After seeing a laser light exposure of the matter of the subduing of the soul for the release of the spirit so that we may have a proper church life, we now come to more practical matters related to our practicing of the church life.
The church life is not for us to practice in an extrinsic way but according to God’s nature, God’s desire, and God’s way. We need to see what is the proper practice that we should have in the church life according to God’s way so that we may be the Body of Christ, the one New Man in reality.
The church life is not an organisation or some kind of religious entity, but a living organism, the Body of Christ and the organism of the Triune God.
In our practice of the church life we should not carry out some formalities or religious rituals, something according to our nature, culture, or tradition, but we should live the church life as members of the organism of the Triune God.
We need to be aware that we are here practicing the church life as part of the one new man. In Eph. 4:1 there’s a wonderful footnote that sheds some light on how our church life should be,
This book is divided into two main sections. The first, composed of chs. 1–3, reveals the blessings and the position the church has obtained in Christ in the heavenlies. The second, comprising chs. 4–6, charges us concerning the living and responsibility the church should have in the Spirit on the earth. The basic charge is that we should walk worthily of God’s calling, which is the totality of the blessings bestowed on the church, as revealed in 1:3-14. In the church, under the Triune God’s abundant blessing, the saints should walk worthily of the Father’s selection and predestination, the Son’s redemption, and the Spirit’s sealing and pledging. Hence, in chs. 4-6 we see, on the one hand, the living that the church should have, and, on the other hand, the responsibility that the church should bear. (Eph. 4:1, footnote 3)
We need to walk worthily of God’s calling, that is, walk worthily of the Father’s selection and predestination, the Son’s redemption, and the Spirit’s sealing.
We need to not only see the high and profound vision of the church as the Body of Christ (see Eph. 1-3) but also have a practical living on the earth that matches what we see.
The church life is not merely a family life among the believers in the local church expressed in the meetings of the church, but it is something related to the dispensing of the Triune God into our being.
We may have a sweet loving church life, but we may still be void of the constitution of the Triune God; such a living doesn’t have much value in God’s eyes.
God wants us to have a church life as the living of the Body of Christ in the organism constituted with the Father, the Son, and the Spirit in an organic and intrinsic way.
Today we want to see how we need to experience the divine dispensing of the Divine Trinity for the practice of the church life as a living in the Body of Christ, the one new man.
Experiencing the Divine Dispensing of the Divine Trinity for the Church Life
For us to have a proper practice of the church life as a living in the Body of Christ, the one new man, we need to experience the divine dispensing of the Divine Trinity (see Eph. 4:12, 16, 18, 21, 24, 30).
It is amazing and truly remarkable that in Ephesians, a book on the church, in every chapter we have the divine dispensing of the Divine Trinity. This shows us that in order for us to live the proper church life in the Body we need to be constantly under the divine dispensing of the Divine Trinity.
- Ephesians 1: For the constitution of the Body of Christ we need the Father’s predestination, the Son’s redemption, and the Spirit’s sealing and pledging.
- Ephesians 2: For the constitution of the new man as the masterpiece of God we need the Father’s enlivening us from the dead, the Son’s creating the new man in His Body on the cross, and the Spirit as the access in whom we can come to the Father.
- Ephesians 3: For the experience of the believers to issue in the church as the fullness of God, we need to be strengthened by the Father through the empowering Spirit into the inner man so that Christ may make His home in our heart.
- Ephesians 4: For the building up of the church to be the full-grown man, we need to be under the supply of the Father’s life, living in reality of Jesus, and under the sealing of the Spirit.
- Ephesians 5: For the living of the proper church life for the producing of the church as the counterpart of Christ, we need to have a living that is always praising the Lord with the songs of the Spirit, and with thanksgiving to God the Father.
- Ephesians 6: For the fighting of the spiritual warfare by the church as the spiritual warrior, we need to put on the whole armor of God the Father in the empowering of the Lord to wield the sword of the Spirit.
In every chapter of Ephesians we see the divine dispensing of the Divine Trinity for our living of the church life in the Body of Christ. We simply need to be open vessels to allow the Triune God to dispense Himself freely into us.
It is one thing to know and understand that God is dispensing Himself into us, and it is another thing to be open vessels to Him. On His side, God is constantly dispensing Himself into us; on our side, we need to be open vessels to receive His rich dispensing.
Are we open to allow His dispensing to take place in our being from morning to evening so that even our ordinary days would be filled with the divine dispensing? God wants to dispense Himself into us to be our content and center, but are we willing and open to Him?
This is why we need to have our outer man broken, the shell of our soul to be removed, so that the Triune God would have free access to dispense Himself into us. We need to bring this matter to the Lord in a fresh way and tell Him,
Lord Jesus, keep us open to Your divine dispensing all day long. We open our vessel to You. We want to receive Your divine dispensing and be filled with You for our daily practical living in the church life. May Your divine dispensing saturate us and fill us so that there would be an overflow to others for the building up of Your Body!
The Divine Dispensing is the Base for our Daily Living as Believers and Members of the Body
How can we live the Christian life in the church life? Only by being constantly under the divine dispensing. The divine dispensing of the Divine Trinity is the base for our daily living as believers and members of the Body of Christ and parts of the new man.
If we are not enjoying and participating in this divine dispensing continually, whatever we do as Christians and members of the Body is artificial, man-made. But when we are practicing the church life on the base of the divine dispensing of the Divine Trinity, we organically express Christ and live Christ.
In Eph. 4:17-32 we see a detailed way how the divine dispensing of the Divine Trinity is expressed in the believers’ living. Here Paul exhorts us to not let the sun go down on our anger, not steal from others, etc.
We need to not only receive the life of God and be believers in Christ but also have a living that backs up, supports, matches, and affords all the needed elements, factors, and essences for the building up of the Body of Christ.
We need to have a proper living for the Body of Christ. First of all, the life of God is for the supplying of His children with all His riches in His divine dispensing (Eph. 4:18). We are now no longer Gentiles walking in the vanity of our mind, dead in sins and offenses, but we are sons of God.
As sons of God we should not be cut off from the life of God; we have God’s life, and we should live by being connected to and participating in the life of God. This divine life supplies us with all the riches of the divine dispensing.
The practicality of the life of God is the reality in Jesus (Eph. 4:21), that is, the practicing of the life of God that took place in Jesus while He lived on earth.
Whatever the Lord Jesus lived while He was on earth was truth, reality, because He lived by the Father, according to the Father, and in the Father – who is the truth. This is the divine life realized and practiced as the reality in Jesus’ humanity.
The Lord Jesus Christ, the God-man, lived as a man on earth feeding on butter (the richest grace of the Father’s life) and honey (the sweetest love of the Father’s life) – see Isa. 7:14-15. Because Christ was feeding on the Father with His richest grace and sweetest love, He knew how to reject evil and choose the good will of God.
This reality in Jesus is being infused into us, His believers, with Christ’s godly living in His humanity.
Furthermore, we were sealed in the Holy Spirit of God unto the day of redemption (Eph. 4:30). This Spirit is the sealing Spirit, the sealing “ink” with which we all have been sealed (Eph. 1:13).
The Triune God as Spirit is sealing us with the divine ink, which is always wet, imparting God’s essence and stamping God’s image onto us. The contents and the essence of the Sealing Spirit are the divine life plus Jesus’ practical humanity (see Eph. 4:18; Acts 16:7).
The Spirit of reality receives everything from the Son (who also receives everything from the Father) and applies everything to us as a seal, giving us all that the Father and the Son is. The sealing Spirit saturates us, permeates us, and soaks us with the processed and consummated Triune God (2 Cor. 13:14).
The church life is not just something that we carry out in an outward way but an expression of what we are filled and saturated within. If we spend time with the Lord and allow the sealing Spirit to saturate us and permeate us, the church life will automatically issue out in our living.
The Father’s life is the reality in Jesus, and this reality as the practicality of the Father becomes the sealing Spirit. God is the truth (1 John 5:20), Christ is the reality and the life (John 14:6), and the Spirit is the Spirit of reality (John 16); the entire Triune God is the Reality, and in the divine dispensing we become the reality of the Body of Christ.
The sealing Spirit saturates us and permeates us with the divine life in the practicality of Jesus’ daily life, making our life a reproduction of Jesus’ life. Through the divine dispensing of the Divine Trinity with the Father’s life, the reality in Jesus, and the Spirit’s sealing, we may have a daily life that is a living in the Body of Christ, the one new man.
Daily we need to stay under the divine dispensing; the degree of being open to Him is the degree to which He can soak us, saturate us, and permeate us, and this determines the degree to which we become His reproduction.
Oh Lord, keep us daily under the divine dispensing of the Divine Trinity. Fill us with Your divine life and with the reality which is in Jesus so that we may become the reproduction of Christ. Saturate us, soak us, and permeate us with the divine element and the divine reality so that we may become and live the reality of the Body of Christ. Lord, we open to receive the divine dispensing of the Divine Trinity with the Father’s life, the reality in Jesus, and the Spirit’s sealing for us to have a proper church life in the Body of Christ.
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Inspiration: the Word of God, my Christian experience, bro. James Lee’s sharing in the message for this week, and portions from, The Economy and Dispensing of God (ch. 10), as quoted in, the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, The Vision, Practice, and Building up of the Church as the Body of Christ, week 5 / msg 5, Crucial Experiences in the Practice of the Church Life (2) – Aspects of the Church Life as a Living in the Body of Christ, the One New Man.
- Hymns on this topic:
# The divine dispensing starts with the Father. / He selected us ’ere the world began. / Predestinated to be His sons / Through His rich life dispensing. / The Son accomplished the Father’s purpose / By His redemption of fallen man / Through His own blood and according to / The riches of God’s grace. / The Spirit’s sealing, the application / It works within us to permeate / And transform us with God’s element / Unto our full redemption. (Song on the Divine Dispensing)
# My every moment is to live unto You. / In everything dear Lord, / You must now break through. / I’m just a vessel, You’re my treasure within. / O Lord, keep spreading in my entire being. (Song on Being an Open Vessel)
# It is our destiny, / To live a normal life in the divine dispensing, / It is a blessing, / To be satisfied with ordinary days / in the divine dispensing. (Song on the Divine Dispensing).
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