the normal Christian life and the normal church life: day by day, glory to glory, and house to house!

Praise the Lord for the genuine church life in the Lord’s recovery! I am so grateful to the Lord for bringing me into His up-to-date move, into what He desires to do today – the Lord’s recovery!

As we were watching message 10 from the Crystallization Study of the Psalms (1), entitled, Christ as the Center of God’s move on the earth, I realized that it is such a mercy from the Lord to be in the local expression of the Body of Christ, in the local church! Our God is enjoyable – we can simply taste and see that the Lord is good!

But the enjoyment of God is so much more richer and higher, even more excellent and on a higher plane, when you enjoy God in His house! The enjoyment of God in the house of God is much higher and more excellent than the personal individual enjoyment of Christ! Actually, just by being in the church and praising the Lord, every problem is solved and the enemy is defeated!

I have this as my experience so many times – I am loaded with problems, worries, or things that I need to do – but I come to the meetings of the church, and I just open to the Lord and praise the Lord!

When I exercise my spirit and enjoy the Lord, I am released and freed! It is almost as if I bring my problems to the meeting, or Satan’s accusations and his wearing out tactics, and I give myself to the Lord to praise Him – and when I leave the meeting, Satan is defeated, and the problems are gone!

I don’t need a self-help book on “how to overcome my temper”, or “how to be a better person” – I just need to come to the meetings of the church and praise the Lord! Here we have God’s blessing!

Saints, if you simply place yourself in the Body in a practical way and remain in the Body, the victory is yours! Don’t try to overcome or solve the problems – just “bring your problems to the meeting” and praise the Lord! The problems will follow you to the meeting, but when you get into the meeting, they flee away!

When we come to meet with the saints on the genuine ground of oneness, God as the Only Good One is giving Himself to us as our everything!

This is our normal Christian life and our normal church life – a life of daily feasting on the Lord, enjoying Him, and if there are problems that try to weigh us down and wear us out – we bring our problems to the church meetings and enjoy the Lord with the saints, praising the Lord!

I enjoyed these simple pairs of words which express the normal Christian life and the normal church life (as shared by the brother in the message):

• Day By Day – we have a day by day Christian life and church life! We see this in Psa. 68:19 and 2 Cor. 4:16. We need a fresh supply of the resurrection life day by day! In Exodus 23:30 we see that the people of Israel took the land little by little – day by day, little by little, we gain Christ and we are constituted with Him! This process is not quick – we are slowly and daily getting constituted with the Word and growing in life for the building up of the Body of Christ!
• Brighter and Brighter (Prov. 4:18) – our Christian life and our church life should not be darker and darker; rather, as we enjoy the Lord day by day, we become brighter and brighter! The Lord shines on us every morning, and He continues to shine in us every day – until we become brighter and brighter! We become beings of light, sons of the light, even the light of the world!
• Morning by Morning (Isa. 50:4) – not only day by day, but specifically morning by morning we need to be awakened by the Lord and instructed by Him. We love spending time with the Lord in the morning to gain Him, to listen to Him, and to be instructed by Him. As we spend time with Him in the morning, He is being deposited and constituted into our whole being!
• Glory to Glory (2 Cor. 3:18) – we behold the Lord and we reflect the Lord just like a mirror – from one degree of glory to another degree of glory! Both in our personal time with the Lord and in the meetings with the saints, we need to enjoy the Lord by being unveiled, by beholding the Lord, and by reflecting the Lord! Our church life and our Christian life is a life from one degree of glory to another degree of glory!
• From Strength to Strength (Psa. 84:5-7) – as those who wait on the Lord, we mount up wings like eagles, and we run but not get weary! Though we may age physically, by enjoying the Lord both personally and corporately, we go on in the Christian life and in the church life from strength to strength!
• Grace upon Grace (John 1:16) – Christ is our enjoyment and we enjoy Him as grace upon grace! When in the Holiest place we touch the throne of grace, grace as a river shall flow! Many times God doesn’t remove the obstacles from our path – rather, He increases the level of grace, giving us grace upon grace! In the church life, we just enjoy grace – the Triune God who was processed for our enjoyment!
• Here a little, There a little (Isa. 28:13) – We don’t apprehend and comprehend everything from the beginning, rather, we learn the truth and we get constituted with the truth here a little, there a little. Spend a bit of time with the Lord – you get constituted with Him; meet with the saints regularly – here a little, there a little, and you get more God! These little by little, here a little and there a little, get deposited and the quantity of God in our being grows and increases!
• One by One (1 Cor. 14:31) – in the church life we can all prophesy, but one by one! There’s no dis-harmony in our speaking and our prophesying, but we follow one another to speak one by one!
• From House to House (Acts. 2:46) – we live a vital group church life, from home to home / from house to house! Here, in the day to day house to house Christ as the organic Shepherd in His ascension takes care of all the saints – one by one!

Saints, we want to be normal Christians in a normal and proper church life! Praise the Lord, in the church life we enjoy the Lord personally and when we gather together, and we are being built up into the Body of Christ! And this is day by day, brighter and brighter, morning by morning, from glory to glory, from strength to strength, with grace upon grace, here a little – there a little, one by one, and house to house! Praise the Lord for the normal Christian life and the normal church life!

[sharing inspired very much from the brother’s sharing in message 10 of the Crystallization-Study of the Psalms (1).Similar sharing online via, The Normal Christian Life and Church Life (John Paul Petrash)]