In the Church Life our Christian Living is the Living of Grace, the Experience of Grace

In the church life in oneness we enjoy the divine anointing and the refreshing grace of God, and our entire Christian life becomes a living of grace, an experience of grace.

Psalm 133 gives us a clear picture of the church life in oneness under God’s blessing. Here the church life is both a person – typified by Aaron the high priest, and a place – typified by the mountains of Zion.

As a person, the church is the Body of Christ, and when we remain in the Body and are in fellowship with the saints, we enjoy the divine anointing, the Spirit anointing us to add more of God into our being.

As a place, the church is the house of God, and it is typified by the mountains of Zion where the dew descends. This dew is nothing else but the grace of life, that is, God in Christ as the Spirit coming to us in a fresh, watering, sweet way for us to enjoy Him as our everything.

Our entire Christian life and living is an experience of grace, the living of grace, until we can say like Paul, I labored more than others, yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me.

How wonderful it is to be in the church life under God’s blessing, enjoying the oneness and being anointed by the compound Spirit and covered by the grace of God.

On one hand, we as believers in Christ need to dwell in oneness in the church life, and we will enjoy the anointing Spirit and the refreshing dew, the grace of life.

On the other hand, as we enjoy the anointing of the Spirit with the application of all the elements in the compound Spirit to our being, we are spontaneously one; and as we enjoy the grace of life and have the experience of grace, we are one.

Enjoying God in Christ as the Spirit as our Life Supply, the Grace of Life, in the Church Life

The dew of Hermon descending on the mountains of Zion in Psa. 133 signifies the descending, refreshing, watering, and saturating grace of life (1 Pet. 3:7), the Triune God as our life supply for our enjoyment (2 Cor. 13:14).

From the heavens, where the throne of God is, the dew descends in the most refreshing, watering, and tender way; the dew comes not as a hurricane but flows down, descends, to water us and refresh us.

This dew is nothing else but the Triune God as our life supply to be our enjoyment as the grace of life. In typology Hermon signifies the heavens, the highest place in the universe (see Eph. 1:3; Matt. 17:1-2); from this highest place we receive every spiritual blessing in Christ.

The mountains of Zion typify the local churches – there’s only Zion (one church as one Body of Christ) with many mountains (many local churches – see Rev. 1:11-12). For us to benefit and partake of the refreshing, watering, and saturating dew, we need to be in the local churches, on the mountains of Zion.

We need to come to Zion and just be there, and then grace will flow!

What is grace? Grace is not merely unmerited favor from God, neither is grace material blessing; grace is God in Christ as the Spirit experienced, received, enjoyed, and gained by us (John 1:16-17; 1 Cor. 15:10; Gal. 2:20; Rom. 5:2, 17, 21).

In the Old Testament grace was favor from God, but in the New Testament we are told that grace came through Jesus Christ (John 1:16-17); this means that grace is in Jesus Christ, and this One is today the Spirit – so grace is nothing else but God in Christ as the Spirit for our enjoyment, experience, and partaking.

Psalm 133 indicates that, when we remain in the church life in oneness, we enjoy the descending grace of life, and God in Christ as the Spirit is our enjoyment. By remaining in the church life, we are preserved in the Lord’s grace (see Acts 4:33; 11:23).

By the grace we receive on the mountains of Zion, we can live a life that is impossible for the world to live (see Acts 20:32; 2 Cor. 12:7-9). We may go through pain, suffering, and troubles, but the grace of life is our enjoyment as we remain in the church life in oneness, and in the midst of all these, grace flows!

For example, when a brother who is enjoying grace is in pain in the hospital, humanly we may be sorrowful with tears, but in the midst of all this, grace flows, and grace makes us live in such a way that is impossible for a human being in the world to live!

The grace which is God in Christ as the Spirit for our enjoyment is sustaining us, providing the buoyancy in every challenging situation. Hallelujah, grace flows, and grace can be even seen and witnessed in our daily living!

Lord Jesus, thank You for bringing us into the proper church life where we can enjoy the descending, refreshing, watering, and saturating grace of life! Amen, Lord, in the church life we enjoy, partake, receive, gain, and experience God in Christ as the Spirit to be our life supply, the grace of life! We want to remain in the church life and be preserved in the Lord’s grace all the days of our life. Oh Lord, Your grace in us enables us to live a life that is impossible for people in the world to live! Hallelujah!

In the Church Life our Christian Living is the Living of Grace, the Experience of Grace

Everything in the Christian life is a matter of grace; we were saved by grace through faith, we stand in the grace of God, the grace of the Lord is with our spirit, and even when we work for God, grace works in us.

Our Christian living in the church life should be a living of grace, the experience of grace. The God of all grace has graced us in Christ, and now there are waves of grace coming toward us for us to enjoy God in Christ as the Spirit as our life supply and enjoyment.

In the church life in oneness we should just enjoy the Triune God as our everything, and He as grace in us will accomplish what He desires to gain. There are at least seventeen aspects of our Christian living being the living of grace, the experience of grace:

1. We have faith and love through the Lord’s superabounding grace – 1 Tim. 1:14.
2. By grace we receive the salvation in life through Christ’s resurrection and ascension – Eph. 2:25-8.
3. We have obtained access into and stand in God’s abounding grace – Rom. 5:2.
4. In this grace we can enjoy God’s eternal comfort and good hope – 2 Thes. 2:16.
5. We can come forward with boldness to the throne of grace to find grace for timely help – Heb. 4:16.
6. We can receive God’s abounding supply of grace – 2 Cor. 9:8.
7. We can constantly enjoy God’s multiplying grace – 1 Pet. 1:2b; 2 Pet. 1:2; Rev. 22:21.
8. We can enjoy God’s greater grace through humility – James 4:6; 1 Pet, 5:5.
9. In our experience of the grace in God’s economy, we enjoy the Lord’s presence in our spirit – 2 Tim. 4:22; cf. Luke 1:28, 30.
10. We need to live out Christ as God’s righteousness by the grace of God – Gal. 2:20-21.
11. We need to experience the perfecting of the Lord’s sufficient grace, Christ’s overshadowing power, in our weakness – 2 Cor. 12:9.
12. By grace we can overcome the usurpation of temporal and uncertain riches and become generous in ministering to the needy saints – 8:12.
13. The God of all grace perfects, establishes, strengthens, and grounds us through our sufferings – 1 Pet. 5:10.
14. We need to be good stewards of the varied grace of God – 4:10; Eph. 3:2.
15. Our word should convey Christ as grace to others – 4:29-30.
16. We need to experience Christ as grace to be a surpassing one and to labor abundantly for the Lord – 1 Cor. 15:10.
17. We need to receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness to reign in life – Rom. 5:17, 21.

Through faith we receive the Lord, and through love we enjoy the Lord we have received; when we allow the Lord to come into us, both faith and love from the Lord as grace come into us. In our experience of grace in God’s economy, we receive the salvation in life in Christ’s resurrection and ascension.

Our experience of grace in our daily life enables us to obtain access into God’s grace and stand in God’s grace, and this grace, once enjoyed by us, reigns in us.

We reign in life by the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness – as we enjoy God in Christ as the Spirit simply by calling on the name of the Lord, we reign in life.

When the Bible speaks of grace many times it says, abounding grace, varied grace, and all-sufficient grace; grace flows to us, supplies us, and in wave after wave grace nourishes us and is abounding to us, to more than meet our need.

The grace given to the local churches in the dark age of the church’s degradation is not only to supply us but also to enable us to answer the Lord’s call to be His overcomers (Rev. 1:4).

For us to be overcomers, we simply need to enjoy the Lord as grace; if we would become an overcomer, there’s nothing we can boast about but grace, which constitutes us as an overcomer.

The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ dispensed to His believers throughout the New Testament age consummates in the New Jerusalem as the consummation of God’s good pleasure in joining and mingling Himself with man for His enlargement and eternal expression (Rev. 22:21).

Hallelujah, in the church life we are daily anointed and graced, and the anointing of the Spirit and the supply of grace make it possible for us to live in oneness (Eph. 1:13, 6).

The more we experience Christ as the life-giving Spirit, the more our natural constitution and disposition are reduced; as they are reduced through our experience of the Triune God with His divine attributes, we are perfected into one – John 17:23; Eph. 4:1-3.

Lord, may our Christian living be the living of grace, the experience of grace, in the church life in oneness! Thank You for Your superabounding grace which bring us faith and love. Thank You for giving us access into God’s abounding grace in which we stand. Lord, in Your grace we can enjoy Your eternal comfort and good hope, and we can come forward with boldness to the throne of grace to find grace for timely help. Give us today’s abounding supply of grace, and may Your grace be multiplied. Oh Lord, thank You for Your grace with our spirit which enables us to have the living of grace in the church life!

References and Hymns on this Topic

• Inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message by Minoru Chen for this week, and portions from, The Law and Grace of God in His Economy, chs. 2-4 (by Witness Lee), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, The Recovery of the Church (2017 fall ITERO), week 6, Jehovah’s Commanded Blessing of Life on Brothers Who Dwell Together in Oneness.
• Hymns on this topic:
  # Grace in its highest definition is / God in the Son to be enjoyed by us; / It is not only something done or giv’n, / But God Himself, our portion glorious. (Hymns #497)
  # How delightful ’tis to know; / How subjective, real, and sweet / Is this inward joy of grace / We experience when we meet; / Life abundant Jesus gives / As my full reality; / Praise You, Lord, it’s really true, / I’m in Your own family. (Hymns #1238)
  # Christ’s saving life when expressed in each town, / Strengthens the saints causing grace to abound; / And by the reigning in life every church / Is blent together, and Satan is crushed. (Song on, Being Saved in His Life)