On the one hand, we have the oneness of the Spirit in our spirit, and we need to be diligent to keep it(Eph. 4:1-4); on the other hand, we need to be perfected into one! This morning I enjoyed the portion in John 17:22-23, where the Lord says,
And the glory which You have given Me I have given to them, that they may be one, even as We are one; I in them, and You in Me, that they may be perfected into one, that the world may know that You have sent me and have loved them even as You have loved Me.
God gave Christ the “glory”, and Christ gave this “glory” to us – the glory which the Father has given the Son is the divine sonship with the Father’s life and the divine nature to express the Father in His fullness. This is what the Son also gave us – through our regeneration, we have received the divine life and nature of the Father! We are One In His Life, and we can express Him in His life!
Now we can also express the Father in His fullness(John 1:16) since we have the sonship with the Father’s life and the divine nature (John 17:2; 2 Pet. 1:4). In the glory, in the expression of God, we the believers are one. And the simplest way to practice it is by moving out of ourselves and into the Triune God for His expression.
Actually, through His death and resurrection, the Lord has prepared a place for us in the Father and has opened a new and living way for us to come into this place! In His resurrection He’s bringing us into God – we now are daily learning to move out of ourselves and into the Triune God!
On the one hand, we need to move out of ourselves and into the Triune God, and on the other hand, we need to let the Christ live in us! When Christ lives in us, we have the expression of God! In this glory, in the expression of God through Christ living in us, there’s room for nothing else but the Father’s life and nature for His expression!
We need to allow the Spirit of reality to work this truth, this reality, into our being, so that we may have a genuine oneness – a oneness where there’s no worldliness, no self-exaltation, no opinion! We need to experience this sanctification through the Word and the Spirit so that we may enter into the Father and into His glory!
The truth is that we need to move out of ourselves and into the Triune God, and also that Christ is in us! Christ being in us is a matter of living – when we are out of ourselves and into the Triune God, Christ can live in us! When we remain in the Triune God and when Christ lives in us, we are perfected into one!
This is what we need today – we need to have not just the oneness of the Spirit but also to be perfected into one, as the Lord has prayed! When we come together to serve or do something, we need to serve in oneness. Oneness is not in ourselves, and cannot be achieved among us unless we all serve by moving out of ourselves into the Triune God and we allow Christ to live in us! Christ living in us perfects us into one!
The perfected oneness is when we not only turn to our spirit to be in the Triune God, but we also cooperate with the living Lord Jesus within us – allowing Him to live in us! The more the Lord lives in us, the more His living perfects us with others into the genuine oneness. Here in this perfected oneness is the real building up of the Body of Christ and also here there’s no worldliness, no ambition, no self-exaltation, and no opinions!
Only Christ is – only the Triune God is expressed in us and through us! The Triune God is expressed in humanity through a group of perfected saints! [enjoyment from the Truth Messages, ch 6-7, by brother W. Lee]
Lord, gain this in us! Make this truth our reality and our experience! Strengthen us into our inner man today, Lord, to move out of ourselves and into the Triune God! Be our permanent dwelling place, our eternal home! Lord, we want to allow You to live in us! Thank You for being the living Christ in our spirit – be expressed in us, Lord! We just want to stop our doing and our trying, and let Christ live in us! Perfect us into one! Gain the genuine oneness in a perfected way among us!
Amen! Nothing is perfect without the genuine oneness by moving into the Triune God and letting Christ live in us.