God is Mingling Himself with us to Become our Life for His Corporate Expression

“God’s purpose is to mingle Himself with us so that He becomes our life, our nature, and our content, and so that we become His corporate expression.” – this is quite a statement. God’s heart desire is to obtain the church as the Body of Christ; He desires to gain a group of people who are fully mingled with God.

The building up of the church as the Body of Christ is by the mingling of God and man, and the true meaning of building is that God is building Himself into man and He is building man into Himself for the mingling of God and man.

How can God gain a dwelling place in man? He firstly became man to bring God into man, and through death and resurrection He brought man into God for the church, the dwelling place of God. Now all believers in Christ who are regenerated by God in their spirit with the divine life are God’s dwelling place of God in spirit (Eph. 2:21-22).

God’s purpose is to mingle Himself with us so that He would become our life and content with the result that we express Him in a corporate way.

God’s will for us is nothing else but the mingling of God with man; God’s will for our life is that at any time, in any place we’re in, in any circumstance we happen to be in, and with anyone that we’re with God wants to mingle Himself with us more. God arranges things, people, circumstances, and environments in our life for a maximum mingling.

We need to see that all God wants is to mingle Himself with us. If we realize that in any situation God’s will is to mingle Himself with us, we will open to Him and exercise our spirit to touch Him for a maximum mingling!

God doesn’t want us to merely be holy and have a loving heart toward others; He wants to mingle Himself with us to become our life and content so that He may be corporately expressed through us.

The result of the mingling of God and man is that we live a mingled life, a life by the mingled spirit and in the divine mingling of God and man for the building up of the church as the Body of Christ.

God is Mingling Himself with us to Become our Life for His Corporate Expression

How can God gain a corporate expression in humanity? It is NOT by many people reading the Bible, agreeing with its doctrine and moral concepts, and doing their best to fulfill what the book says. The way God obtains a corporate expression of Himself in humanity is by mingling Himself with man.

God’s unique purpose in creating man and all things is so that He would mingle Himself with man to be man’s life, content, and nature, and so that man would become His corporate expression (see John 14:20; 15:4-5; Eph. 3:16-21; 4:4-6, 16).

God’s purpose in leading us through all kinds of environments, putting us with certain people, giving us a particular job, putting us in a certain family, and doing everything in us and around us is so that he would mingle Himself with us more.

However, we focus too many times on things and people who do this or that to us, and we don’t really see God’s purpose. All the saved ones need to pray that the Lord would open their eyes to see God’s purpose to mingle Himself with man.

The reason we are saved is not that we would have a loving heart, a better conduct, a more efficient human living, a more loving social entourage, or be more kind, meek, loving, joyous, and spiritual. Christ redeemed us so that God would enter into us and mingle Himself with us.

God’s eternal will – His mysterious plan and heart’s desire – is that He would enter into man, be mingled with man, and obtain a corporate expression in man. I was very enlightened by the following paragraph from brother Lee’s classical, The Experience of Life,

A thorough study of the Bible will help us discover the amazing fact that God in eternity planned according to His heart desire to attain the goal of mingling Himself with man. God in the universe has this one will: to work Himself into man and to mingle Himself with man. His creation, redemption, sanctification, and all other aspects of His work are for this one purpose. This is the one desire of His heart in the universe: it is the only goal, and it is the basic principle of all His work in the New Testament. Therefore, if we desire to know God’s will in any situation, we must first ascertain whether the situation is conducive to the mingling of Himself with us. Without this mingling, no matter how good or praiseworthy the situation may be, it is not God’s will. This is a strict measurement. (Witness Lee, The Experience of Life, p. 158)

What is God’s will for our life? God’s will is not concerned with minor things such as our job, our marriage, or our children; to us these matters are very important, but to God the most important is that He would mingle Himself with us. He arranges our circumstances together with our family life, work life, and church life so that we may be mingled with God more and more.

There are so many things that we would like to change in our work life, family life, and church life, but God allows things to happen and people to be there for a maximum mingling of God with man. In seeking God’s will for us we need to consider,

Lord, is this situation conducive to more mingling? Is this job I’m applying for robbing me of my time or will it lead to more mingling of God and man? Lord, may my job, my family life, my possessions, and all that I am involved in be for more mingling of God and man! O Lord Jesus, more mingling today! Mingle Yourself with me as I take a shower, have breakfast, go to work or to school, and take care of so many necessary practical things. Lord, mingle Yourself with me and mingle Yourself more with all the saints for the building up of the church!

The Christian Life is the Mingling of Divinity with Humanity for the Corporate Expression of God in Man

As Christians, we are the continuation and reproduction of Christ, the first God-man. Christ was God incarnated in man: He was a man, and yet He was God – He was a God-man. Outwardly Christ was a man; inwardly, He was God.

Christ is God mingled with man, the crystallization of the union of God and man (see Luke 1:31-35). In Christ God and man have become one: God was expressed through man and man lived out God.

As Christ’s disciples, continuation, and reproduction, all the believers today are a mingling of God and man. Every genuine Christian is a man who has God living within him. The Christian life is the mingling of divinity and humanity, and to be a Christian really means to be mingled with God – to be a God-man (2 Tim. 3:17).

As Christians, our living should not be merely according to our natural life and concept; we should live a life in the mingling of God and man. As God is mingling Himself with us day by day, we need to allow Him to mingle His divine attributes with our human virtues so that we may love with His love expressed in our love, be full of joy with His joy in our virtue of joy, be patient with Christ as our patience, and be kind by expressing Christ in His kindness.

In the Lord Jesus we can clearly see that God was mingled with Him and all He did, said, and expressed was God mingled with His humanity. In our Christian life we need to enjoy the mingling of God and man and live out a mingled life, expressing God through our virtues as He mingles Himself with us.

Our natural love runs out quite quickly, but the divine love is eternal and enduring; we need to love others not with our own love but with God’s love as the content and reality of our love. God’s purpose to mingle Himself with us and become our life, content, and nature is fulfilled in our daily living as we allow Him to mingle His divine attributes with our human virtues and be expressed in us.

Our normal Christian living should be the living of God mingled with man, the living of a God-man, in which we and God are one and God is expressed through us for the building up of the church as the Body of Christ.

Lord Jesus, save us from living an empty and meaningless Christian life. Mingle Yourself with us more and more each day until we live a life in the mingling of God and man. Lord, may Your divine attributes fill and enrich our human virtues to become their content and reality. Mingle Yourself with us until You become our life, our nature, and our content so that we may become Your corporate expression. Amen, Lord, mingle Yourself with us and with all Your saints so that we may live a God-man life for the corporate God-man, the Body of Christ, to be built up!

References and Hymns on this Topic

• Inspiration: the Word of God, my Christian experience, bro. Ron Kangas’ sharing in the message for this week, and portions from, The Crucified Christ, ch. 2, 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 9 / msg 9, The Building Up of the Church as the Body of Christ (3) – The Organic Building by the Growth of Life and the Mingling of God and Man and the Lord’s Need of Overcomers to Care for the Body and Build Up the Body.
• Hymns on this topic:
  # Now within the Lord’s recov’ry, we’re so glad to find the way / To experience the Triune God and live by Him today— / Get into the mingled spirit, and within the spirit stay; / Yes, mingling is the way. (Hymns #1199)
  # God’s eternal economy / Is to make man the same as He is / In life and nature but not in the Godhead / And to make Himself one with man / And man one with Him, / Thus to be enlarged / And expanded in His expression, / That all His divine, / That all His divine attributes / May be expressed in human virtues. (Song on God’s Economy)
  # The processed and consummated Triune God, / According to the good pleasure of His desire / And for the highest intention in His economy, / Is building Himself into His chosen people / And His chosen people into Himself / That He may have a constitution in Christ / As the mingling of divinity with humanity / To be His organism and the Body of Christ / As His eternal expression and the mutual abode / For the redeeming God and the redeemed man. / The ultimate consummation of this miraculous structure of treasure / Will be the New Jerusalem for eternity. (Song on God’s Purpose and Intention)