become absolutely faithful to the Lord, the Lord calls for overcomers. The Lord Jesus Himself is the first Overcomer (Rev. 3:21; 5:5), and He will reproduce Himself in those who have the heart to be produced as overcomers. The Reports and Announcements section of this issue contains reports from the January and February 2017 gospel trips to South Africa and Europe. There is also 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 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 21 No 03 written by Various Authors and published by Living Stream Ministry. This book was released on 2017-03-01 with total page 132 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Ministry of the Word Vol 21 No 11 written by Various Authors and published by Living Stream Ministry. This book was released on with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Ministry of the Word Vol 21 No 08 written by Various Authors and published by Living Stream Ministry. This book was released on 2017-08-01 with total page 183 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 held in White Plains, New York, May 26-29, 2017. The subject of this series of messages is "Knowing Life and the Church." The banners in the following section embody the crucial truths and the main burden of the conference. The Reports and Announcements section at the end of this issue contains the "Summer 2017 Mass Distribution Update" as well as 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 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 21 No 9 written by Various Authors and published by Living Stream Ministry. This book was released on with total page 205 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Ministry of the Word Vol 21 No 01 written by Various Authors and published by Living Stream Ministry. This book was released on 2017-01-01 with total page 259 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Ministry of the Word Vol 22 No 12 written by Various Authors and published by Living Stream Ministry. This book was released on with total page 185 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This issue of The Ministry of the Word contains the last eight messages given during the fall 2002 term of the full-time training in Anaheim, California. The general subject of this series of messages is "Christ and the Church in the Psalms." The messages in this issue cover Psalms 118 through 150. In Psalm 118 we see Christ as the stone for God's building. God's building is God's expression. God's eternal intention is to have a corporate, glorious, living, organic, eternal divine-human expression of Himself, which is His building. Christ, the stone which the builders rejected, became the head of the corner in resurrection. Christ, the stone, is constituting Himself into us through transformation to make us living stones for God's building. Then He, as the foundation stone, cornerstone, and topstone, and we, as the many living stones, will become the glorious dwelling place of God, which is typified by the temple. In Psalm 119 we see that Christ is the reality of the law as the testimony of God and the word of God. Christ is the reality of the law as the testimony of God, signifying Christ as the living portrait of all that God is.

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 26 No 08 written by Various Authors and published by Living Stream Ministry. This book was released on 2022-10-30 with total page 175 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This issue of The Ministry of the Word contains Messages 17 through 24 given during the spring 2022 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 emphasize Romans 7 and especially chapter 8. The general subject of this series of messages is derived from footnote 1 on Romans 5:14, which says that chapters 5 through 8 of Romans "can be called the kernel of the Bible." The footnote also points out that life and death form two contrasting lines through these chapters and that man is in the middle between the line of life, which represents God, and the line of death, which represents Satan. Life and death are the intrinsic essence of the kernel of the Bible. In Romans 7 and 8 we see that Paul discovered four laws--four spontaneous, automatic, effortless, and unconscious universal principles, or functions. In particular, there are three lives and four laws revealed in these chapters. The first law, the law of God, is the moral and objective law. The second law is the law of good in man's soul, especially the mind, which corresponds to the created human life and which desires to carry out the law of God. The third law is the law of sin and of death, which derives from the evil satanic life in our flesh; this law is stronger than the law of good within and thus seizes man's desire to do good and turns it into an opportunity to sin. The fourth law is the law of the Spirit of life, which is higher than and overcomes the law of sin and of death; this law derives from the uncreated divine life that is now in our regenerated human spirit. We need to see these three lives and four laws in order to experience the indwelling Christ as the law of the Spirit of life. We also need to see what the flesh is. The flesh denotes the totality of the fallen old man, our entire fallen being; man is totally flesh because the fallen being today is under the dominion of the fallen flesh. The flesh is enmity against God, the flesh is not subject to God's law, the flesh is not able to subject itself to the law of God, and the flesh can never please God. Every aspect of our flesh, whether good or evil, is an enemy of God's authority. Whatever is of the flesh is against God's throne; it will be used by Satan, the subtle one, the enemy of God, to hinder God's purpose. The flesh is the "meeting hall" and the compound of sin, death, and Satan; the flesh is a hopeless case and can never be improved. However, in His wisdom and sovereignty God uses our flesh as a compelling force that causes us to turn to our spirit. We are either in the spirit or in the flesh; there is no third place for us to be. The believer is a miniature garden of Eden--with God as the tree of life in his spirit, Satan as the tree of knowledge in his flesh, and his mind in between. In Romans 8 the mind is neutral, being between the regenerated, mingled spirit and the fallen body, the flesh. Setting the mind on the spirit is the key to death or life. Because both Satan and God are in us, our mind has become a battlefield between God and Satan. Whether we are one with Satan or one with God depends upon where we set our mind. In order to fight the battle against the enemy, we must know that the mind is the battlefield and that the way to protect and cover our mind is to turn it to the Lord all the time. The Bible requires only one thing of us--that we walk according to the mingled spirit, which is to live, move, act, behave, have our being, and do everything in the mingled spirit. While we remain in the touch with the Lord, staying in contact with Him in our spirit, the law of the Spirit of life works automatically, spontaneously, and effortlessly within us. By the working, the spreading, of the law of the Spirit of life within us, God makes us the same as He is in life, nature, and expression. We are conformed to the image of the firstborn Son of God by the working of the law of the Spirit of life. 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 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 Seditious Theology written by Mark Johnson and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-04-01 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Seditious Theology explores the much analysed British punk movement of the 1970s from a theological perspective. Imaginatively engaging with subjects such as subversion, deconstruction, confrontation and sedition, this book highlights the stark contrasts between the punk genre and the ministry of Jesus while revealing surprising similarities and, in so doing, demonstrates how we may look at both subjects in fresh and unusual ways. Johnson looks at both punk and Jesus and their challenges to symbols, gestures of revolt, constructive use of conflict and the shattering of relational norms. He then points to the seditious pattern in Jesus' life and the way it can be discerned in some recent trends in theology. The imaginative images that he creates provide a challenging image of Jesus and of those who have relooked radically in recent years at what being a ’seditious’ follower of Christ means for the church. Introducing both a new partner for theological conversation and a fresh way of how to go about the task, this book presents a powerful approach to exploring the life of Christ and a new way of engaging with both recent theological trends and the more challenging expressions of popular culture.