As believers in Christ, we need to live Christ by walking according to the spirit; the more we walk according to the spirit, the more the Triune God will live in us so that we live the Triune God for the Body life.
This is the goal of the Lord’s recovery – to recover Christ, who is the embodiment of the Triune God to be our life and who is the Spirit to live within us and make us His living members so that His Body will be built up, and He would return shortly.
We all need to practice walking according to our mingled spirit, where Christ lives. Christ lives in us – He dwells in our spirit, and He wants to make His home in all our heart.
We need to take the lead to set our mind on the spirit and walk according to the spirit in our daily life; then, we need to help other saints also enter into this kind of living.
The apostle Paul could testify that to him to live is Christ (Phil. 1:21), and for this cause he would rather remain with the saints, so that his living of Christ would encourage and supply them to go on with the Lord and live Christ for the building up of the Body.
We need to realize in particular that we cannot rely on our corporate enjoyment of the Lord – which we have in the wonderful church life in the Lord’s recovery; we need to have a personal daily life of walking according to the spirit.
This means that we all need to spend more personal time with the Lord; our corporate life, our life in the church life, should be based on our personal life with the Lord.
We need to personally go to the Lord concerning all things, speak with Him, open to Him, and let Him shine on us, expose us, teach us, and speak to us.
The most practical way for us to learn to live in spirit daily so that we may live Christ is to have unceasing prayer. This prayer is not referring to a specific prayer, like petitions or praising prayers, but it refers to breathing in the Lord, absorbing Him, and keeping an uninterrupted fellowship with Him in prayer.
Just as we unceasingly breathe humanly and therefore we live, so spiritually we need to continually breathe by calling on the name of the Lord and by conversing with the Lord about all things, and we will spontaneously live Christ.
Our walking according to the spirit is our spiritual breathing. If we have a consistent, unceasing, moment-by-moment prayer, we will walk according to the spirit, and Christ will be expressed in our living.
We need to call on the name of the Lord with much feeling and consideration, knowing that He is inside of us as a real and living person. We need to keep calling on the name of the Lord until we live Him – until we no longer live ourselves but we live Christ!
The Triune God lives in us so that we may Live the Triune God for the Body Life
How can we, human beings, live Christ, who is the complete God mingled with the perfect man? It is only by the bountiful supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ (Phil. 1:19) which supplies us day by day to live Christ for His magnification.
This bountiful supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ contains all that God is, all that God has, all the processes He went through, and all His consummations.
In this bountiful supply of the Spirit we have the all-inclusive Christ, the life-giving Spirit, the death of Christ, His resurrection, and His ascension. All the unsearchable riches of Christ are available to us in the bountiful supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ who is mingled with our spirit.
When we truly seek after Christ, we will receive the bountiful supply of the Spirit, and by such a bountiful supply we can live Christ.
The bountiful supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ is available to us all the time in our mingled spirit; when we turn to our spirit and seek the Lord, He supplies us bountifully so that we may spontaneously live Christ.
This bountiful supply is for the producing and building up of the organic Body of Christ, consummating in the New Jerusalem. By this bountiful supply, we are inwardly strengthened to allow the Triune God to spread into all our inward parts and live in us.
When we walk according to the spirit, we can live Christ for His magnification. Because the Triune God lives in us, we can live Him.
The focus and central teaching of the Bible is that the Triune God desires to live in His redeemed and regenerated people so that they may live Him. Whom are we living: do we live ourselves or do we live God?
If we see that the focus of the Bible is that the Triune God lives in us and we live Him for the Body life, we will practice living according to the spirit daily.
When we walk according to the spirit daily and even moment by moment, the Triune God as the Spirit will have the opportunity to make His home in us, settle down in us, and take possession of and occupy our entire being (Eph. 3:17).
We need to live the Triune God by allowing Him to indwell us, make His home in us, and take full possession of our being by our walking according to the mingled spirit (Gal. 4:19; Rom. 8:4).
All that we need to do is to live the Triune God; everything else will be a spontaneous issue of our living the Triune God (John 14:19-20; 15:4-5).
Wow, how amazing this is, that the Triune God lives in us, and so we can live the Triune God by walking according to the spirit for the magnification of Christ!
This should be our daily experience: we should daily practice living according to the spirit so that the Triune God who lives in us would become our daily living, and Christ would live in us.
Lord Jesus, thank You for being a real and living Person in us; You live in us, You supply us bountifully as the Spirit of Jesus Christ, and because of You we can live the Triune God for Christ to be magnified in us! Thank You Lord for coming into us to live in us and be expressed through us. We allow You, Lord, to make Your home in us and take full possession of our being by our walking according to the spirit. Amen, Lord, live in us a life for the magnification of Christ and for the glory of God!
Having a Daily Walk according to the Spirit to Practically have the Body Life
If we don’t have according to the spirit, we cannot practically have the Body of Christ; the Body life is actually annulled by a fleshly walk.
If we don’t walk according to the spirit, we live in the flesh; this flesh may not be evil, sinful, or immoral, but it can be good and even spiritual, but it comes from the tree of knowledge of good and evil.
If we allow the Lord to shine on us in this matter, we will realize how much we still live in the flesh and how little we live in the mingled spirit.
When we see that the Triune God lives in us, we will allow the law of life to operate in us and we will set our mind on the things of Christ; then, spontaneously, our natural being with its strengths, habits, and practices will be put to death.
In Rom. 8. we see how we can live a life of walking in the spirit by minding the spirit, being led by the Spirit, and setting our mind on the mingled spirit so that we may receive the threefold dispensing of the divine life into our spirit, soul, and body.
The result of such a cooperation with the divine operation in spirit is that we can have the practice of the Body life in Rom. 12. Otherwise, we could do many things and services as listed in Rom. 12, yet in an empty way, because we don’t have the daily living of Christ by walking according to the spirit.
All the members of the Body of Christ need to be persons who walk according to the spirit; if we don’t walk according to the spirit, in principle, we cannot practically have the Body of Christ.
If we walk according to the flesh, we may still be members of the Body of Christ, but there will be no Body life in our experience.
We need to reject any false replacements of the one thing that’s real and that counts: the Triune God living in us so that we may live the Triune God for the building up of the Body of Christ.
We must refuse any hierarchy, any self-assumed authority, and any human organisation, and care only for God’s desire, focusing on His revelation in the Bible. If we truly walk according to the spirit, we will spontaneously be in the Body life.
We need to see one thing – that the goal of the Lord’s recovery is to recover Christ, who is the embodiment of the Triune God to be our life and who is the Spirit to live within us and make us His living members so that His Body will be built up (Col. 2:9; 3:4; 1 Cor. 15:45b; Gal. 2:20; Eph. 4:16). Amen!
This matter of living Christ by walking according to the spirit for the Body life is so high, but it is not impossible – otherwise neither the Lord nor the apostles would have spoken of it. It is possible to live Christ, and this is actually God’s desire.
All the provisions we need – namely, the life-giving Spirit (the processed and consummated Triune God) is mingled with our spirit, and we have His living word to supply us. We need to deliberately apply these provisions, draw from this supply, and we will live the Triune God.
First, we need to spend much time privately with the Lord for a long time, enter into the word of God, and spend time to reflect, asking the Lord concerning our living and condition, so that He may speak to us.
It may take some time for Him to speak to us concerning our condition, but He will be faithful to speak.
Then, we need to practice daily to be reminded that every day must be a day to live Christ and walk according to the spirit; every day is not just a day to have a good, spiritual, victorious, or holy day, but a day to live Christ.
Therefore, we need to persevere in prayer, without which we would be disjointed from the Lord and live in the flesh.
We will suffer failure in our practice of living Christ, but we shouldn’t be discouraged but rather, repent more, turn to the Lord more, ask for His mercy, and continue to practice again and again.
And all this we should do while we live our daily life and Christian life in the church life; as we take care of all the responsibilities that we have, we need to not lose the focus – the most important matter that God desires, which is a group of people who live Christ and who even is the Christ, so that He would return.
Lord Jesus, may we be those who daily walk according to the spirit to live Christ for the Body life. Save us from losing the focus, which is to live the Triune God for the building up of the church as the Body of Christ. Amen, Lord, even when we fail to live Christ, keep shining on us, keep bringing us back, and keep us practicing to live Christ for the Body life! Oh Lord, may our daily walk be according to the spirit, and may we live the Triune God in our daily life for the magnification of Christ in the Body life!
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message given by Minoru Chen for this week, and portions from, Collected Works of Witness Lee, 1982, vol. 1, “The Importance of Living Christ by Walking according to the Spirit,” chs. 3-5, 7, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Taking Christ as our Person and Living Him in and for the Church Life (2018 spring ITERO), week 3, Living Christ by Walking according to the Spirit for the Body Life.
- Hymns on this topic:
# Oh, what a prize! Oh, what a gain! / Christ is the goal toward which I press. / Nothing I treasure, nor aught desire, / But Christ of all-inclusiveness. / My hope, my glory, and my crown / Is Christ, the One of peerlessness. (Hymns #499)
# Now our spirit is our person— / What a glorious fact is this! / Christ Himself in us expressing / God’s intent and holiness. / Not the soul-life’s vain delusion, / But the spirit strengthened is; / Christ Himself is now our Person— / He is ours and we are His. (Hymns #1181)
# In the flesh I need no effort to express / Marks of Adam’s nature and its sinfulness; / In the spirit I need not to strive or strain, / I can live as He is and in spirit reign. (Hymns #593)
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