The Spirit is operating in us and around us to deal with our outer man, our self, our natural disposition, by the killing element of the cross in the compound Spirit, by the discipline of the Holy Spirit, by the shining of Christ as the Spirit, and by the church life, fruit-bearing, and lamb-feeding.
May we remain open to His inner work of reconstituting our being with Himself, and may we not resist the discipline of the Holy Spirit outwardly as He operates in our environment to cause all things to work together for good.
By default, we live according to what we are, according to our natural disposition; we don’t even have to think about it – we live in this way as on automatic pilot, for we live out what we are.
When we became a believer in Christ by being regenerated with God’s life, we received the divine life in our spirit, and this life wants to spread in all the parts of our inner being so that we may be reconstituted with this life.
From time to time, we turn to the Lord, many times accidentally, so the Lord has a way to grow here and there.
But we need to cooperate with the Lord for Him to grow in us even more, that is, cooperate with His inner working and outward discipline so that we may allow the Lord to reconstitute us with Himself.
Nothing that comes out of us, out of our natural disposition, our outer man, our self, is useful to God; the Lord has to deal with everything of our natural disposition to constitute a new disposition with a new character in us.
He wants to be the One who lives in us and is expressed through us, but it is still us who lives and is expressed; He has to break through, and for this, He needs our cooperation.
He will not force Himself on us and He will not cause us to do things that we don’t want to do.
When we call Him as Lord and enthrone Him in our being, He sets Himself in the center of our being on the throne, and He wants to rule in us and over us, heading up all things in Himself.
Little by little, day by day, may we give the Lord the cooperation He desires so that He may have a way to reconstitute us with Himself, constituting into us a new being with a new character that expresses Him and not ourselves.
To Deal with our Natural Disposition, we must Deny the Self and Apply the Killing Power of the Cross in the Compound, All-inclusive Spirit in our spirit
In order for us to deal with our natural disposition, we must deny the self and apply the killing power of the cross; to follow the Lord and be His disciple, we need to deny the self and take up our cross, following in His footsteps.
How do we deny the self and how do we apply the cross?
It is not by us doing anything outwardly to restrict and restrain our flesh and our soulish desires but by realizing that the killing power of Christ’s death is in the Spirit.
The Lord’s death, the sweetness and effectiveness of His death, has been included in the compound, all-inclusive Spirit in our spirit.
We need to see and realize in our experience that the Spirit with our spirit is the key; whenever we turn to our spirit, exercise our spirit, and touch the Spirit, the death of Christ is applied to our self, and the natural disposition is being dealt with.
The all-inclusive Spirit in our spirit includes the precious death of Christ and the sweetness and effectiveness of Christ’s death, which can kill our disposition (Exo. 30:23-25; Phil. 1:19; Rom. 8:13).
Any practice of asceticism or buffeting our body in order to restrict and restrain ourselves and our flesh without the exercise of our spirit avail to nothing.
The death of Christ with its power and effectiveness can be applied to us only in spirit.
Christ as the compound Spirit is our “medication” to heal us, enliven us, and kill all the negative things within us. When we take Christ as our medication, we enjoy the putting to death of Jesus, or the killing of Jesus (2 Cor. 4:10-11).
Our problem, however, is that many times we forget to take our medication; when we’re off our medication, many problems come in.
Our disease is permanent, and the solution to our disease is in the mingled spirit; we need to come to the Lord and take Christ as the compound Spirit as our medication.
When we take Christ and enjoy Him, we are healed and enlivened, and all the negative things within us are killed.
We should not merely identify the negative things in us and the manifested aspects of our natural disposition but even more, we must deny the self and apply the killing power of the cross in the compound, all-inclusive Spirit with our spirit.
In the Spirit there’s the killing element of the cross; when we reject ourselves in the morning to receive God into us, we have a sense during the day that a killing process is going on within us.
We need to start in the morning by having a time with the Lord and allow Him to apply the death of Christ in the Spirit with our spirit to our self, our outer man, our natural disposition; simply by saying Amen to His operation in us, He will do it in us.
Lord Jesus, we open to You and take You as our medication to heal us, enliven us, and kill all the negative things within us. We choose to enjoy You, Lord, by contacting You and allowing You to operate in us to apply the death of Christ to our natural disposition. Amen, Lord Jesus, we choose to deny the self and apply the killing power of the cross which is in the compound, all-inclusive Spirit with our spirit. May we start every day by rejecting ourselves to have a time with You and experience every day the killing process in our being so that we may no longer live in our natural disposition but that Christ would live in us!
The Breaking of our Outer Man through the Discipline of the Holy Spirit is the Breaking of our Natural Disposition for us to Know God and Express God
In Heb. 12:5-11 the word discipline is used four times; those whom He loves, God also disciplines.
The goal of the discipline of the Holy Spirit is for us to be a broken men so that God may have a way to be expressed through us.
God has to put us in a place of total inability, a place of total helplessness before He can have a way in us; as long as we can still live, speak, and do things in ourselves, God cannot be expressed through us.
The purpose of the trials through which we pass is so that we can receive the benefit of knowing God for Him to be expressed through us (2 Cor. 1:8-9; 12:9-10; Isa. 40:28-31; Hosea 6:1-3).
The breaking of our outer man through the discipline of the Holy Spirit is the breaking of our natural disposition so that our spirit may be released.
Our natural disposition makes it hard for us to release our spirit, and a person who is not broken by God cannot be entrusted with the Lord’s work.
What we are originally, including our natural appearance and taste, does not match God and is not compatible with God.
If we are at ease from our youth and our taste remains and our scent does not change, as Moab was (see Jer. 48:11), we cannot be useful to God.
Whatever we are by birth – whether good or bad, whether useful or not – is natural and altogether a hindrance to the Holy Spirit in constituting the divine life into our being.
This is the reason that the Holy Spirit disciplines us, so that He may tear down our natural strength, natural wisdom, natural cleverness, natural disposition, natural shortcomings, natural virtues, plus our character and habits.
He tears all these down, little by little and day by day, so that the Holy Spirit may form in us a new disposition, a new character, new habits, new virtues, and new attributes. Amen!
In order to accomplish the work of reconstitution, the Holy Spirit of God moves and works both within us and outside of us.
The Holy Spirit moves within us to enlighten, inspire, lead, and saturate us with the divine life, so that we may be inwardly reconstituted with God.
The Holy Spirit also works in our environment in order to arrange every detail, every person, every matter, and every thing in our situation to tear down all aspects of our natural being in order that He may conform us to the image of the Firstborn Son of God (Rom. 8:28-29).
The discipline of the Holy Spirit destroys our natural disposition and habits and brings in the constitution of the Holy Spirit in maturity and sweetness.
The discipline of the Holy Spirit equals both the breaking down and the building up of the Holy Spirit for us to be remodelled by Him; to be remodelled, we need to be both broken down and rebuilt with God.
We need to realize that everything in our environment has been measured to us by God; He is the One who orders everything around us, and His purpose is to break our conspicuous, obtuse, and hard spots.
In Psa. 39:9 the psalmist says that he was dumb, he didn’t open his mouth, for the Lord has done this; the Lord works in us and around us so that, when He doesn’t want us to speak, we do not speak.
And He cares for us most dearly, for no sparrow falls down apart from His knowledge, and even the hairs of our head are numbered before HIm (Matt. 10:29-30; Luke 12:6).
If our outer man is not broken, then the inner man will not be released; there’s a treasure in our earthen vessel, but the vessel has to be broken first (2 Cor. 4:7).
As long as we still have the alabaster flask being intact and not broken, the fragrance within it cannot be released; but when the outer man is broken, the whole house – the entire church life – is filled with the fragrance of those who love the Lord supremely (John 12:3).
A person who is not broken can’t submit to others; only those who have experienced Christ as their life of submission know the rebelliousness of their natural disposition (Phil. 2:5-8).
If we are boastful, we have not yet been broken; if we blame others, we have not yet been broken; if we think we are something when we are nothing, we have not yet been broken; if we compete with others, we have not yet been broken (Phil. 3:3; 1 Cor. 6:7; Gal. 5:25-26; 6:3).
If we have not been pressed, mistreated, depreciated, or wronged by others, we are raw, wild, and useless to God.
We shouldn’t have the mistaken concept that all the saints will admire and respect us because we have been sent by God, called by God, and entrusted with His work, for one who respects us today may deride and trample us under his feet tomorrow; this is the way of one who serves the Lord (see John 2:23-25; Acts 14:11-13, 18-21; Mark 11:8-10; cf. 15:9-15). Oh, Lord!
Lord Jesus, we open to Your inner working and outward discipline as the Holy Spirit so that our outer man may be broken and our spirit would be released. Save us from remaining whole, not being broken, not submitting to others and to God, being boastful, blaming others, thinking we are something when we’re nothing, and competing with others. Amen, Lord, we open to Your work of tearing down our natural man so that the inner man may be released. Reconstitute us with the element of God day by day, and have Your way through the sovereignly arranged environment. May we be inwardly enlightened, inspired, lead, and saturated with the divine life, and may all things in our environment have a way to tear down all the aspects of our natural being for us to be conformed to the image of Christ! Amen, Lord, have a way in us!
Experiencing the Killing of the Light of Christ’s Shining to See what God Sees, Abhor ourselves, Deny ourselves, and let Christ Live in us
May the Lord really have a way in us all; may He have a way to shine on what we are in our natural disposition, and may we not oppose the light but say Amen to His shining.
We are delivered from our natural disposition by the inner shining of Christ as the great light, for in this shining we see what God sees (Prov. 4:18; 20:27; Psa. 18:28-29; Matt. 4:16; Luke 11:34-36; Acts 9:3-5; 22:6-10; 26:13-19; Eph. 5:13; Phil. 2:15-16).
We hardly know ourselves, deceived so much by pride, but when the Lord’s living light shines on us, we realize what we are in our natural disposition, and we deny ourselves.
The spontaneous result of the Lord’s shining on the aspects of our natural disposition causes us to have the same reaction as Job in Job 42:5-6 – we abhor ourselves, we repent, and we deny ourselves.
The greatest thing in our Christian experience is the killing that comes from the shining of the divine light.
This shining of the Lord in us and on us is the saving and the seeing of what we are leads to being delivered.
Everyone who truly sees a vision of the Lord in His glory is enlightened in his conscience regarding his uncleanness.
This is what happened to Isaiah in Isa. 6:1-8; he saw God in His glory, and he repented in dust and ashes.
May the Lord have mercy on us and shine on us; may we not reject, oppose, or argue with His shining but simply say Amen to His shining, for this shining not only exposes us but also delivers us from what the light exposes.
The Lord is faithful to shine on us, and He grants us much light in order to expose us and humble us.
When He shines on us, our pride is exposed and removed, and under His shining, our fleshly activities are stopped.
Under the Lord’s shining, the outer shell of our natural disposition is broken, and we will see God, love God, know God, even as we abhor ourselves and deny ourselves (Job 42:5-6; Matt. 16:24; Luke 9:23; 14:26).
We simply need the Lord’s shining; as we read the Bible, fellowship with the saints, pray, and live our daily Christian life, the Lord is faithful to shine and expose the many aspects of our natural disposition.
If we say Amen to His light, if we simply open to Him and allow Him to shine, He will deliver us from our natural disposition little by little.
The more we say Amen to His shining, the more we see God, love God, and know God, and the more we deny ourselves.
We shouldn’t try to be magnanimous or forbearing by the effort of the self, our natural disposition; rather, we should learn to prostrate ourselves in God’s light, receive His breaking, and allow the environment to break us and tear us down.
We need to realize that, if we’re not useful in the Lord’s hand for taking care of people, it is due to our natural disposition.
So the Lord uses the church life, fruit-bearing, and lamb-feeding in order to kill our natural disposition, for in all these matters we need to deny ourselves and live Christ to minister Christ.
For us to deal with our natural disposition, we need to love God by contacting Him to be infused with Him as grace, and we must love people by contacting them to infuse them with God as grace (John 21:15-17; Eph. 3:2; 4:29; 1 Pet. 4:10). Amen!
Lord Jesus, we open to Your shining as a great light; may we see what You see. Grant us to have many experiences of the Lord’s shining in us which kills the natural disposition. Amen, Lord, may we be delivered from the self and be enlightened in our conscience regarding our uncleanness through the shining of Your light. It is only Your shining that removes our pride and stops our fleshly activities; it is only Your shining that breaks our outer shell with our natural disposition. Shine on us, Lord, and have Your way in us. We simply prostrate ourselves in Your light; we receive Your breaking, and we allow the environment to break us and tear us down. We do this by faith, Lord, knowing that You can do it in us!
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Sources of inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message by Ed Marks for this week, and portions from, Collected Works of Watchman Nee, vol. 54, “The Breaking of the Outer Man and the Release of the Spirit,” p. 244 – with the outline for this message (extracted from brother Nee and Lee’s ministry), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Vital Factors for the Lord’s Recovery of the Church Life (2021 ITERO), week 6, The Factor of Dealing with our Natural Disposition for our Growth in Life and our Usefulness in Service.
- Hymns on this topic:
– Lord, grant Thy holy brokenness, / Deliver me from being whole; / And make me willing to receive / The wounds that Thou wouldst give my soul. / Oh, cause me to appreciate / Thy breaking, never to complain; / And grant that I may value more / All kinds of loss instead of gain. (Hymns #749)
– I hardly know myself; / Deceived so much by pride, / I often think I’m right / And am self-satisfied. / Oh, may Thy living light, Lord, / Scatter all my night, Lord, / And everything make bright, Lord, / For this I pray to Thee. (Hymns #426)
– Oh, may my spirit flow, / Oh, may it flow! / Now I implore Thee, Lord, / Oh, may it flow! / No more self-satisfied, / No more in self-bound pride, / No more my spirit tied; / Oh, may it flow! (Hymns #846)
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