Exercise our Spirit to Reject the Self and Live by the Divine Life to Deal with our Natural Disposition

As believers in Christ, we want to grow in life and be useful to the Lord in service; for this, however, we need to deal with our natural disposition, that is, reject what we are by birth so that it would be Christ who lives and is expressed through us.

Our natural disposition is what we are by birth, our natural makeup; some of us may be talkative, for example, while others may be a bit quieter.

Some of us do things in a quick way and only according to what we think, while others like to get the advice of others and take our time in doing things.

The reason we need to deny and reject ourselves, what we are by our natural disposition, is that our disposition is not useful to God unless it passes through death and enters into resurrection.

Our work for God and our living as Christian is based on what we are; actually, our work is the overflow of what is in our being, and the way we do things for God and in the church life is based on what we are by disposition.

We may be an organized person, doing everything in a precise way and according to a plan, and we let nothing escape or be unnoticed; when we serve the Lord according to our disposition, we will damage the Lord’s work rather than benefit it, for anything natural is not accepted by the Lord.

Nothing of our natural man, the old man, and the self is acceptable to God; God doesn’t need what we are by nature; Christ told us to deny the self, take up our own cross, and follow Him.

This means that we need to daily come to the Lord, allow Him to shine on what we are by disposition, and allow the divine light to expose and kill anything that is natural in us.

Then, as we pass through death and resurrection under the Lord’s light and with our cooperation in prayer, we can grow in life and serve the Lord according to Him who lives in us.

God’s way to perfect us and equip us for service is not by adding this or taking that from us, by making us better in this or that aspect; He wants to tear down what we are by disposition and to add Himself to us.

The people in the world go through training and schooling in order to improve themselves, but no element of God is involved; in the church life as the expression of the Body of Christ, we are being perfected by denying the self and dealing with our natural disposition so that Christ would live in us, grow in us, and serve in us.

This is what Paul did: he testified that he is what he is by the grace of God (not by his improvement or self-perfecting) and he labored – yet it was not him but the grace of God.

Living According to our Natural Disposition Damages our Usefulness in the Christian Life and Hinders our Growth in Life

When we believed into the Lord, we fell in love with Him, for the gospel as the good news showed us such a wonderful Person who loved us, died for us, and wants to come into us to live in us. How we love this One!

After being regenerated, we may have grown in life for a while, for we read the Bible, opened to the Lord in prayer, remained in the fellowship, and really sought the Lord.

But then after a time, it seemed that our growth has either stopped or became very slow, and our usefulness to the Lord was quite limited.

The reason our usefulness to the Lord in our Christian life is damaged is because of our living according to our natural disposition.

Some brothers and sisters have a strong element in their disposition that hinders them from growing in life and doesn’t allow them to coordinate with others in the church life.

They want to do things their own way and they don’t depend on anyone for fellowship or coordination; they want to be the ones doing the work exclusively.

Some brothers and sisters are quite capable and intelligent, but they don’t like to coordinate with others, and the more they serve, the more trouble they stir up in the church life.

When we live according to our natural disposition, Christ cannot grow in us and we are limited in our usefulness to the Lord.

The thing that most damages our usefulness in the Christian life and church life is our living according to our natural disposition.

The real enemy of our growth in life and the major factor that spoils our usefulness in the Lord’s hand is our living according to our natural disposition, living according to what we are and not according to Christ.

Because we are members in the Body and our service is in the Body, we need to coordinate with others.

For example, the apostle Paul was very capable, but he always had a few brothers around him that he coordinated with; even the Lord Jesus Himself had a few people around Him that He coordinated with.

If by nature we’re lazy and careless, we may want others to do all the labor; if we are diligent persons who labor all the time, we may want to do the work all by ourselves, not accepting anyone’s help.

May the Lord shine on us and expose our natural disposition, and may we realize that we must be people who always oppose ourselves, rejecting what we are by nature, and taking Christ as our real life and person.

May we realize that the real enemy of our growth in the divine life is our disposition; our disposition is also the factor that spoils our usefulness in the Lord’s hand.

We may love the Lord, we may give up a lot of things in the world for the Lord, and we may regularly attend the church meetings, read the Bible, and fellowship with the Lord and with the saints, but we may still remain in and live according to our natural disposition.

There is a particular, peculiar aspect of our disposition that remains in our being; this part of our makeup becomes a stronghold that holds us back from making progress in the growth in life and in serving the Lord.

This can be likened to a burl in a piece of wood, a knot, that spoils the aspect and usefulness of that piece of wood, making it not suitable for service.

We must learn to take care of the “burl” in our makeup, our natural disposition; if we deal with this “burl”, we will grow quickly without any hindrances to our growth in life, and we will also become more useful to the Lord.

Our natural disposition is like a burl, a large rounded outgrowth in the trunk of a tree, which is abnormal and quite prominent; this spoils our usefulness in the Lord’s hand and hinders our growth in life.

In our natural man we may think that our disposition is quite good, for it has gotten us so far in the world and in society; in the Lord’s service and in the church life, however, living according to our natural disposition is something that spoils our usefulness to the Lord and hinders our growth in life.

The reason we don’t grow in life in a normal way and we cannot be useful to the Lord in service is because of our natural disposition.

May we practice turning to our spirit and rejecting what we are and can do by our natural disposition so that, by the Lord’s mercy, we would grow in life and be useful to Him in service!

Lord Jesus, we love You, we open to You, and we allow You to grow in us and shine on anything that hinders the growth in life. May we grow in life in a normal way every day. May our usefulness in Your hand not be hindered in any way. Oh Lord, have mercy on us and shine on our natural disposition with its peculiarity. We say Amen to Your shining; we say Amen to Your exposing and piercing light. We want to reject ourselves, reject what we are by disposition, and live according to the divine life in our spirit. Spread in us, Lord. Infuse us with Yourself more and more each day until You become our very constitution. Save us from living according to our natural disposition in our Christian life and our church life!

We need to Exercise our Spirit to Reject the Self and Live by the Divine Life to Deal with our Natural Disposition

There’s no such word as “disposition” or “character” in the Bible, but the principle is there; the Lord Jesus mentions the self and the soul-life, while Paul speaks of the old man and the “I”.

In Matt. 16:23-26 we see that the mind not set on the things of God is a big hindrance to the fulfillment of God’s purpose; furthermore, the self and the soul-life need to be denied.

Our disposition is implied in the terms of our mind, ourselves, our soul-life; actually, we may say that our natural disposition is our self, what we are.

The world encourages the development, improvement, and expression of the self, for the world as a system is created by the biggest self in the universe, Satan himself.

In the church life as the kingdom of the Son of God’s love, however, we are to deny the self, lose the soul-life, and have our old man crucified, so that we may grow in life and be useful to the Lord in His service.

The Lord Jesus requires that we deny the self in following Him; He doesn’t say that we should improve the self, limit the self in the bad aspects, and cultivate the good aspects of the self – He simply says that the self has to be denied.

The Lord Jesus said that, for us to follow Him, we need to lose our soul-life, our soulish enjoyment and satisfaction in this age, so that we may find it in the next age of one thousand years.

If we lose our soul-life in this age for the Lord’s sake, we will find it in the next age; furthermore, we will gain the enjoyment of Christ in the soul, and our soul will really be happy and satisfied with Christ.

Paul testified in Gal. 2:20 that his old I was crucified with Christ, and it was Christ who lives in him; the life he lived in the flesh he lived in faith, the faith of the Son of God who loved him and gave Himself up for him.

For us to deal with our natural disposition means to deal with our self, our soul-life, our old man, and the “I”; when we deal with all these things, we will be useful to the Lord and our growth in the divine life will be unhindered.

How useful we are to the Lord or how much trouble we will make to the church depends upon how much our natural disposition is killed.

How can we deal with our natural disposition in a practical way? The way to deal with our natural disposition is to realize and remember that we are crucified persons and to remain under that realization and reality throughout the day (Gal. 2:20; 5:24-25; Rom. 6:6; 8:13).

Our old man has been crucified with Christ so that the body of sin might be annulled; therefore, we should no longer serve sin as slaves but rather, set our mind on our spirit, exercise our spirit, and live according to the spirit.

The more we advance with the Lord and go on with Him in the church life, the more intensified His light is, and the more we are exposed of what we are in our natural disposition; it seems that the more we grow in life, the worse we become, for the Lord is faithful to expose what our natural man, our self, and our soul-life are.

We need to realize that we are a terminated person; the Lord lived as a pattern in this respect, and we need to live with the realization that we have been terminated, crucified, with Christ!

As men in the flesh, we are good for nothing except death and burial; we apply this by exercising our spirit and praying to be one with the Lord and to express Him.

In our oneness with the Lord, we have crucified our flesh with its passions and its lust; therefore, we live and walk by the spirit.

As we live and walk by the spirit, we shall by no means fulfill the lusts of the flesh (Gal. 5:16). Our natural disposition is simply our self – it is in us, and it is us; practically speaking, for us to deny the self is simply to deny our natural disposition.

As believers in Christ, we have to live Christ by continually exercising our spirit to reject our self and live by another life, the crucified and resurrected Christ (signified by the tree of life, as seen in Gen. 2:9; Phil. 1:21a; Rev. 2:7; 1 Pet. 2:24; 1 Tim. 4:7-8).

May we learn to exercise our spirit to reject the self and live by the divine life, eating Christ as the tree of life.

Only in this way can we no longer live according to our natural disposition but, as we live in the spirit, we crucify the flesh with its passions and its lusts, and we live Christ to express God.

If we practice this daily, we will grow in life in a normal way and we will be useful to the Lord.

Lord Jesus, thank You for Your shining on what we are in our natural disposition. Save us from trying to improve or better ourselves. We acknowledge that, as men in the flesh, we are good for nothing except death and burial. Oh Lord, we want to live Christ by continually exercising our spirit! Amen, we exercise our spirit to reject our self and live by another life – the crucified and resurrected Christ! We come to You, Lord, to eat You as the tree of life and live because of You. We choose to live and walk by the Spirit today. Live in us, Lord Jesus, and be expressed through us. May we no longer live according to our natural disposition but according to the spirit so that we may grow in life and be useful to You in service!

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 Witness Lee, 1989, vol. 3, “The Experience and Growth in Life,” msgs. 13, 24-25, 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, teach us to discern the spirit / That we may never set our mind / Upon the flesh but on the spirit, / That sin and self no more may bind. (Hymns #746)
  – By the cross discern the spirit, / Put the soul to death alway; / Bear the cross, deny the self-life, / Walk in spirit day by day. / By the cross discern the spirit, / Through the living Word of God, / Separating soul from spirit, / That the right path may be trod. (Hymns #748)
  – Oh, how the Lord our self must break, / Our outward man does so impede! / It must be broken thoroughly, / And thus the Spirit will be freed. / Lord, grant Thy holy brokenness, / Deliver me from being whole; / And make me willing to receive / The wounds that Thou wouldst give my soul. (Hymns #749)