Abide in Christ so that He may Abide in us by Loving Him and Abiding in His Word

As believers in Christ, we abide in Christ so that He may abide in us by loving Him and by dealing with the constant word in the Scriptures and the present word as the Spirit; this is to live in the reality of the universal incorporation of God and man. Hallelujah!

We have seen that God’s unique desire today is to be one with man, mingled with man, and incorporated with man, and for this, He went through a process.

He went through incarnation, human living, crucifixion, and resurrection.

In His death, the human shell was broken and the glory of His divine life was released, and in His resurrection, this released divine life was imparted into the many believers in Christ to regenerate them as the many sons of God. This is amazing!

Now we as the many believers in Christ are members of the Body of Christ.

The issue of Christ being glorified by the Father in His resurrection is that the church came in, and the church has three main aspects as seen in John: the vine of the Son, the house of the Father, and the child of the Spirit.

First, the church is the Father’s house (John 14:2); the Lord Jesus came to build the Father’s house, and through His resurrection, He enlarged this house to include all the believers in Christ as the many “abodes” in this house.

Christ went through death and entered into resurrection to prepare a place for us, that is, to make a way for us to dwell in God and for God to dwell in us. Wow!

The second aspect of the church is the true vine of the Son (John 15:1-5); Christ is the true vine, and we all are the many branches in Him.

All believers in Christ have been grafted into Christ; we have been cut off from the old source, the wild olive tree, and we have been grafted into the cultivated olive tree to partake of the root of the fatness. Hallelujah!

Now we simply need to abide in Christ so that He may abide in us. As we abide in the Lord by loving Him and by abiding in His word, the Father and the Son come to dwell with us and make us His abode. Praise the Lord.

Finally, as seen in John 16:13-16, 19-22, the church is the new child of the Spirit, which is the new man. Hallelujah!

Through His death on the cross, Christ abolished in His flesh the commandments in ordinances and created the two – the Jews and the Gentiles – into Himself as one new man.

We are part of the one new man, and in the new Man Christ is all and in all.

Praise and thank the Lord for the church as the Father’s house, the Son’s vine, and the new child of the Spirit!

Abide in Christ so that He may Abide in us by Loving Him to have His Manifestation

To abide in Christ, taking Him as our dwelling place, and to allow Him to abide in us, taking us as His dwelling place, are to live in the reality of the universal incorporation of the processed and consummated Triune God with the redeemed and regenerated believers (John 14:2, 10-11, 17, 20, 23).

The way we can live in the divine-human incorporation is by abiding in Christ and having Him abide in us.

To abide in Christ so that He can abide in us is to have our living in Christ, taking Him as our everything.

This means that we take Christ as our habitation as we dwell in Him.

Taking Christ as our eternal dwelling place, our habitation, is the highest and fullest experience of Christ (Psa. 90:1; 91:1, 9; John 15:4-5; Rev. 21:22).

Every day we need to tell the Lord, Lord Jesus, as the law of the Spirit of life, cause me to abide in you today. I want to dwell in You. I want to live in You today. I want to remain in You.

To remain in the Lord is to remain in our spirit; He is in our spirit, and when we remain in our mingled spirit, we dwell in Christ and He dwells in us.

God has been our dwelling place throughout the generations. We need to dwell in the Lord and let Him dwell in us. We abide in Christ so that He may abide in us by loving Him (John 14:21, 23).

The more we love the Lord, the more we abide in Him.

The more we love the Lord, the more He abides in us.

By loving the Lord with the first love, we give Him the first place in all things, and we are incorporated into the Triune God to be His dwelling place (see Rev. 2:4-5; Col. 1:18b; John 14:21, 23; Eph. 3:16-17; cf. Psa. 27:4).

We all can testify that, when we tell the Lord Jesus, Lord Jesus, I love You! we sense that we abide in the Lord and that He abides in us.

But if we neglect our love toward the Lord, we do not sense His presence.

When we tell the Lord Jesus that we love Him, we sense His coming to us and making an abode with us.

How sweet and real this is! The way for us to live in the divine-human incorporation in reality is to abide in Christ so that He may abide in us by loving the Lord to have His fresh manifestation.

In John 21 we see that Peter and some of the disciples went fishing without the Lord’s presence, for they thought He was absent from them.

But the Lord was there with them, even as they were fishing, and He came in particular to Peter to rekindle his love for the Lord.

When we tell the Lord Jesus that we love Him, we not only have Him with us but also have His fresh appearing to us, His fresh manifestation to us.

When we love the Lord Jesus, He manifests Himself to us, and the Father comes with Him to make an abode with us for our enjoyment.

This abode is a mutual abode – God dwells with us and we dwell in Him (John 14:23).

The more we love the Lord, the more we have His presence.

The more we have the Lord’s presence, the more we enjoy all that He is to us (1 Cor. 2:9-10; Eph. 6:24).

The heart cannot fathom or imagine the riches we enjoy of Christ when we just love Him.

The Lord’s recovery is the recovery of loving the Lord Jesus.

We need to be recovered to loving the Lord Jesus with the first love, the best love.

Even when we backslide or wander far away from Him, the Lord is still there with us, for He is in our spirit, seeking to rekindle our love for Him.

May we turn to Him again and again and tell Him that we love Him, and may we abide in Christ so that He may abide in us by loving the Lord to have His fresh appearing, His manifestation.

Lord Jesus, we want to abide in Christ so that He may abide in us by having all our living in Christ! We take You as our everything. We take You as our habitation, our eternal dwelling place, so that we may enjoy and experience You to the uttermost. Amen, Lord Jesus, we love You! We just love You. We want to tell You a thousand times a day that we love You, for You loved us first. We give You the first place in all things. Oh Lord, we just love You! Come in and make an abode with us. Make us Your abode. We want to dwell in You for You to dwell in us. Manifest Yourself to us. Come in, Lord, and give all that You are to us, for we love You and we open to You. Amen, Lord Jesus, we love You and we love to have Your fresh appearing, Your manifestation! Recover our first love for You so that we may love You to the uttermost!

We abide in Christ for Him to abide in us by Abiding in His Word and having His Living Word

One way for us to abide in Christ for Him to abide in us is by abiding in the word of God and by having His living word day by day.

We abide in Christ so that He may abide in us by dealing with the constant word in the Scriptures, which is outside of us, and the present word as the Spirit, which is within us (John 5:39-40; 6:63; Rev. 2:7).

The outward, written word of God gives us the definition, explanation, and expression of the mysterious Lord.

The inward, living word of God we have the experience of abiding Christ and the presence of the practical Lord (Eph. 5:26; 6:17-18).

The way the Lord is living and practical to us is by His living word.

We heard the gospel by hearing the word of the Lord, and we received the Lord as our Savior by receiving the spoken, living word of God.

When we receive the Lord’s word, we actually receive the Lord Himself as our life, for the Lord is in His word.

Christ is the Word (John 1:1, 14), and when we hear the Lord’s word in a living way and our heart is turned to the Lord, the Lord as life comes into us.

If we want to abide in Christ for Him to abide in us, we need to let His word abide in us.

We have the substantial, available, and practical word of God in our hands.

When we read the Bible with the exercise of our spirit, the logos word of God (the written word of God) becomes the rhema word (the instant, spoken, applied word of God) to us.

We can read the word of God with our heart and spirit exercised, and we receive life in the word of God.

May we contact the Lord day by day and even moment by moment in our spirit, and may we daily spend time with the Lord in His word to just enjoy Him and partake of His riches.

As we spend time with the Lord in His word, His word is infused into us and is constituted into our being.

Then, the Lord will have a way to speak to us His rhema word, His instant and living word when we need it.

We may be having fellowship with a brother, and something within us tells us to stop; this is rhema.

We may be thinking to do a particular matter, and something within us gives us a feeling not to do it; this is rhema.

We may want to buy something or go somewhere, but something within us speaks No; listening to this inner speaking will cause us to abide in the Lord.

We shouldn’t think that somehow, in a vague way, we abide in Christ, and He abides in us.

We shouldn’t think that we abide in the Lord simply by reading the Bible.

We need to realize that, for us to abide in the Lord, we need two kinds of words: the outward word of the Bible and the inward word of the Spirit.

If we say that we abide in the Lord, we need to have the Lord’s inner word and His outward word infused into us.

When we have the word in the Bible, we have the definition, expression, and explanation of the Lord, who is mysterious and hidden.

But the inward, living word we have the application and enjoyment of the Lord within us, for He lives in us and speaks to us.

By the outward word and the living word, we have the experience of the abiding Christ and the presence of the practical Lord.

If we abide in the Lord’s constant word, His written word, His instant and living words will abide in us (John 8:31; 15:7; 1 John 2:14).

We need to abide in the Lord’s word; His word is logos, the written word of God outside of us.

When we abide in His word, His word abides in us, and His word becomes rhema, the living word of God.

In this way, we take root downward into Christ as our soil, our earth, and bear fruit upward for the Father to be glorified (2 Kings 19:30; Isa. 37:31; John 15:7-8).

May we abide in the Lord and His words abide in us so that we may speak in Him and He may speak in us for the building of God into man and man into God (2 Cor. 2:17; 13:3; 1 Cor. 14:4).

When we abide in the Lord’s words and His words abide in us, we abide in Christ so that He may abide in us, and we speak in Him so that He may speak in us.

On one hand, we speak in Christ, and on the other hand, He speaks in us.

This is incorporation; He dwells in us and we dwell in Him, and He speaks in us as we speak in Him.

Morning by morning we need to be sanctified by touching the Word and by allowing the Spirit to touch us in order for us to move out of ourselves and into the Triune God (John 17:17, 21; Eph. 5:26). How true is this!

Every morning we need to move out of ourselves and into the Triune God.

Our old lodging place is ourselves, but by coming to the Lord in His word, we’re sanctified and the Spirit touches us to move out of ourselves and into the Triune God.

Especially when we wake up in the morning, we need to not remain in ourselves but come to the Lord’s word with an exercised spirit to move out of ourselves and into the Triune God.

Lord Jesus, we want to abide in Christ so that He may abide in us by abiding in the Lord’s word and by letting the word abide in us! Amen, Lord Jesus, we come to You in Your word to enjoy You, partake of Your riches, and be infused with You. Hallelujah, by the written word of God, we have the definition, explanation, and expression of the mysterious Lord! Amen, Lord, by the inward, living word of God we have the experience of the abiding Christ and the presence of the practical Lord! We want to abide in You, Lord, by abiding in Your word. We want to take root deep down into Christ as our soil, our earth, so that we may bear fruit upward for the Father to be glorified. Speak in us, Lord, so that we may speak in You for the building of God into man and man into God. We come to You in the morning to touch the Word and we allow the Spirit to touch us. Amen, Lord, we want to move out of ourselves and into the Triune God so that we may be one with God!

References and Hymns on this Topic

• Inspiration for this article/sharing comes from the Word of God, the enjoyment in the ministry, a sharing by brother Ed Marks in the message for this week, and portions from, Life-study of John, msgs. 32-34, by Witness Lee, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, An Overview of the Central Burden and Present Truth of the Lord’s Recovery Before His Appearing (2023 July Semiannual Training), week 11, entitled, The Divine-human Incorporation of the Consummated God with the Regenerated Believers – the Issue of Christ being Glorified by the Father with the Divine Glory.
• Similar articles on this topic:
  – The way to abide in Christ – a portion from, Life Messages, Vol. 1 (#1-41), Chapter 7, by Witness Lee.
  – Daily Experience of God in Christ Living in Us, article via, New Jerusalem blog.
  – The pneumatic Christ in the Gospel of John, article by Ron Kangas in, Affirmation and Critique.
  – Abiding in the Lord, a portion from, The Training and the Practice of the Vital Groups, Chapter 12, by Witness Lee.
  – The God-ordained Way to Gain the Increase for the Church vs. the Worldly Ways of Degraded Christianity, article via, a Faithful Word.
  – 8 Reasons to Let the Word of God Dwell in You, article via, Holding to Truth in Love.
  – What is the All-inclusive Christ? Article via, Hearing of Faith Radio Newsletters.
  – What a Heresy—Two Divine Fathers, Two Life-Giving Spirits, and Three Gods! Article via, Contending for the Faith.
• Hymns on this topic:
  – Lord, we would our every thought be captured / By the rich enjoyment in Your Word. / In it we’re supplied, our mind there will abide, / Till our thoughts are wholly sanctified. / Let’s keep practicing the application / Of this life by minding just the Son. / Praise Him for the way to live by Him today! / Lord, on You our minds will ever stay. (Hymns #1193 stanzas 6-7)
  – I have learned the wondrous secret / Of abiding in the Lord; / I have tasted life’s pure fountain, / I am drinking of His word; / I have found the strength and sweetness / Of abiding ’neath the blood; / I have lost myself in Jesus, / I am sinking into God. / I’m abiding in the Lord / And confiding in His word; / I am hiding in the bosom of His love. / Yes, abiding in the Lord / And confiding in His word, / I am hiding in the bosom of His love. (Hymns #564 stanza 1 and chorus)
  – For ’tis here we know abiding / In the real and deepest way; / If we love our Lord completely, / We would do whate’er He’d say. / Then His love abides within us, / And in love abiding, we / Know the joy of life-communion, / Full and perfect harmony. (Hymns #1163 stanzas 3-4)