Exercising our Spirit and being Conformed to the Death of Christ through the Cross

For us to live in the reality of the Body of Christ, we need to be conformed to the death of Christ through the cross, for only when we deny the self and live by the divine life can we live out the reality of the Body.

We enter into the reality of the Body of Christ by being in the organic union with Christ, and this organic union is in the spirit.

We can never exhaust the depths and richness of our organic union with the Lord, for it is in this mysterious union that God is real to us, we are joined to Him, we receive all that God is, and we can be in and live out the reality of the Body of Christ.

Being in the reality of the Body of Christ doesn’t come about merely by understanding what this reality is, neither do we live out the reality of the Body when we mentally agree with the principles of the Body.

Rather, for us to be in the reality of the Body of Christ we need to exercise our spirit, go beyond our mind, and contact the Lord in prayer and fellowship.

When we pray, exercise to touch the Lord, and turn to our spirit, the Spirit with our spirit will guide us into the reality of the Body of Christ.

Merely by reading about the reality of the Body of Christ and agreeing with it or trying to live it doesn’t mean we have this reality. We need the Lord’s mercy that we would enter into our mingled spirit, abide in the Lord, and remain in fellowship in the organic union with the Lord.

When we are in our mingled spirit, when our entire being with our mind, emotion, will, and heart is set on our spirit, the Spirit can reveal to us what the reality of the Body is, and we will spontaneously enter into this reality.

This is something that we all need to aspire to do, strive to accomplish, and desire to obtain – being in the mingled spirit, remaining in the mingled spirit, and abiding in the Lord.

However, as we do this, we realise that our whole being – our fallen, natural being, with our self, our natural man, our flesh, and our old man – is against us, keeping us in the natural realm, in the realm of the world, sin, the flesh, and the self.

Basically, everything in our old, unrenewed being is against God and His will, and our self, our natural man, and our flesh together with our disposition are cooperating together to not allow us to be in the mingled spirit and live in the spirit.

This is why we need to experience the breaking of the outer man through the application of the cross, so that we may break through our fallen being.

The Lord not only calls us to be in our spirit but He also helps us by giving us a set of environmental situations outwardly for Him to break our outer man, and He also gives us the cross to deal with our natural man and our disposition, so that we may get through into our spirit and live in the mingled spirit.

Once the work of the cross takes place in us and we cooperate with it, we spontaneously find ourselves in the spirit, and we automatically live in the reality of the Body of Christ.

To be in the Reality of the Body of Christ we need to be Conformed to the Death of Christ through the Cross

Paul’s aspiration in Phil. 3 was that he would know Christ and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death, so that he may attain to the out-resurrection from the dead (see vv. 19-22).

Our aspiration should be to live in the reality of the Body of Christ; for this to take place we need to be conformed to the death of Christ through the cross.

The Lord Jesus lived a crucified life daily, putting Himself aside and living by the life of the Father. Paul also lived a crucified life continually, a life under the cross, just as Christ did in His human living.

When we live a crucified life daily, we are conformed to the mold of Christ’s death by the power of His resurrection, and we live by the life of God, we live a life in the reality of the Body of Christ.

The mold of Christ’s death to which we are being conformed is Christ’s experience of continually putting to death His human life so that He may live by the life of God.

The Lord Jesus had a perfect human life, a life with no sin, yet He rejected Himself, He denied Himself, and He put His human life aside to live by the Father (John 6:57).

Our daily life should be conformed to the mold of Christ’s death by dying to our natural life to live by the divine life.

When we do this, when we cooperate with God to live a life being conformed to the death of Christ through the cross, we will experience Christ and the power of His resurrection. The way of the Christian life is the way of the cross.

Our Christian life is described by Paul in Gal. 2:20, where we see that we have been crucified with Christ, and we no longer live but Christ lives in us, yet the life that we now live in the flesh, we live in faith, the faith of the Son of God who loved us and gave Himself up for us.

What kind of life is this? On one hand we have been crucified with Christ, so we are dead and can’t live, but on the other hand, we now live, for Christ lives in us, and our living is His living.

This is a grafted life, an experience of the Lord Jesus living in us as we are being conformed to the death of Christ through the cross. When we see the cross and live a life with Christ through the cross, we will have a turning point in our experience.

We cannot live Christ without the cross, and we cannot live in the reality of the Body of Christ without being conformed to the death of Christ through the cross. With the cross we still live, but we no longer live by ourselves but Christ lives in us.

We need to practice to live such a life today, that is, practice to live one spirit with the Lord in the mingled spirit, a life of being conformed to the death of Christ through the cross.

Paul lived such a life and testified that, even when he was in prison, he was one with Christ, he magnified Christ, and he was bountifully supplied by the Spirit of Jesus Christ to live Christ.

Lord Jesus, grant us the experiences we need for us to be conformed to the death of Christ through the cross. Lord, we don’t pray for more suffering or trials – we just want to live in the reality of the Body of Christ, a life in the mingled spirit. We pray, Lord, break through in us. You see who we are, what we are constituted with, what is our disposition, and what we need. Lord, gain us as those who live by the divine life, a life in the reality of the Body of Christ in the church life.

Exercising our Spirit and Denying the Self to live a Crucified Life every day as the Lord did

Today we are the continuation of Christ; we are not only His disciples or followers, but we are His continuation, for His life is in us, and He lives in us today on the earth. As Christ’s continuation, we should live a crucified life every day (1 Cor. 15:31; 2 Cor. 4:10-11).

How can we live a crucified life? How can we be conformed to the death of Christ through the cross? It is by exercising our spirit and denying the self.

The Lord Jesus was such a One – He exercised His spirit to contact God the Father again and again, and He denied Himself; the result was that He lived a God-man life for the expression of the Father.

When the Lord was on earth, many times He spoke to the Father as He was speaking to the disciples, and He communicated with the Father often. He always exercised His spirit, and He lived in the spirit all the time.

At the same time, He denied Himself and lived by the life of God in His spirit.

These two matters: exercising our spirit and denying the self, are two sides of the same matter, for whenever we exercise our spirit, we deny the self, and when we deny the self, we have the real exercise of the spirit.

Our denial of the self is the exercise of our spirit, and when we exercise our spirit, our self is denied.

When we exercise our spirit, we touch the mingled spirit with all of Christ’s riches, and when we deny our self, we put the old natural man back into the grave where it belongs; this is how we are conformed to the death of Christ through the cross.

Such a life of dying to ourselves and living to God is for Christ, the first God-man, to be formed in His many members; when we corporately live a life of being conformed to the death of Christ through the cross, Christ is manifested through us.

When we exercise our spirit and deny the self, we live the life of a God-man for the building up of the organic Body of Christ (see Gal. 4:19; Eph. 4:12, 16).

We must be those who live a crucified life by continually taking Christ’s death as the mold of our life; it is only by this kind of corporate living that we can have the reality of the Body of Christ (see Phil. 3:10; Rom. 12:5; 1 Cor. 2:2; 12:27).

What is the reality of the Body of Christ? The reality of the Body is the corporate living of the many God-men who live a grafted life, a life in the organic union; they live in their mingled spirit continually, and they constantly deny themselves and exercise their spirit to be conformed to the death of Christ.

Amen, may we be such ones!

Lord Jesus, we want to exercise our spirit and deny the self so that we may live a crucified life every day even as the Lord did. Amen, Lord, we exercise our spirit to touch You and enjoy all Your riches, and we deny the self to put it back into the grave where it belongs! Make us those who live a crucified life by continually taking Christ’s death as the mold of our life so that we may have a living in the reality of the Body of Christ! Lord Jesus, gain this kind of corporate living of the many God-men who live a grafted life, a life in the organic union with the Lord by being conformed to the death of Christ through the cross!

References and Hymns on this Topic

• Inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message by Mark Raabe for this week, and portions from, Collected Works of Witness Lee, 1990, vol. 1, “The Triune God to Be Life to the Tripartite Man,” pp. 316-327, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, The Reality of the Body of Christ (2018 Thanksgiving Conference), week 3, Being in the Reality of the Body of Christ by Living in the Organic Union and in the Mingled Spirit and by Being Conformed to Christ’s Death.
• Hymns on this topic:
  # Jesus, my life, Thyself apply; / Thy Holy Spirit breathe; / My vile affections crucify; / Conform me to Thy death. (Hymns #364)
  # I am crucified with Christ / And it is no longer I who liveth, / But it is Christ who lives in me; / And the life which I now live / In the flesh, I live in faith— / The faith of the Son of God / Who loved and gave Himself up for me. (Song on, I am crucified with Christ)
  # Oh, what a life! Oh, what a peace! / The Christ who’s all within me lives. / With Him I have been crucified; / This glorious fact to me He gives. / Now it’s no longer I that live, / But Christ the Lord within me lives. (Hymns #499)