We need to Fan our Spirit into Flame to Believe and Declare God’s Word and Enjoy Christ

It is so encouraging to realize that God’s presence is with us, even in our spirit, and we should continually exercise our spirit of faith to be strong and very courageous to enjoy the all-inclusive Christ, not trusting in our feelings but rather, fan our spirit into flame.

The promises of God in the Bible are so encouraging and real, giving us strength and encouragement wherever we are and whatever we do.

We are the church of the covenant, and we are covenanted people, for we are under the new covenant, and all that God is and has is covenanted to us to be ours for our enjoyment and experience.

It is the greatest sin, therefore, that we don’t believe God, that is, that we trust our feelings and believe our situation so we don’t believe God’s word but rather have a heart of unbelief.

It is not only the children of Israel in the Old Testament that had a heart of unbelief; we today also may be those who have such a heart whenever we do not say Amen to His word and do not trust Him for the fulfilment of His promises.

May we grasp hold of God’s Word and believe His Word, and all will be well; may we stand not with how we feel or how we perceive to be our situation but may we trust in the Lord and His word.

What is impossible with us is possible with God; it is impossible with us that we would be overcomers, but with the Lord this is possible.

The Lord is willing and eager to make us His overcomers, for He needs many to be just like Him, enjoying and experiencing Christ to be made the same as Christ for the fulfillment of God’s eternal purpose.

So we need to look away from ourselves, from our situation and condition, and from all the things around us, and simply look unto Jesus.

When we look away unto Jesus, He becomes the Author of our faith – He infuses Himself into us to be the believing ability in us for us to believe and have faith.

He is the source of our faith, and He is also the One who perfects our faith; He’s the Author and the Perfecter of our faith, so the more we look away unto Jesus, He infuses us with faith and He perfects our faith.

Our Christian life is a life of faith and our Christian walk is a walk by faith; however, if we live according to our feelings and not according to the divine facts in the Word of God, we are rebelling against God’s word and we insult Him.

May we turn to the Lord, again and again, being fully trusting and depending on Him, and not relying on our own understanding, our knowledge, or our feelings; may we believe His word and enjoy Him in His word, saying Amen to His promises.

Continually Exercising our Spirit of Faith to be Strong and Very Courageous to Enjoy the All-inclusive Christ

The Lord encouraged Joshua and strengthened him even before he became the leader of God’s people.

In Josh. 1:5-7 the Lord promised him that, even as He was with Moses, He will be with Joshua; He will not fail nor forsake him; only he needs to be strong and take courage to cause the people to take and enjoy the land which He has promised them.

What a promise we have: God is with us, no one can stand against us, and He will not fail us nor forsake us.

As we are pressing into Christ as the good land to enjoy Him, following Him as our real Joshua, He will not forsake us nor fail us.

We only need to be strong and take courage, for the Lord is the One who makes sure we enter into the enjoyment of the all-inclusive Christ as the good land.

He is causing us to inherit Christ as the God-promised land, for He swore He will give it to us, He is giving it to us, and He is leading into the enjoyment of Himself.

We only need to be strong and very courageous to enjoy the all-inclusive Christ, the One who is rich, wonderful, all-inclusive, and so available to us in our spirit.

And if we encounter any problem or anything that stands against us, nothing and no man will be able to stand before us all the days of our life, for nothing can oppose us when the Lord as the Captain of God’s army is with us.

When we love the Lord Jesus and desire to live a godly life, when we want to be a person who experiences God and enjoys God to express God, we will suffer; this is just part and parcel of this experience.

But even so, no matter how much others oppose us, no matter how others stand against us, the Lord is with us, and nothing can stand against us.

Others may slander us, revile us, and persecute us, but the Lord within us is stronger than the one in them.

Others may oppose us and speak evil things concerning us, for we follow the way of the Lord and we stand on His word, but the Lord is with us and nothing can stand against us.

The Lord is with us; even as He was with Moses and with Joshua, so He is with us. The Lord’s presence is with us; His presence is going with us, and He gives us rest (Exo. 33:14).

Because we are persons very near to God’s heart and according to God’s heart, we can have His presence to a full extent.

We want to have the Lord’s smile in this age by having His fresh, instant, and constant presence with us. We don’t want to miss the reward in the next age; in this age, we want His smile, His presence, and in the next age, we want to have His reward.

In the New Testament the presence of Jesus is Emmanuel, meaning “God with us” (Matt. 1:23; 18:20; 28:20); Christ today is the Spirit of reality, the life-giving Spirit, is Emmanuel, the presence of the Divine Trinity in our spirit (2 Tim. 4:22).

The Lord is with our spirit, and when we come together, He is in our midst; He is with us both personally and corporately as our Emmanuel.

We should continually exercise our spirit of faith to be strong and very courageous to enjoy the all-inclusive Christ, signified by the good land.

This Christ is the pledge of our inheritance today, a sample of our full and eternal inheritance of the wonderful Crist in the next age and for eternity (2 Cor. 4:13; Eph. 1:14, 18; 2 Cor. 1:22; 5:5-6).

May we be strong and very courageous by taking the Lord as our strength and our courage to magnify Christ under any circumstances, that is, to experience Him with the topmost enjoyment (Phil. 1:20; 4:11-13).

We can always declare that the Lord is our light and our salvation – whom shall we fear? The Lord is the strength of our life – whom shall we dread (Psa. 27:1).

May we reject any forms of fear; fear doesn’t come from God but from the devil, for fear is the devil’s calling card.

If fear comes to us, we need to reject it and not accept it, for we only fear the Lord and nothing else, and the Lord is our strength and protection.

Death once reigned over us (Rom. 5:14), and we were under its slavery, continually fearing death.

However, the Lord destroyed the devil and nullified death (Heb. 2:14-15; 2 Tim. 1:19), so now have no more fear of death and are released from its slavery. Praise the Lord!

The Lord will not abandon His people, nor will He forsake His inheritance (Psa. 94:14); He is our Helper, and we will not fear, for what can man do to us (Heb. 13:6)? If God is for us, who can be against us (Rom. 8:31)?

Thank You, Lord Jesus, for being with us wherever we are: thank You for Your sweet presence. We come to You and we follow You to enter into the enjoyment of the all-inclusive Christ as the good land allotted to us. Amen, Lord, thank You for being the Spirit of reality in our spirit to be the very presence of the Divine Trinity in our spirit. We exercise our spirit of faith to be strong and very courageous to enjoy the all-inclusive Christ! Amen, Lord, we take You as our strength and our courage to magnify Christ under any circumstance! Hallelujah, the Lord is the light and our salvation – whom shall we fear! The Lord is the strength of our life – whom shall we dread? We trust in You, Lord, and we reject any fear that comes from the devil, for we know that the Lord will not abandon His people, nor will He forsake His inheritance. Hallelujah, the Lord is our helper, and we will not fear, for God is for us and no one can be against us! Praise the Lord!

We need to Fan our Spirit into Flame to Believe and Declare the Facts in God’s Word and Enjoy the All-inclusive Christ

The secret to our being strong and very courageous is our spirit; as 2 Tim. 1:6-7 says, we need to fan into flame our God-given spirit, which is not a spirit of cowardice but of power and of love and of sobermidedness.

Our feelings are altogether a lie; our situation and condition are not what we think it is, and it is not true. Only God’s word is true, and His promises stand forever.

We need to fan our spirit into flame to believe and declare the facts in God’s word.

Sometimes the enemy may attack us and bring many doubts into our mind; we may suffer to such an extent that we may begin to doubt God and doubt our salvation.

But regardless of how much we doubt, there’s one thing within us that we cannot deny: our mingled spirit.

We have a mingled spirit, and we are not like the beasts or the animals – we have the Spirit dwelling and living in our mingled spirit.

This spirit is a trouble to Satan, and he tries his best to distract us from our spirit.

Regardless of how much work Satan has done and is still doing, there’s one thing within us that he can’t touch: our spirit.

May we turn to our spirit and fan our spirit into flame. May we reject any attack of doubt and fear from the enemy and simply fan our spirit into flame.

How do we fan our spirit into flame? It is by opening our mouth, opening our heart, and opening our spirit; all these three layers of our being need to be open so that our spirit would be fanned into flame.

We can’t say that we exercise our spirit by merely calling on the Lord inwardly, inaudibly; this is not to fan it into flame.

The flame of God is in our spirit – the divine Spirit burns in our spirit, and we need to fan it into flame. We fan our spirit into flame by opening our spirit and calling on the Lord, O Lord Jesus!

Then we need to go even deeper and use our heart together with our mouth to say, Oh Lord Jesus!

And we need to go even deeper and use our spirit together with our mouth and our heart to say, Oh Lord Jesus!

This is to open up our whole being with our spirit, our heart, and our mouth, to call on the Lord and fan our spirit into flame.

As we open and fan our spirit into flame, the fire burns.

When we feel we are down, when doubts arise in our mind, and when we feel our condition is not up to God’s standard, we should simply fan our spirit into flame by calling, O Lord Jesus, again and again.

The more we call on the Lord by opening our spirit, our heart, and our mouth, our entire being is exercised and focused on the Lord, and we fan our spirit into flame.

The enemy tries to cheat us and deceive us; he says that we are weak and down, and we may even say that we’re weak and down.

When we agree with the enemy and say that we are low or down, we actually experience this.

But when we exercise our spirit, turn our heart to the Lord, and open our mouth to say O Lord Jesus, we realize that we are not down, we are not weak, and we are not cloudy.

Rather, we are clear, we are strong, and we are able, for in Him we can do all things.

It is important to stand on the Word of God, agree with the Word of God, say Amen to the word of God, and declare the word of God as we fan our spirit into flame.

We are strong because we have the capacity – we have a spirit that is fanned into flame, and this burning mingled spirit is not a spirit of cowardice but of power and of love and of sobermidedness.

If we say we are strong, strength is with us, for strength is in the mingled spirit. We should declare and claim the divine facts in the Word of God, for they are our portion.

What God declares concerning us in the Word of God is our legal, God-appointed lot, which has been allotted to us by God.

May we no longer allow the enemy to defraud us from the enjoyment of Christ, and may we stand against any feelings that keep us down and low; may we simply fan our spirit into flame and enjoy what God has spoken in His word!

We shouldn’t turn away to the right or the left from the holy Word concerning the heavenly vision of God’s eternal economy, so that we may have success wherever we go by walking worthily of the Lord to please Him in all things (Col. 1:10). Amen!

If we practice this, if we daily practice to fan our spirit into flame and not turn aside from the heavenly vision of god’s economy, we will obtain the testimony that we have been well-pleasing to God by continually believing that God is and we are not (Heb. 11:5-6; Gen. 5:21-24).

Lord Jesus, we exercise our spirit, we turn our heart to You, and we open our mouth to call, O Lord Jesus! Amen, Lord, we fan our spirit into flame, for God didn’t give us a spirit of cowardice but of power and of love and of sobermidedness! We believe Your Word, Lord, and we stand on Your word. We reject the enemy’s lies and his deceit. We reject our feelings and do not hold on to our opinions and concepts. Amen, Lord, we declare that in Christ we are full of love, full of power, and sober-minded, even very clear! We exercise our spirit to be strong and take courage so that we may enter into and enjoy the all-inclusive Christ as the reality of the good land! Amen, Lord, we stand on Your word and we do not turn to the right or to the left from the vision of God’s eternal economy, for we want to obtain the testimony of being well-pleasing to God!

References and Hymns on this Topic

• Sources of inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message by bro. Ed Marks for this week, and portions from, Collected Works of Witness Lee, 1993, vol. 2, “The Spirit with Our Spirit,” ch. 8, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Crystallization-study of Joshua, Judges, and Ruth (2021 summer training), week 1, God’s Charge, Promise, and Encouragement to Joshua.
• Hymns on this topic:
  – We will all stir up this gift that’s deep within / As the wonderful Spirit in us. / When we call “Lord Jesus” how our spirits spring / With this life-giving Spirit in us! (Hymns #1113)
  – For which cause, I remind you / To fan into flame the gift of God / Which is in you / Through the laying on of my hands, / You fan into flame the gift of God, / Which is in you. / For God has not given us / A spirit of cowardice, / But of power and of love / And of sobermindedness. (Scripture song)
  – All my doubts I give to Jesus; / I’ve His gracious promise heard: / I shall never be confounded, / I am trusting in that word. / I am trusting, fully trusting, / Sweetly trusting in His word; / I am trusting, fully trusting, / Sweetly trusting in His word. (Hymns #570)