Being Identified with the Smitten Christ to Flow out the Divine Life as Living Water

In order for us to have the outflow of life we need to be one with Christ in His life-releasing death, that is, we need to be identified with the smitten Christ typified by the smitten rock.

The Lord Jesus as life is in our spirit, even within the deepest part of our being.

Our spirit, however, is surrounded by our soul and our body, so for the divine life to flow out, there has to be a breaking of the outer man.

When the outer man is dealt with and broken, the life in our spirit can be released and flow.

As tripartite beings, we have the body outwardly, the soul inside the body, and the spirit inside the soul, the deepest part of our being.

The Lord Jesus as life came in our spirit, and He dwells, lives, moves, and abides in our mingled spirit.

However, He wants to spread into all the parts of our heart and make His home in us. He wants to seep into our mind, emotion, and will, and He wants to make our inner being His home.

How can He do this? Many times we don’t willingly open to Him, so there’s the need for some outward circumstances, some circumstantial sufferings, that would wear out and break the outer man so that the inner man can be released.

Christ as the treasure is in our spirit, but He needs to shine forth and be manifested through our soul; for this to happen, our vessel needs to be dealt with and purified so that it may be transparent for the treasure to be seen.

Day by day in our Christian life the Lord is so available to us to work Himself into us, and He wants to infuse us with all that He is.

There’s a continual dispensing of life going on in our spirit, and every time we turn to the Lord and contact Him, He infuses Himself into us and adds more of His element to our inner being. This is on the positive side.

On the negative side, the Lord is seeking to have a breakthrough to spread from our spirit into all the parts of our inner being.

So He sovereignly arranges certain circumstances and situations to wear out, break down, and tear down our outer man.

As we experience suffering and trials, our confidence in the outer man decreases and we rely on the Lord more and more.

But if we remain strong and whole in our outer man, we become even stronger in the outer man and the Lord has no way to break through.

May we learn to cooperate with the Lord and allow Him to tear down the outer man so that He may have a real way to spread from our spirit into our mind, emotion, and will, and eventually to flow out of us as a pure flow of water of life.

Being one with Christ in His Life-releasing Death to have the Outflow of Life

In order for us as believers in Christ to minister life to others, we need to be one with Christ in His life-releasing death.

As He was hanging on the cross, one of the soldiers pierced His side with a spear, and immediately there came out blood and water (John 19:34).

The blood was for our redemption, taking care of all the negative things, and the water is for imparting life.

Through His death, Christ not only redeemed us and reconciled us to God; He also released His divine life into us.

In His resurrection, He imparted this released divine life into our being, but it was in His death that He released His life.

The apostles realized this and experienced this; this is why Paul said in 1 Cor. 4:12 that death operates in them but life in the other believers.

In order for us to have the outflow of life, that is, for us to minister life to others for their growth in life and building up in the Body, we need to be one with Christ in His life-releasing death.

We cannot participate in the redemptive aspect of Christ’s death; only He as the first God-man without sin could die on the cross for our redemption.

We can only receive His redemption, and we can be saved as a result. However, we can participate in the life-releasing aspect of His death, that is, we can be conformed to His death so that His life may be released and flow through us.

Whenever we are one with the crucified Christ, when we’re one with Him in His life-releasing death, death operates in us, but life operates and is dispensed into others.

The work that God desires us to accomplish for Him is not necessarily to make miracles and do something great outwardly; what He wants is that we die so that His life may flow through us.

In the Lord’s recovery, we need to die so that life may work in others.

We need to be one with Christ in His life-releasing death so that we may have the outflow of life.

We may have the desire to impart life to others, but we need to realize that this is not merely by our enjoying the Lord and being constituted with the truth but even more, by being one with Christ in His life-releasing death.

When we die, life works in others; when we die to the self and remain one with Christ in His death, His life is imparted into others.

This is our work: being put to death so that life may be ministered to others. We are not followers of a Great Person, someone who did great works outwardly and now wants to do even greater works in us.

We follow the little man Jesus, One who was despised and rejected by man but with God chosen and precious, for this One is life itself.

Instead of being exalted, we are always being put to death so that the life of Jesus may be manifested in our mortal flesh.

In order for us to minister life to others we shouldn’t deliberately set out to do a lot or run away into retirement and do nothing; we simply need to let the cross operate in us in our walk with the Lord.

The cross operates in us through the Spirit and in spirit, and the cross is crossing out our natural man, our self, and our flesh.

Our service to God is not merely by the words we speak; it is by allowing the cross to operate in us and being one with Christ in His life-releasing death.

The measure of our ministry is not determined by the measure of our activity; rather, the more we die, the more we are one with Christ in His death, and the more His life can be dispensed into others.

May we bring this to the Lord and tell Him,

Lord Jesus, we desire to have the outflow of life by being one with the crucified Christ, one with the Christ in His life-releasing death. Keep us enjoying You today, Lord, and keep us in our spirit so that we may experience You in Your death and resurrection. May we be willing to allow Your death to operate in us so that life may operate and be dispensed into others. Save us from trying to do a great work for God. Save us from hiding and doing nothing for God or toward others. We want to remain in our spirit so that the cross may be applied to us in our daily walk with the Lord. Amen, Lord, we want to follow You, Jesus of Nazareth, on the pathway to glory by being one with You in Your death and resurrection. Fill us with Your life and have Your way to dispense this life into others as we remain in Your death!

Being Identified with the Smitten Christ so that the Water of Life may Freely Flow

Exo. 17:6 shows us a type of Christ as the One smitten by God on the cross; God commanded Moses to take the rod and smite the rock, and water will flow out of it.

In John 7:38 the Lord Jesus said, He who believes into Me, as the Scripture said, out of his innermost being shall flow rivers of living water.

The Lord Jesus is the real rock that was smitten; He was smitten on the cross by the rod of God’s righteousness, holiness, and glory, and out of Him flowed the living water.

The Lord’s death was a life-releasing death.

We drank of Him and this living water became in us a fountain of water gushing up into eternal life.

How can we have the flow of the water of life out of our innermost being?

First, we need to believe into the Lord, and second, we need to be identified with the smitten Christ. We need to be identified with the One who was smitten on the cross.

This means that we need to experience the crucifixion of our natural life so that the divine life of Christ may flow out as the living water.

Just as Christ’s divine life flowed out as living water through the smiting of His human life, so we shall experience the flowing of the water of life when our natural life is smitten.

But if we speak without being identified with the smitten Christ, without being one with Christ in His life-releasing death, what we say will be natural.

We may pray and praise and testify, but it will be our natural life that is expressed. Oh, Lord.

May we learn to be one with Christ in an actual and practical way by experiencing the smiting of our natural life for the release of the divine life (2 Cor. 4:10-12, 16).

When our natural life is smitten by the cross, even though we may be on a hospital bed, living water will flow.

We should not lose heart when we see that our natural life is smitten by the cross; rather, we need to realize that our inner man is being renewed, and the Lord will have a way to flow out through us as living water.

If we are one with the smitten Christ, we will experience the crucifixion of our natural life, and then Christ’s divine life will flow out of us to supply others with life.

Though our natural life is smitten and the crucifixion of Christ is applied to our natural being, the living water flows out of us.

May we be willing to pay the price today and allow the Lord to deal with our natural life and our natural man so that His life may have a free way to not only flow into us but also out of us.

We want to stand before the Lord on that day and be welcomed by Him, for our life, our living, and our service contributed to the building up of the Body of Christ and the preparation of the bride, so we will enter into His joy. This is what we desire.

Yes, there is a price to pay, and in ourselves we can’t pay the price, but we can open to the Lord about it and ask Him to strengthen us into our inner man so that we may fully cooperate with Him.

We want to really enjoy and experience Christ to the extent that His life flows into us and out of us as rivers of living water.

When we’re identified with the smitten Christ in our experience, our natural life is put to death and the divine life has a way to flow out.

When we’re identified with the smitten Christ, what flows out of us will be pure, not natural, but divine.

This is what we want. We really want to experience not only the infilling in John 4:14 but also the outflow of life in John 7:38; we want to both drink of Christ as the living water and flow Him out to others as rivers of water of life.

Rivers of living water will flow out of our innermost being as we allow the Lord to apply the cross to our natural life, for there will be a breaking, an opening, for the divine life in our spirit to flow out.

When we’re identified with the smitten Christ, the water of life will flow in a pure way, and whether we pray, praise, or just speak something, the divine life will flow out in its purity.

In this way, we build up the church as the Body of Christ and we prepare the bride of Christ so that we may hasten the Lord’s return.

This is our desire, to bring the Lord back.

Lord Jesus, thank You for flowing into us as living water. Hallelujah, we can drink the water that You give us and never thirst again but even more, this water becomes in us a fountain of water gushing up into eternal life! Amen, Lord, we want to cooperate with You to both drink the living water and flow out the living water! We give ourselves to You, Lord, to be identified with the smitten Christ so that life may flow out as rivers of water of life! Give us the experiences we need for us to experience the flow of the water of life through the smiting of our natural life! Flow in, Lord, and flow out as living water! We want to be one with You to flow out the water of life to others for the building up of the church as the Body of Christ to consummate the New Jerusalem, the city from which the water of life flows!

References and Hymns on this Topic

• Sources of inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, a sharing by brother Ron Kangas in the message, and portions from, Life-study of Exodus, pp. 527-528 (by Witness Lee), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Taking the Way of Enjoying Christ as the Tree of Life (2022 Memorial Day Weekend Conference), week 6, entitled, Becoming a Reproduction of Christ as the Tree of Life for the Ministry of Life.
• Hymns on this topic:
  – Oh, may my spirit flow, / Oh, may it flow! / Now I beseech Thee, Lord / Oh, may it flow! / My past I would forsake, / The iron walls would break, / My spirit free would make; / Oh, may it flow! (Hymns #846)
  – Through the Cross, O Lord, I pray, / Put my soul-life all away; / Make me any price to pay, / Full anointing to receive. / Christ, the Rock, must first be smitten, / That the living water flow; / Without death the Spirit’s fulness / Ne’er could dwell in man below. (Hymns #279)
  – The outward man, the self, the soul, / Must be consumed, must be decreased; / The inner man, our spirit, then / Shall with the Spirit be released. / 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)