The Tree of Life

Christ is so real to me this past week, and the tree of life is no doctrine, its real. Just in pray-reading the Word with my wife and prayer with my family, supplied me a lot. Not a matter of the content of the prayer or the Word I read, but the touching of the divine life in every simple sentences of prayer and in every line of the Word. The chewing of the Word, just a verse, is sufficient to ignite the flame to burn within me. O what a blessed simple practice of eating the tree of life! What a shame on all religious rituals that never get connected with the divine life supply.

In my reading of the Word, I go very slowly, sometimes just a single verse, and enjoy the Word and praise the Lord for the deep revelations of just a verse. The Word is indeed life, life is God Himself who is eternal. The deeper I delved into it the more life it sprang out.

The speaking of the Spirit too is very real. This week I needed to decide on important matter, and as I brought the matter before the Lord, the answer was very instantaneous. Immediately, I was clear what to decide and had perfect peace. The Lord is sovereign.

The Truth

The Word of God is the truth, the ultimate truth in life fattened with experiences and enjoyment. Truth is not merely a doctrine objectively, but very much confirmed by subjective experiences. Once one is constituted and grounded on the truth, the enemy hardly has any ground for deception. For the knowledge of the truth sets one free from the bondage of religiosity or superstition due to ignorance of the truth. As the Lord said, 'You shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free." What a freedom indeed is in the knowledge and experience of the truth! If it had not been for this, I myself would have fallen into the condemnation of Satan and my own self. The truth rescues me. Halleluiah!

Experiences may fluctuate, feelings may change, circumstances may whirl up and down, but the truth remains the truth, ever steadfast and ever it will be. This weeks' experiences could have succumbed me into introspection of the self, however, the truth stands a strong pillar to lift me up and encouraged me to go in the path of life. O what a blessing! This truth is a Person, Christ Himself living in and through me. The path I tread may not be a bed of roses, but the truth I live and abide by surely is my rod and staff in the valley of the shadow of death.

Church Life

Church life is not merely a meeting, much more it is a fellowship in spirit as the issue of the living in the mingled spirit day by day and the outflow of this living by flowing out the divine life of the Father in love to one another for the building up of the Body of Christ.

This week the Lord convicted me of putting my personal needs before His own. I had cancelled a group meeting because of a personal affair, without much consideration. The result, no peace. Immediately, I rescheduled the meeting for another day, which turned out to be a very enjoyable one. The new ones, though from a very staunch atheistic philosophical background, they hungered for the milk of the Word. What a joy to feed, and be fed by feeding the Word of God!

The Lord also exposed me of my lack for genuine love and care for the saints. The nourishing in divinity with the high peak truth that I have been doing is very good, but better would be to balance with the cherishing care in humanity. Saints are human beings with human feelings. They need tender care and love. Though I cannot solve any of their problems, at least I can care for them and do my best to help in whatever way possible with discernment.

As member of the Body even my personal experience of the Lord should be attuned with, to and for the Body. Its easy to be individualistically spiritually, even experiencing the Lord in many aspects, day by day , moment by moment. However, this can all be aloof from the Body. If so, it easily leads to selfishness and pride. Even the devil can make use of our spirituality to meet his own need. After all, true and genuine spirituality is only in the Body and is for the building up of the Body. I thanked the Lord, He balanced me in the Body through the brothers' fellowship.

Praise the Lord for a wondrous week again.

A New Beginning

Praise be to the Lord Jesus Christ!A wonderful new beginning by abiding in the Vine. Yes, as a branch to draw life juice from the Vine, and grow and spread and climb over any obstacle that may come my way.

I personally experienced and enjoyed the living Christ as I prayed through the night of the transition of the year. New light dawned into many avenues of my inward being. New direction for my living and service. New clarity in matters beyond explanation. And renewed consecration of my life to the Lord. Amen, altogether a new beginning.

This new week began with a re-reading and re-studying of the Bible with intense care, digging into the verses as deep as I could go, and musing upon the divine word enriched with revelations and visions according to God's eternal economy. And this being complemented by the timely holy word for morning revival on "Eating the Lord as the Tree of Life and Living on the Line of Life." What a blessed beginning in newness!

Specifically, the Lord touched me on the matter of eating as portrayed in the book of Leviticus 11 concerning the clean animals and the unclean. My contacting people is also a matter of eating. What I eat determines what I am.

Negatively, unclean animals are those people not on the line of life, however good or ethical they may sound to be. They just spread death and darkness. Some of them may be legally right but all in darkness. Neither should I contact such in any form or media nor should I spread the same. This is a warning to all, including me. Not to contact any "unclean animals", nor be such.

Lord, have mercy on me and the saints in the church that we may eat the tree of life daily and only. Lord, preserve us from the "unclean animals" for your corporate expression as the golden Lampstand where we are.

Hebron

A Life of Fellowship in the Body (2)

The name Hebron means fellowship in the original language. God's house is a matter of life, while fellowship is a matter of living. It is impossible for one to live in Hebron without first passing through Bethel. We have to remember that Hebron comes after Bethel. Where there is God's house, there is fellowship. Fellowship is not a community organized by a number of people. Fellowship can only be found in the house of God. Without God's house it is impossible to have fellowship. If our natural life is not dealt with, we cannot have any fellowship. We live in the Body and have fellowship only when the natural life is dealt with.

The Body is a fact; it is a real, definite fact. In this Body we spontaneously communicate and fellowship with other children of the Lord. Once we ... judge the natural life, we will enter into the life of the Body of Christ and be brought into the fellowship spontaneously. Those who truly know the Body of Christ are freed from individualism spontaneously. They do not trust in themselves, and they realize that they are very weak. They fellowship with all the children of God. God must bring us to the point where we cannot go on without
fellowship. God will show us that what is impossible with individuals is possible when it is done in fellowship. This is the meaning of Hebron.

Bible verses are taken from the Recovery Version of the Bible
and Words of Ministry from Watchman Nee, The God of Abraham,
Isaac, and Jacob, 1993, pp. 35-36. Both are published by
Living Stream Ministry, Anaheim, CA. (Repeat 7/14/98)

Source:
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Comments to: comment@emanna.com.

His Concern

Often times we are brought through a cloudy situation as being veiled by things vague yet real, something of the future yet the need of the present, the memory of the past yet the feeling of the present. And often we wonder why? No doubt this leads us to turn to the living God, and hones our faith in Christ Jesus, yet something mysterious, inexplicable clogs our heart issuing in a sense of burden as a caged bird fluttering to be released. Prayer, and prayer and prayer follows suit. Still all seems the same. And one continues to wonder why?

The Lord is sovereign and He knows what's best and when. In this process of wearying in a miry clay of uncertainty, nevertheless, faith firm in Him, the Lord has a definite way to dispense Himself into us. Prayers; answer or no answer, is not the answer. The answer is, God is dispensing Himself into to us, through our contacting Him amidst desperation. His concern is not if our prayers are answered or not, rather His concern is whether we gain Him or not through the cloudy, stormy, slippery path we are treading on. And much more, His concern is, if His concern has become our concern and not vice versa. He wants to gain us, all the more, in all circumstances, good or bad.

Should we not just let his concern be our concern?

O Lord Jesus Christ, gain me! I need Thee!

Christian Life

Our Christian life should be filled with the divine life of Christ. The very definition of a 'christian' quantifies this. If not, we are as good as a deflated tyre, yet, can still be filled and we must be filled. Otherwise, we fool ourselves and become a laughing stock to the enemy.

Paul, in his epistle to the Philipians, assuredly wrote, "For to me to live is Christ.." By such, he declared he was a christian and testified that he meant it, for indeed, he lived Christ and Christ lived in him and through him. So is the case with us.

Am I a christian? Indeed, I am! For Christ lives in me since I believed into Him. This is my spiritual birthright! Since I was born of God the Spirit in my spirit, Christ, as the seed of the divine life, was sown into my spirit. This is the spiritual fact of every believer.

Christ, in Himself needs no growth, for He is the complete and perfect God. However, in us, since the time we were born of Him in our spirit, He is the Seed in our spirit. This Seed needs growth. Christ needs to grow from within our being and fill us. Otherwise, we become a victim of spiritual malnutrition and will remain a spiritual dwarf.

May we allow Him to grow in us by opening to Him moment by moment, giving Him the rights to every avenue of our inward being, and let Him have His way in us and through us. And be thus filled with Him as the Spirit in our spirit, penetrating through our soul and eventually His filling within us be expressed without through our body in our daily God-man living, a living of a christian life.