In order for us to live in resurrection, we must be renewed day by day with the fresh supply of resurrection life (2 Cor. 4:16).
God is new, His life is new, resurrection is new, and everything about God is new; we are old, getting older, and dying, and nothing we can do in and of ourselves can make us new. We need to be renewed with the element of God every day so that we may live in resurrection. Day by day we need the addition of a new element to our being, the element of God, to make us new!
Our Christian life shouldn’t be like the sunset, getting dimmer as we grow in life, but like the dawn, brighter and brighter until we see the Lord (Prov. 4:18). The way God takes to renew us is not what we think or prefer: He takes us through things and situations where the cross is applied to our being so that death would operate in us and the resurrection life would be manifested.
God is operating in us both the willing and the working (Phil. 2:13), and we need to cooperate with Him by opening ourselves to Him and letting Him come into us to be a new addition into us day by day. In order for God’s element to grow in us and to be added to us, our old element needs to be discharged and removed; God uses the cross to deal with us and kill the old element in us so that He may grow and manifest His life in us.
As those who love the Lord, seek Him, and pursue Him with our whole heart, we need to learn to open to the Lord with our whole being at all times, whether good or bad, and allow Him to add His new element into us day by day. Starting in the morning we need to open to the Lord to be revived every morning, and then throughout the day we need to be renewed day by day.
We need to allow the cross to operate in our being and daily kill our self, crucify our flesh, and put our old man to death, and as this happens, we need to just be open to the Lord, be in His word, and allow the Holy Spirit to renew us. Oh, how much we need to be renewed day by day by being nourished with the fresh supply of the resurrection life so that we may live in resurrection!
The Real Christian Life is to have the God of Resurrection Added into us Daily!
God’s intention is to renew us day by day by the addition of the divine element into our being. At the time of our regeneration, we received the divine life, the new life of God, and we became new; our entire Christian life is a life of having the God of resurrection added into us morning and evening day by day so that we may grow with the growth of God (Col. 2:19).
Though our outer man is decaying (both through the operation of the cross in our being and by the growth in human life unto…oldness!), yet our inner man is being renewed day by day; therefore, we don’t lose heart, but we realize that, as we pass through this momentary affliction, there’s an eternal weight of glory being added to our being day by day (2 Cor. 4:16-17)!
This is all in the unseen realm; our Christian life is in the unseen spiritual realm, for the seen things are temporary, but the divine and spiritual things in the unseen realm are eternal (2 Cor. 4:18). God is operating in us to energize us and add His divine element which has the renewing capacity; this renewing element is His resurrection life, the life that has passed through death and came out in resurrection.
As we contact the Lord every day, we enjoy the renewing capacity of the divine life in resurrection. As we contact the Lord and confess our sins, we die to ourselves and reject ourselves, and the Lord applies His death to our being so that His resurrection life would operate in us.
As Paul said, the putting to death of Jesus operates in us so that life may also operate (2 Cor. 4:10). Jesus daily “puts us to death” by conforming us to His death as we contact Him day by day, and the negative things are being slowly killed in our being. Then, His resurrection life operates in us to renew us by adding the divine element to our being.
Praise the Lord, our real Christian life is not a life of suffering but a life of being renewed day by day by having the God of resurrection added into us morning and evening and day by day!
As we set our mind on the spirit and mind the things of the Spirit, the mingled spirit as life spreads into our mind to fill our mind with life; eventually, even our human body will be filled with God’s life to be fully renewed, thus making us God’s new creation in resurrection in full (see Rom. 8:10, 6, 11).
Lord Jesus, we open ourselves to You for the new addition of Your element into our being today. Lord, renew us in our mind, emotion, and will. Spread from our spirit into every part of our inner being. Oh Lord, nourish us with the fresh supply of the resurrection life and add Your new divine element to us more today!
Being Revived Every Morning and Being Renewed day by day
God has provided many things to help us be renewed day by day. In order to receive the renewing capacity of the divine life in resurrection, we first need to contact God, open ourselves to Him, and let Him come into us to be a new addition into us day by day (see Phil. 2:13; 3:10-11).
We need to be revived every morning; our Christian life doesn’t start “after breakfast” but early in the morning, we need to contact the Lord, open to Him, and receive His fresh supply of resurrection life to be revived.
Then, God has provided us with the cross, the Holy Spirit, our mingled spirit, and the word of God to help us be renewed. As we bear about in the body the cross of Christ, the life of Jesus is also manifested in us (2 Cor. 4:10); the cross is God’s best help for us to be renewed, since it tears us down and kills us, and then God’s element can grow in us.
The Holy Spirit renews us (Titus 3:5); the Holy Spirit is in us first to regenerate us and then to renew us every day. The renewing of the Holy Spirit is a reconditioning, remaking, and remodeling with the divine life.
We also have our mingled spirit, our human spirit mingled with the divine Spirit; our spirit is the place where the renewing takes place. The Holy Spirit dwells and lives in our spirit, and as we set our mind on the spirit and exercise our spirit, the mingled spirit spreads into our mind to renew our mind and become the spirit of our mind (Eph. 4:23) into which we are being renewed for transformation.
Furthermore, God has provided us with His Holy Word for us to be renewed; Christ washes us, cleanses us, and beautifies us as the church through the washing of the water in the word (Eph. 5:26). As we read the Bible, pray over God’s word, muse on the word, and let the word of Christ dwell in us richly, we are being renewed in our mind and in our living; the word we eat, digest, and assimilate into our spiritual constitution becomes a long-term constant nourishment to us. We need to be in the word of God daily, being washed by the Lord and even beautified by Him through His word to become His bride.
When we come to the Lord’s Table, we need to be in the principle of newness by forgiving others and seeking to be forgiven (see Matt. 26:29; 5:23-24; 18:21-22, 35). The Lord does not take an “old” table; the Lord’s table is always new and fresh, and we need to deal with anything old and negative before we come to the Lord’s table meeting.
What makes us old is not forgiving others and not seeking to be forgiven. We need to learn to say, I’m sorry, forgive me!, and we need to forgive others, and we will come to the Lord’s table in a new way.
Other ways to be renewed is by having a thorough confession and a thorough dealing; keeping short accounts with the Lord and seeking to be forgiven by others will keep us in the process of being renewed by the Lord day by day.
Lord Jesus, we want to cooperate with You to be revived every morning and be renewed day by day! May we be those who contact You first thing in the morning by opening to You, confessing our sins, calling on Your name, pray-reading the word, and singing with our heart to You. Lord, may Your cross, Your Spirit, and Your word operate in us to renew us day by day. Strengthen us into our spirit so that the mingled spirit would spread into our mind and become the spirit of our mind! Lord Jesus, amen, revived every morning and renewed day by day!
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Inspiration: the Word of God, my Christian experience, bro. Ed Marks’ sharing in the message for this week, and portions from, Being Renewed Day by Day (by Witness Lee), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, The Vision and Experience of Christ in His Resurrection and Ascension, week 3 / msg 3, The Vision and Experience of Christ in His Resurrection (3) – Living in Resurrection for the Reality of the Body of Christ.
- All verses are taken from, Recovery Version Bible.
- Hymns to strengthen the burden in this article:
# We’re renewed and revived by the Lord day by day; / He is grace upon grace and refreshing as dew. / Shining brighter and brighter, our path’s a clear way, / As morning by morning His mercies are new. (Song on being renewed)
# By the cross discern the spirit, / With the mind by light renewed, / All emotion consecrated, / And the will in love subdued. (Hymns #748)
# Thank You for our situations and the environments we are in. / That we’d turn to You in all things, and turn away from sin. / We’d drop all our anxieties and put our trust in You. / And experience this living One whose life is ever new. (Song on being renewed daily)
About aGodMan
This is why we have to learn to die to ourselves. How do we die to ourselves? Every morning we should contact the Lord. First, we have to confess our sins. Second, we have to reject ourselves. In rejecting ourselves, we pass through the death of Christ, and the death of Christ kills us. In 2 Corinthians 4, Paul talks about “the putting to death of Jesus” (v. 10). This means that Jesus, in a positive sense, is always killing us….In Jesus there is the killing element. He is our medication to heal us, enliven us, and kill all the negative things within us.
God has the best provisions to help us to receive the renewing. The first provision is the cross, the putting to death of Jesus. According to 2 Corinthians 4, Paul was always under the killing of the cross, the Lord’s death. The cross is the greatest help to accomplish the renewing for us. (Witness Lee, Being Renewed Day by Day)