Worship and Serve God

Matt. 4:9 - And he said to Him,  All these will I give You if You will fall down and worship me.Matt. 4:10 - Then Jesus said to him, Go away,  Satan! For it is written, “You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only shall you serve".

This morning a sister messaged for a shoring on worship and serving God based on Deuteronomy 12:29-31. In consideration and prayer over this matter of worship, I was led to respond. The Lord's word is rich and enjoyable.

Lord, grace me to serve You and worship You. 

Worship and Serve God

Worshiping God and serving God are two sides of the same coin. In worship, we serve, and in service, we worship. To worship God is to serve God. Without serving God we cannot render real worship to God.

The heathens, unbelievers, have their ways of worshiping "gods". Even today, in ignorance, many believers try to "worship" God in the heathen way. Satan subtly tries his best to infiltrate into the believers' worship of God by any entertaining or amusing, if not fleshy or freshly, ways. And alas, many have been ensnared and are deluded to reckon as worship but when in reality is worshiping something else, veiling Christ, the real object of worship.

And in such, a service ensued, which is someone or something other than Christ; an unconscious adherence to what has been worshiped.

What God had warned our forefathers of the old has now become a reality in today's Christendom.Therefore, we must not worship the Lord our God in their way.

Reality Check 

A genuine worship:

• Is in the spirit. John 4:24
• Offers Christ to God for God's  enjoyment and satisfaction typified by the burnt offering. Exo. 20:24
• Offers Christ to God for our enjoyment and satisfaction mutually with God typified by the peace offering. Exo. 20:24
• Exalts Christ and Christ alone, no other name, person, matter or thing.
• Through the altar, the cross, and by sacrifice, Christ. Exo. 20:24a. Meaning, we are redeemed, dealt with and are experiencing and enjoying Christ for God's purpose.
• Is beholding God and feasting on Christ, eating and drinking Him in the word and in spirit. Exo. 24:11, John 4: 10, 14, 23, 24.
• Invites God's blessings. Exo. 20: 24d
• Is in the Body of Christ, the church, corporately. Heb. 2:12
• Is our Christian life of living Christ. Phil. 1:21
• Is our church life, feasting on Christ typified in Exo. 23:14-16 according to God ordained way to fulfill His divine and eternal economy. Lev. 23:34; Deut. 16:13-15, Rev. 21:2-3.

Babes and Sucklings

Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings / You have established strength / Because of Your adversaries, / To stop the enemy and the avenger. Psalms 8:2  

Babes and sucklings are the simple and pure ones. They are not the weaker ones as in the physical sense of infants. Though weak in themselves but trusting in the Lord; their strength is their weakness in themselves, but strong in the Lord. They have no confidence in themselves but have full confidence in the Lord. They seem ignorant and foolish to the world but their wisdom is the Lord's. Such are the babes and sucklings that impressed me.

As I was studying on babes and sucklings, the Lord renewed my understanding of the word of who the babes and sucklings really are. 

Matthew 5:3 says, "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of the heavens". 

Notes from the Recovery Version reads, "To be poor in spirit is not only to be humble but also to be emptied in our spirit, in the depth of our being, not holding on to the old things of the old dispensation but unloaded to receive the new things, the things of the kingdom of the heavens". 

To me, babes and suckling are such ones who are humble, emptied in spirit always longing for the Lord's feeding and filling. Not presumptuous nor preoccupied, but seeking, loving and longing for the Lord. Not even counting what have already been gained, but looking forward to the things before. And ever pursuing the Lord even until the end.

Out of such babes and sucklings' mouths, the Lord established strength. True indeed today, in my little experiences of life, I can testify to the same. And the Lord will stop enemy and the avenger through such babe and sucklings!

What a prophesy! What wisdom!

My sincere fellowship to certain brothers who seems to know many divine things, at least in doctrine, is to be humble, simple and pure and come to the Lord, especially to the word, to eat and drink the Lord. Not to question and debate on the word with fellow believers, but to receive life supply from the word. For the Bible is the Book of Life. We must come to the Bible as babes and sucklings.

My heart's yearning is the same as well; to be simple and pure as babe and suckling to receive life supply, yes, even more life supply, from the word of God. Even to this extent, I have fellowshipped with some Christian "leaders and pastors" the importance of being poor in spirit, pure in heart and be as babes and sucklings, always eating and drinking the Lord, learning and loving the Lord, and growing to maturity unto His full stature. 

Lord, make me Your babe and suckling.   

Ministry of the Word

A fellowship from a member of the Body a week ago was indeed impregnated with the word of God as he fellowshipped to us, brothers in NCR, concerning the urgent need to be impregnated with the word of God. 

For his words are: Rule upon rule, rule upon rule; Line upon line, line upon line; Here a little, there a little. Isaiah 28:10 

Day by day, we need to come to the word to receive fresh message from God, digest them, live them out, experience them and minister as a fresh message to others, saints, seekers and sinners. Without the word we cannot be a messenger, for a messenger minsters the word. 

The Lord is faithful to us, and minsters to us the timely word. Besides, He grants us the necessary experiences of life by the Spirit through the word. This, He does in course of time as "rule upon rule, rule upon rule".  Even as the experiences deepens, the Lord dispenses Himself into us, working Himself into us, growing from withing our being and gradually forms "line upon line, line upon line". Ultimately what He does will produce a message to be readable to others and becomes the ministry of the word.

In fact, this experience is subjectively John 1:14 "And the Word became flesh and tabernacled among us (and we beheld His glory, glory as of the only Begotten from the Father), full of grace and reality". The word of God is dispensed and impregnated into us, taking the form of a "flesh", in the sense of constitution, and dwelling in us as the fulfillment of Colossians 3:16 "Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to God".  

By this way, we, the ones impregnated with the word of God "rule upon rule and line upon line" becomes the "word becoming flesh and tabernacling among men" are the messengers of God (Rev 2:1) filled with messages from God to the churches. This function and service of ministering the word is the ministry of the word.

Praise the Lord for the ministry of the word through  a brother who is a minister of the word. 

Lord, make me such a minister as well.

The Lord's Promise

Light dispels darkness,Life overcomes death,Love covers all things.

1 Corinthians 13:77 It ^1acovers all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

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7¹ The same Greek word as for bear in 9:12 (see note there). This word means not only (1) to contain, to hold (as a vessel ), and (2) to cover (as a roof ) others' mistakes, but also (3) to shelter and protect by covering (as a roof ).

These are the tag lines that burdened me to fellowship with fellow Christians who accuses and opposes us, not knowing who we are and what we are doing.

As I prepared myself to venture on a journey of fellowship, the Lord's speaking and promises to me were from the book of Jeremiah 1:

5c: I have appointed you as a prophet to the nations.

7 c,d: For everywhere I send you, you shall go; / And everything I command you, you shall speak.

8: Do not be afraid of their faces, / For I am with you to deliver you, declares Jehovah.

9: Then Jehovah stretched out His hand and touched my mouth; and Jehovah said to me, Now I have put My words in your mouth.

10: See, I have appointed you this day / Over the nations and over the kingdoms / To pluck up and to break down, / To destroy and to tear down, /To build up and to plant.

18: And I am now making you today into a fortified city and into an iron pillar and into bronze walls against the whole land, against the kings of Judah, against its princes, against its priests, and against the people of the land. 

The Lord has particular words of promise for everyone according to the need of the hour. I just took the Lord at His word. I was so strengthened in my spirit and the presence of the Lord was richly felt in every meeting with different kind of people at different cities. In fact, in principle, all the words quoted above were fulfilled. Amazing! The Lord's promises are so true and so experiencable.

As the fellowship went on with different people, the light of the Lord shone to dispel misconceptions and misunderstandings. After every fellowship was our brotherly love renewed and strengthened.

In all the fellowship too I looked to the Lord for His life supply, for only in the dispensing of the divine life, death will be swallowed up and overcomed. It is death doing the round among un-exercised spirit of the believers that spread rumors and criticisms. When in fellowship in life, all things were made clear, as death was defeated by life.

Finally, love, a brotherly love, as Christ loved us and gave Himself up for us; with this same divine love, we fellowshipped, not in a way of debating on right or wrong but by love, forgiving any offense, and covering one another, all the works of the enemy were simply subdued.

In life, by life, with love, strengthened by the Lord's word of promise, the journey of brotherly fellowship was very enjoyable and fruitful. And as the Lord leads, I look forward to visit many more fellow Christians for brotherly fellowship.

The promises of the Lord is timely and the Lord has stored up such promises for each one. May we look to the Lord for many more promises.

Lord, 

"Your word is a lamp to my feet 

And a light to my path." 

          Psalms 119:105  

Blending

Blending is not a common word nor a reality among many Christians today. Even to me, though its meaning and significance I know objectively, I have never really experienced and enjoyed it as richly as I did in the recent training held at Lonavla, Maharastra. There, the Lord's presence was richly felt. I believe it is an answer to the prayer of the Body for this particular training.

Everyday and night during the training, I received a rich spiritual supply through the Lord's speaking through the brothers who ministered the word, and during every break time or meal time, through the fellowship with the saints; there all were so rich. My spirit was all the while bubbling with joy when in fellowship; I received life supply from every member I fellowshipped with, whatever the topic of fellowship was. It was all under the Spirit's move. This is not only my experience, but a brother's too, as he told me the same thing about his experience, and they matched mine. He even added that he would never miss such a gathering together at any cost.  And other brothers too were very joyful, echoing the same note. It was not just a mere meeting or training per se, but a time of blending in the spirit for the Body. Praise the Lord for the blending in the Body!

Now, my understanding about blending has been enriched, and my appreciation and longing for more blending to come is sweeter. What a grace that the Lord has ordained such blending time; to be blended and builded up in the Body of Christ.

The ministry of the word, the divine life supply, the  coordination in practical things, the living together, the brotherly adjustment in fellowship, the breaking of the cross of all thing not of Christ and not Christ, and the building up of one another in love are all part of the blending. What a blessing to experience such a blending life! 

Praise the Lord for His work of blending His Body together! 

1 Corinthians 12:2424 But our comely members have no need. But God has ¹blended the body together, giving more abundant honor to the member that lacked,

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24¹ Implying to be mutually adjusted. God has blended all the different members of Christ together into one Body. For this we need much transformation (Rom. 12:2); that is, we need to be transformed from the natural life to the spiritual by the same Spirit for the practical Body life.  

    

A Dream: With Brother Witness Lee

It was the 8th of November 2015, I just enjoyed the Lord's speaking in a Serving Ones Training on "The Crucial Points on the Major Items of the Lord's Recovery Today".  It my wonderful sleep of the night I had a dream, though I usually don't have dreams, and hardly paid any attention to whatever dreams it may be. But this one is special. The dream was:

In a meeting of some sort and during a feasting time, as I was eating from my own plate standing, I saw brother Witness Lee standing and holding a plate of food not far away from me. As I looked at him he called me to him. I walked toward him, and when I was near him, standing beside, he shared to me the portion of food from his plate. Then I ate the food shared to me along with the food already on my plate. Then I woke up.

There may be a couple of ways of interpreting dreams with twists and turns, but what impress me is the fact that I could at least see him in my dream. Though I never thought about him, but the ministry of the word the Lord gave to me through him is so rich, it changes me.

Fourteen years ago when I heard about the name "Witness Lee" for the first time, it never made any impression on me. Much less, when I heard a negative rumor about him, accusing him of being "heretic or even cultic?" I was poisoned to be cautious; all in ignorance and blindness. Nevertheless, when I visited the Gospel Book Room in Chennai through one brother's introduction I purchased all the Indian print books available then, both of Watchman Nee and Witness Lee. I just kept the book in my bookshelves with out reading them at all, but was reading all kinds of Christian writings from biographies to teachings on various Biblical topics.

One night I could not sleep. And as I was browsing through the stack of books on my shelves to find something to read to pass time and at least to induce me to sleep, I randomly picked a book "The All-Inclusive Christ" by Witness Lee and randomly flip-opened to page 43, The Valleys and the Hills under chapter four, The Goodness of the Land-Its Unsearchable Riches. I read through the subsection and was amazed at the explanation which my spirit confirmed to be true in my own experiences of Christ, as I had been going through the valley and then being led in resurrection! Then I thought to myself, why I did not read this book before? The next day in a train on my way to my final year Master's degree Computer project, I read through the whole book. Quite contrary to the evil speaking of rumors, my first experience of brother Witness Lee's speaking was an experience of a "valleys and hills." No Christian author had such a spiritual impact on me at the first random reading, though I had read many Christian books by then.

Later, "Christ versus Religion" again by Witness Lee helped me a lot to see myself being superstitiously religious in my Christian life and was delivered from many religious thoughts, beliefs and duties which were blinding me from Christ and the church. Again another book, "The Vision of the Age" clarified the work of God in this age and how the Lord needs me to be in His divine will of building up the Body of Christ. This brought me to an understanding that if I am a Christian I must be in God's perfect will of fulfilling His perfect will of building up His Body. And Later, "A Genuine Ground of Oneness" made me see through the Word in the light of the Holy Spirit the oneness the Lord prayed for in John 17, and His aspiration expressed in the Old Testament, and this genuine ground of oneness is in the Triune God only, and as Christians we must be in God, standing on the ground of oneness in Spirit and on the ground of locality in a local church, which led me fully out of the human made system of denomination and be recovered into a normal practice of the church-life. These are just brief experiences of Christ through the help of the Lord's servant and minister of the word. Word does not suffice to write many more similar experiences. 

I have never met brother Witness Lee face to face, I only see him ministering the word recorded on video tapes. But I thank the Lord that such a brother existed. Though he went to be with the Lord in the same year I came into the Lord(meaning the year I was saved, 1997), my Christian life have been so much blessed by the help he rendered in his ministry of the word, of which today I am a serving one in the same ministry, by the Lord's sovereignty. Praise the Lord!

A dream, indeed, of eating food from the same plate as he did. Eating Christ through the ministry the ministry of the word.

Speech Seasoned with Salt

Let your speech be always with grace, seasoned with salt, that you may know how you ought to answer each one.  Colossians 4:6

One of the reminders the Lord has been reminding me of, is in the matter of speaking. As James recorded rightly in 4:11, "Do not speak against one another, brothers. He who speaks against a brother or judges his brother speaks against the law and judges the law. But if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law but a judge" and in 3:10, "Out of the same mouth come forth blessing and cursing. These things, my brothers, ought not to be so".

Yes, the Lord grace me to realise the seriousness of my speaking and it has been my prayer that my speaking will indeed be seasoned with salt and full of grace. And at the same time, I also am reminding my beloved brothers to do the same. 

Recently, after fellowshipping with one of the opposers, clarifying his misunderstandings, as a concluding word I reminded him too not to speak and spread false rumor as he is a prominent Christian writer. Instead, in brotherly fellowship, I fellowshipped with him to speak words that ministers Christ, and reminded him of the importance of our words to be seasoned with salt, that our words be dealt with killing the germs of negativism.

Unbridled tongues, words unseasoned with salt are some of the tools Satan uses to divide the Body of Christ and create disharmony among Christians. If we Christians are not careful in our speakings we might as well, in ignorance, turn out to be the devil's evangelists. As some "evangelists" instead of preaching and spreading the good news of Jesus Christ are propagating the bad news about fellow Christians and damaging the work of God in their blindness. Such "evangelists" are many today, professing as Christian evangelists but doing the work of Satan by slandering their fellow believers with white-lies, twisted truths, hear-say mongers of rumors and unknowing and effectively becoming Satanic evangelist.

Lord, preserve me from being such "speakers." 

May my words be full of grace, ministering Christ as life, words seasoned with salt, speaking words that builds up the body of Christ.