Peace, Word, and Prayer.

Three matters that we enjoyed as the church through the Lord's speaking last week are the Peace of God, the Word of Christ, and Persevering in Prayer. My personal enjoyment of these three matters was inclined personally. But on the Lord's day, a brother's presentation of the same matters on the corporate side enlightened me. I enjoyed these truths personally, which is good, but I also have to enjoy these matters in the Body corporately as presented by the brother.

The following messages in the insets are all excerpts from the ministry books, HWMR The Goal of the Lord's Recovery to Bring Forth the One New Man, Week 5, published by Living Stream Ministry. The ministry speaks for itself, and the best way to herald the enjoyment is to simply quote them.

Allowing the Peace of Christ to Arbitrate in Our Hearts

And let the peace of Christ arbitrate in your hearts, to which also you were called in one Body; and be thankful. Colossians 3:15 

We need to allow the peace of Christ to arbitrate in our hearts (Col. 3:12-15; Eph. 2:14-18; Rom. 5:1; Matt. 18:21-35). The Greek term for arbitrate can also be rendered “umpire, preside, or be enthroned as a ruler and decider of everything”; the arbitration peace of Christ dissolves our complaint against anyone (Col. 3:13).

If we allow the peace of Christ to arbitrate in our hearts, this peace will settle all the disputes among us; we shall have peace with God vertically and with the saints horizontally. Through the arbitration of the peace of Christ, our problems are solved, and the friction between the saints disappears; then the church life is preserved in sweetness, and the new man is maintained in a practical way. The arbitrating of the peace of Christ is Christ working within us to exercise His rule over us, to speak the last word, and to make the final decision (cf. Isa. 9:6-7). If we stay under the ruling of the enthroned peace of Christ, we shall not offend others or damage them; rather, by the Lord’s grace and with His peace we shall minister life to others. This peace should bind all the believers together and become their uniting bond (Eph. 4:3).

 It is very likely that I may never fight outwardly with any saint over any matter, but that does not guarantee an absolute peace and harmony with the saints inwardly. Perhaps, we are in the same locality enjoying the church life together. Perhaps, we are even coordinating in services without any friction or division. Yet deep within, we may not have the real oneness and peace in coordination. A good example is that of North Korea versus South Korea. They have been on 'peace accord' or 'ceasefire' for decades. They were never outrightly on war despite the verbal and propaganda threats. But they are not even in absolute oneness between themselves. This is not the genuine inward peace of the Bible, but a manufactured peace in name only. To have a genuine peace, we need to let the peace of Christ to arbitrate in our hearts.   

Letting the Word of Christ Dwell in Us Richly

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.  And whatever you do in word or in deed, do all things in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him.

We need to let the word of Christ dwell in us richly (Col.3:16-17). When the peace of Christ arbitrates in us and keeps us in a situation full of oneness and harmony, we become the place of God’s speaking, His oracle (vv. 15-16; Rev. 2:1, 7). God’s speaking requires oneness; division causes God’s speaking to diminish, even to cease altogether (Lev. 1:1). Since oneness is a necessary condition for God’s speaking, we need to let the peace of Christ arbitrate in our hearts (Col. 3:15). For the word of Christ to dwell in us richly means that it has adequate room in us to permeate and saturate our whole being; it is crucial for us to let the word of Christ enter into us, dwell in us, prevail in us, and replace our concepts, opinions, and philosophies (Psa. 119:130; cf. Rev. 21:23; 22:5).

We need to allow the word of the Lord to have the first place in us so that we may experience the functions of the word of God operating within us and ministering the riches of Christ into our being (Col. 3:16). 

The Functions of the Word of God 
The word of God enlightens (Psa. 119:105,130), nourishes (Matt. 4:4; 1 Tim. 4:6), and waters us to quench our thirst (Isa.55:8-11). The word of God strengthens (1 John 2:14b; Prov. 4:20-22), washes (Eph. 5:26), and builds us up (Acts 20:32). The word of God completes, perfects (2 Tim. 3:15-17), and edifies us by sanctifying us (John 17:17). By allowing the word of God to inhabit us, we can become a proper human being, a God-man filled with Christ as the reality of the attributes of God (Col. 3:17-25; Phil. 4:5-8).

Persevere in Prayer

Persevere in prayer, watching in it with thanksgiving. Colossians 4:2

Unceasingly pray. 1 Thessalonians 5:17

We need to persevere in prayer (Col. 4:2-3). We need to allow adequate time for prayer, which will enable us to absorb more of the riches of Christ as the all-inclusive land (1:12; 2:6-7; 4:2). We need to take time to absorb the Lord, contacting Him in a definite and prevailing way (Luke 8:13; Matt. 14:22-23; 6:6). To meet with God in the morning is not only to meet with Him early in the day; it is also to meet with God in a situation that is full of light; we should go to God alone, without any persons, matters, or things to distract or occupy us (Prov. 4:18; Exo. 33:11a; 34:3-4; Mark 1:35). When we pray, coming forward to the throne of grace, grace will become a river flowing in us and supplying us (Heb. 4:16; cf. Rev. 22:1).

In order to fight on God’s side against Satan, we need to persevere in prayer (Dan. 6:10). As those who take sides with God, we find that the whole fallen universe is against us and, in particular, against our prayer; resistance to prayer lies not only outside of us but even within us (Matt. 26:41). To pray is to go against the current, the trend, in the fallen universe (Luke 18:1-8).

We need to set aside definite times for prayer; our attitude should be that prayer is our most important business and that nothing should be allowed to interfere with it (Dan. 6:10; Acts 12:5, 12). We need to remain in an atmosphere of prayer by continually exercising our spirit (Eph.6:18;1 Tim. 4:7; 2 Tim. 1:7; Col. 1:3, 9). We need to pray without ceasing, to persevere in prayer, keeping ourselves intimately connected to the Lord (1 Thes. 5:17; Matt. 26:41; Col. 2:19). Even in the smallest details we need to inquire of the Lord; to do this is to persevere in prayer and thereby to live Christ (cf. Josh.9:14; Phil. 4:7-8).

Lamb and Loaf

Luke 

22:15  And He said to them, With desire I have desired to eat this passover with you before I suffer,

22:16  For I tell you that I shall by no means eat it until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God.

22:17  And He received a cup and gave thanks and said, Take this and divide it among yourselves;

22:18  For I tell you, I shall by no means drink from now on of the product of the vine until the kingdom of God comes.

22:19  And He took a loaf and gave thanks, and He broke it and gave it to them, saying, This is My body which is being given for you; do this in remembrance of Me.

22:20  And similarly the cup after they had dined, saying, This cup is the new covenant established in My blood, which is being poured out for you.

The regular Life-study pursuit that I am graced to enjoy has been a great blessing to me; in my understanding of the word of God and in my experience of Christ as life. This particular reading on "the Lamb and the Loaf" is a new light dawned in my Christian life. I have never known, understood and enjoyed the truth of the Passover and the Lord's Table in such an enlightening way.

Lamb

Luke 22: 7-18 is a record concerning the eating of the Passover Lamb. In the Passover, the main thing enjoyed by God’s chosen people was the lamb. The meat of the lamb was for them to eat. For redemption, the Lord was offered as the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. As such a Lamb, He was an individual entity, shedding His blood, for redemption, and as such, there was no concept of feasting nor was their any way for man to participate in the accomplishment of redemption accomplished by the Lord Jesus alone at the cross as the fulfilment and reality of the Passover Lamb.

Loaf

Luke 22: 19-20 is a record concerning the eating of the Lord's Table. In the Lord’s table, the main item for us to enjoy as New Testament believers is not a lamb; the main item for our enjoyment is the bread. An individual Lamb was offered for redemption, but the outcome is not the Lamb but the bread, a corporate entity, composed of many grains grounded into flour and baked into a loaf of bread. This loaf is for feasting and enjoyment. This is the issue of the Lord's death and resurrection. In the Old Testament feast of the Passover the enjoyment was of the lamb, but in the New Testament feast, the enjoyment is of the loaf. The Lamb has become a loaf through the process of death and resurrection.

Though the Bible has a complete record of all the detail, the divine revelation to understand, experience, and enjoy such a revealed word of God needs a proper interpretation by the enlightening of the Holy Spirit. God can definitely give a direct revelation to anyone who seeks and longs for a revelation of the word, but whether God will grant such absolutely depends on the Lord. In many cases, His Spirit will simply guide His seekers to those whom the Lord has already enlightened. The wheel was invented already, there is no need to reinvent another wheel. In the same manner, I humble myself and simply learn from the brothers who have received the enlightenment and revelation from God. And in this case, I am blessed to learn from brother Witness Lee.

Since this life-study pursuit, my appreciation of the Passover Lamb and the Lord's Table has been uplifted and I believe, my enjoyment of the Lord's Table will be sweeter than ever before. 

Praise the Lord for the Life-study of the Bible! It makes me love to read the Bible much more... 

Training and Perfecting

Four days of training for the full-timers in India was held in Gurgaon. These four days were a real perfecting training to all of us. The nature and content of the training were very subjective and practical. I can testify that the Lord has been perfecting, blending and building up the full-timers and co-workers in India. 

The most striking matter is the oneness among all of us, which is also the key for us to go on in His service. Besides, there were perfecting sessions on dealing with our persons to be proper God-men. It even touched our being on matters such as money, relationship, and ambition. These are the three gophers that eat away many servants of the Lord. These were negative warnings and very timely too.

There were practical sessions on morning revival, calling upon the Lord's name, pray-reading the word of God, using the morning revivals, prophesying, gospel preaching,  PSRP, shepherding in home meeting and group meeting. Though these items are common and basic, it is the basic that has to be set right for further progress. 

All these sessions were taught by an experienced brother from Taiwan who has a proven testimony and track record, both academically and in the Lord's service. I felt very blessed to be under the perfecting of such senior and matured brother. 

Above all, I could also testify of the oneness and one accord the Lord has been gaining among us in His recovery in India. Though we no longer have any "spiritual giants" with some senior coworkers taking the lead, the Lord gracefully blend some young brothers to serve in coordination. This is a wonderful testimony. In spirit and in reality, we all could feel and testify that we are truly one. 

The recent burden on purchasing a property in Chennai for blending center has practically touched our inward being and blend us all together; breaking us all away from the fallen concept of regions, races, cultures, and languages. Despite the land being in Chennai, all the saints in India offered as one man for the one Body of Christ! The same goes with the offering for the One Recovery Version Translation Project. The Lord also blends the publication and propagation work too, much sweeter and stronger than before. All these are the blessings we received through the Lord's training and perfecting.

May the Lord continue to bless His move in India.

New Ones: Gospel Preaching

As we have been praying for quite a while now for the practice of the God-ordained way of gospel preaching and shepherding, the Lord begins to answer our prayer one by one. First, He stirred up the spirit of the saints in our church life with the burden of prayer. Then He led us to His word concerning going out to preach the gospel or visit people. He led us specifically to a Bible verse with a footnote in Johnn 15:16. After one Lord's table meeting we all enjoyed pray-reading and fellowshipping on "go forth."

John 15:16
You did not choose Me, but I chose you, and I set you that you should go forth and bear fruit and that your fruit should remain, that whatever you ask the Father in My name, He may give you.

Note from the Recovery VersionThe Greek word for go forth means to depart, implying to leave for another place; hence, it is rendered go forth. It is the same Greek word as that for go in 14:4 and 16:5. The fruit borne by going forth in this way does not denote the virtues of the fruit-bearer's character, such as the fruit of the Holy Spirit in the believer's living, mentioned in Gal. 5:22-23, but it denotes the believers produced by the fruit-bearer. This corresponds with the subject of this section, 12:20--17:26, which is Christ's multiplication. The virtues we possess through our abiding in the Lord cannot be counted as Christ's multiplication. Only the believers that we produce in the Lord are the tangible multiplication of Christ. The Father's house in ch. 14, the true vine in this chapter, and the man-child in ch. 16 are all related to the multiplication of Christ.

As we enjoyed a time of fellowship as a church, we all are burdened to first pray for all our contacts and plan to meet the relatives of all the saints this coming month. The Lord led us in such a way that every Lord's day after the meeting, we would fellowship on how to practically carry out our burden. Last Lord's day, we practiced preaching the gospel in Hindi in order to reach out to the local Hindi speaking people. The Lord also blessed us with new ones.

The Mother of a Paralysed Boy

A sister who is a nurse by profession is working for a family whose child is paralyzed due to a brain hemorrhage. She requested a visit for prayer which led me and my wife with another sister to visit. When we saw the situation of the child lying on a bed, our burden was for the mother and her family's salvation. I wasted no time to preach the gospel and led her to the Lord Jesus Christ and also led her to pray to receive the Lord. Of course, we also prayed for the healing of the boy child. Then my wife established a contact with her over the phone. Our prayer is for the healing of the boy and also for the spiritual healing and salvation of the entire family. 

Life Insurance Agent

A week ago, a new one brought by one of our brothers attended the meeting. He works for a life insurance company. Though he indeed to sell life insurance to me, I took that opportunity of "life-insurance" into a gospel. I preached the gospel to him and expounded the truth concerning the receiving of eternal life which has been insured from eternity past to eternity future. To receive such an eternal life insurance, the only condition is the believing into the Lord Jesus Christ. After preaching the gospel to him, he received the gospel and prayed to receive the Lord.

A Seeking Engineer

Last Saturday, during our gospel preaching, a seeking one was contacted, who also attended the Lord's table meeting. Though he did not partake of the bread and the wine, he enjoyed the meeting so much that he even stood and spoke his enjoyment in the meeting. After the meeting, he testified how much joy and happiness he felt by attending the meeting. We also preached the gospel to him in a fine and thorough way and led him to receive the Lord in prayer. Since he is such a seeker, we also gifted him the New Testament in Hindi for him and his wife. His promise was that if he continues to enjoy, he would take a step further for baptism and start a home meeting in his house. 

Besides, we also met another an engineer who received the Lord in the park during our gospel preaching. Then, we preached the gospel to two Muslim seekers; as they wanted to know who Jesus is. We spent over an hour to preach to these seekers. These are few notable accounts of how the Lord begins to answer our prayer and honor our burden. 

Shepherded into Baptism

It was about a week ago that two brothers decided to get baptized as the ones who have been shepherded by the saints in the church. The two brothers are comparatively new in time as they recently came into contact with us. Nevertheless, their reception of the word and participation in the church life is commendable. The two of them were supplied by the ministry of the word when they first came. The saints have faithfully ministered the word to them until they reach a point where the word enlightened them of their need for baptism. I personally was glad that we did not "push" them nor in any way "coerced" them for baptism. This was their own personal decision before the Lord and the Body.

One of the brothers particularly has been graced by the Lord to seek the purity of the word. He was introduced to the church through a sister who was also introduced by another sister. When I first contacted him, he came with much hunger and thirst for the word. My first meeting with him was accounted in the first part of this blog: http://palmeichung.blogspot.com/2018/05/shepherding-new-ones.html

From day one, I mentioned to him that as a genuine believer he also needed to be genuinely baptized, both in the Spirit and in water according to the Bible in John 3:5. But I asked him to take his own time and make his own decision. Since then, the Lord has been supplying him with the ministry of the word, until finally he actually took baptism out of his own decision.

Though there are different opinions on baptism depending upon whose opinion it is; the Bible has a firm word that answers all. He who believes and is baptized shall be saved, but he who does not believe shall be condemned-(Mark 16:16). Blessed are they who simply believes into the Lord Jesus Christ and obey His word. The Bible did not mention any preconditions for baptism except believing into the Lord Jesus Christ. It is religious, superstituous, human concepts that insert conditions as though the written word of God is not sufficient. Blessed are those who obey the word as it is. And our two brothers finally obeyed. Praise the Lord!

Churching: UC Berkeley and Stanford

As a part of our churching to the bay area of California, the brother also took us to Standford University and the University of California, Berkeley. These two universities are within the top ten ranking of the best universities worldwide. Just to get the feel of the highly, scholarly, and academically charged ambiance of the campuses we visited both the campuses. Thank God, the churches nearby are burdened and are propagating in these campuses too. The church in Palo Alto is within the vicinity of Stanford University and the church in Berkeley, UC Berkeley. Visiting these campuses made me wish I could be younger again to study. I hope that many of our young saints be enrolled into these top universities for the Lord's testimony, besides the academic reason.

At the church in Berkeley, the leading brothers took us for a love-feast and campus tour. The fellowship with these brothers was very enlightening. In fact, the earlier opposition to the Lord's recovery stemmed from this university with a publishing house that published a negative book located just near the university campus. I was impressed by the wisdom the Lord gave to our brothers in handling such a fierce opposition diluted with false allegation. Believe it or not, I read a negative article against the Lord's recovery sixteen years ago when I was still a student and seeker who was not yet in the church life. That letter was straight from the heart of an opposer from this university in Berkeley. Though that letter was intended to spread "bad news" about the Lord's recovery, to me it was a "good news," as the content of the letter cited a testimony of a brother who left his girlfriend after he got saved through the saints and brought into the church life.

The church could never be defeated as it of Christ, so also His recovery. The church bought a very good building from the Baptist many years ago, renovated it, and now is being used for multiple purposes. Besides the church meeting hall, brothers and sisters' houses were also part of the building usage, and this is also the building from where defense and confirmation of the truth was started and carried out. The brothers labored in the truth writing theological articles to refute the false claims of the opposers. I deeply respect the brothers whom the Lord pleased to use in upholding the truths. And I felt honor and privileged to be able to visit the church and fellowship with the brothers.

Another interesting matter is, a brother who had done his Ph.D. and is now working in UC Berkely. Twelve years ago he visited the church in New Delhi as a student and working ones yet without informing his boss. It was then that his debit card was blocked out of suspicion. Then helpless with nothing at hand, he somehow was introduced to the brothers in the church at that time and was financially and spiritually restored back. This brother was so happy to meet us from India and reminded us of his visit to New Delhi and Gurgaon with throwback photos.

May the Lord gain many top students from these top universities for His testimony!

Churching: San Francisco

A brother and his daughter drove us all the way from Southern California to the city of San Francisco. As a part of their hospitality, they drove us past various scenic landscape to the Golden Gate Bridge. They took us around to view the wonder bridge from different angles with many photo shots as memoirs. Then we joined a group of saints from Taiwan for a lovefest fellowship at the meeting of the church in San Francisco.

While we dined together with the two leading elders of the church in San Francisco, the brother enquired about India. In fellowship, we presented a brief report about the Lord's move in India. They were so encouraged that they wanted to encourage the saints in their locality to aggressively propagate the gospel of the kingdom in California. 

One of the elders also mentioned about the opposition they faced from the opposers in the recent past. At that juncture, I was burdened to present how the sovereign Lord would even use the opposers' opposition to gain me. Their false accusations and misaiming online in a bid to curb the spread of the Lord's recovery worldwide only helped to ascertain the orthodoxy and authenticity of the truths and practices of the church life purely and strictly in line with the Bible. What was intended to harm actually became a trigger point for me to deeply research the truths and be recovered! I testified of how even negative propaganda worked out for good to gain me. 

When the brother heard my testimony of how I came in touch with the Lord's recovery, how I read all the negative comments online, yet how those negativities turned out to my deeper understanding of the truth and gained me into the church life by the very propaganda that was intended to keep seeker like me away. He was so excited to hear my testimony. The brothers even requested us to come again and stay longer to have a time of fellowship with the saints in the church in San Francisco. 

After such a fellowship over love-feast we left for our next destination, New York City. The Lord was sovereign in leading us to visit the church there and in His time we will visit the church again. May the Lord bless the church in San Francisco.