What an amazing fact that we can know the immeasurable love of Christ and even become love and light in the Lord!
Even as Christ loved us and gave Himself up for us, so we should walk in love and even become love; furthermore, as children of light, we should walk in light and even become light in the Lord.
As children of God, we should walk in love and light, that is, we should walk according to the divine nature which is in our spirit, and we will walk in love and light.
Love is the inner substance of God, and light is the expressed element of God. In His essence, God is love, and when He is expressed, He is light. When God shines on us with His light, He does it through the truth, for the truth is the shining of light.
When God comes to us in love, He reaches us as grace, for grace is the expression of love. The Lord Jesus came as the embodiment of God, and He was full of grace and reality, truth (John 1:14); He expressed the Father as grace (God coming to man to be enjoyed by man) and reality (God coming to man to be realised by man).
Our daily walk as children of God should be constituted with both the loving substance of God and the shining element of God; this should be the inner source of our walk.
What is the source of our daily walk in the church life and in our Christian life? What is the source of our love for the saints and for the Lord? The source should be love as the inner substance of God, and light as the shining element of God.
Christ loved us and gave Himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling savor. When we see His love, we are infused with Himself to love Him back, we are inspired, and we just love Him.
In the condition and atmosphere of love, in the mutual love between us and the Lord, we are saturated with God to be holy and without blemish before Him.
As we love the Lord, as we enjoy His love, and as we walk in love, we are under His divine dispensing, and we are saturated with His holy element to be holy and without blemish before Him in love. What a love this is!
This is a knowledge-surpassing love, a love that we can’t apprehend with our mind or will, but we enjoy in our spirit. We are being rooted and grounded in love for God’s building, and we realise the divine love in a practical way.
As we love the Lord and walk in love by walking according to the divine nature, we are being sanctified, we grow in life, and we are being built up in the Body of Christ. It is in this condition and atmosphere of love that we are being built up together.
Knowing the Immeasurable Love of Christ by Experiencing it and Becoming Love in Him
The love or Christ is immeasurable and knowledge-surpassing (Eph. 3:19), but we can know it by experiencing it. The love of Christ is not something that merely belongs to Christ, like an attribute or a virtue, but it is Christ Himself.
Christ is love and love is Christ, so even as Christ is immeasurable and infinite, so His love is the same.
According to our mentality, the love of Christ is knowledge-surpassing, for our mind is not able to know it or apprehend it; but praise the Lord, in our spirit we can know the love of Christ through our experience!
Because Christ is immeasurable, His love is knowledge surpassing, and we can know His love through experience. His love is so great and vast that what we have experienced for now is like a raindrop compared to the ocean.
Christ in His universal dimensions and in His immeasurable love is vast and limitless for us to enjoy and experience.
As we enjoy and experience the love of Christ, we will do everything in love in the church life. Love is the most excellent way to do anything and to be anything in the church life.
Love is the best way for us to care for others, to speak, to teach, to prophesy, to open our home, to preach the gospel, and to do anything in the church life. Love prevails. When we experience the knowledge-surpassing love of Christ, we will have a prevailing love, and everything we are and do in the church life will be in love.
The Lord told us to be perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect (Matt. 5:48), and this means that we should love others as our Father loves them – we should love the evil ones and the good ones, the lovable ones and the unlovable ones, without any discrimination.
This really means that we need not only to experience the love of Christ but we need to become love.
The more we remain under the divine dispensing and enjoy God in love, experience God’s love, and walk in love, the more we become God in the divine attribute of love. Through God’s dispensing of Himself into us, we become love in the sense of being constituted with God as love.
When we are inwardly constituted with God as love, when we experience the love of Christ and even become love, what comes out of us will be just love. We will love everyone in the church and we will love all men.
The genuine love is the love that comes out of God’s dispensing. When we are under God’s dispensing of His love in us, we will have genuine love for others, we will walk in love, and we will be built up in love as the Body of Christ.
When we are under God’s dispensing, we will even react in love to others, and God as love will be expressed through us.
The Body of Christ builds itself up in love, for love is the most excellent way to be anything and to do anything for the building up of the Body of Christ (Eph. 4:16; 1 Cor. 12:31).
May we be brought into the inner substance of God, love, as we experience the knowledge-surpassing love of Christ, so that we may do everything in love, walk in love, and be built up as the Body of Christ in love.
As those who have been regenerated to become God’s species, we should love because God is love, that is, we should love because we have become love as we remain under God’s dispensing.
Lord, thank You for loving us and giving Yourself up as a sacrifice for us. Thank You for bringing us under God’s dispensing to be infused with God as love. Keep us here, Lord, under Your divine dispensing, to be infused with Yourself as love until we become love and walk in love. May we do everything in love in the church life. May we live and walk in love, may we know the immeasurable love of Christ, and may we experience the knowledge-surpassing love of Christ! Lord, make us the same as You are in Your loving nature so that we may take the most excellent way to be and do anything in the church life!
As Children of Light we should Walk in Light and even Become Light in the Lord
By nature we were once darkness, but we are now light in the Lord; therefore, as children of light, we should walk in the light (Eph. 5:8).
When we heard the gospel, the divine light shone on us through the truth of the gospel, and our spirit was enlightened; we were regenerated through faith in Christ, and we became children of light.
We were by nature children of the devil, children of wrath, but now we are children of God by believing into the Lord Jesus. As God is light, so we are children of light, we walk in the light, and we are becoming light itself.
We become light in the Lord because we are one with God in the Lord, and God is light. God is light and in Him there’s no darkness at all; when we come into His presence, He shines on us through His word, and we confess our sins, shortcomings, defects, and weaknesses.
Then, we can walk in the light, even as He is in the light, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from every sin (1 John 1:7, 9).
God is light, and the devil is darkness; when we walk in darkness, we do not love one another, but when we love one another, we will walk in the light, even as God is light.
We need to walk in the light as children of the light; as God is light, so we, the children of God, are children of light (see 1 John 1:5; Eph. 5:8; John 12:36). We are not only children of light – we are light itself, because we are one with God in the Lord (Matt. 5:14).
Just as it is impossible for a city situated on a mountain to remain hidden, so we as children of light who walk in the light cannot remain hidden but we express our God who is light!
Through His divine dispensing God is making us His enlargement as light – we are becoming the city on the mountain, the New Jerusalem, the enlargement of God as light.
We who were once darkness now are light in the Lord, and we are the light of the world in Christ, because Christ as light is in us. We are becoming the same as Christ in His nature of light. Hallelujah!
We can all testify that this is happening to us; as we go to work or to school and remain in the light, we become people of light, and we stay away from darkness.
We need to habitually walk in the light, applying the Lord’s blood to anything that hinders our walk, enjoying the love of Christ and the light of Christ – which are Christ Himself – for the church life and in the church life.
Thank You Lord for saving us from darkness and bringing us into the light! Hallelujah, we who were once darkness are now children of light, even light in the Lord! Praise the Lord – as God is light, so we are children of light who walk in the light and who are becoming light itself! So be it, Lord! Make us those who walk in the light and who cannot be hidden but shine with God as light wherever we are and whatever we do! Lord, gain the church as a city of light shining out God through the saints’ living and speaking!
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message given by Mark Raabe for this week, and portions from, The Vital Groups, ch. 8 (by Witness Lee), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Taking Christ as our Person and Living Him in and for the Church Life (2018 spring ITERO), week 5, Knowing the Significance of Loving the Lord, Loving the Lord Jesus Christ in Incorruptibility, and Walking in Love and Light.
- Hymns on this topic:
# The love of Christ is Christ Himself. / Just as Christ is immeasurable, / So also is His love; / Hence, it is knowledge surpassing. / Yet we can know it by experiencing it. (Song on, The love of Christ is Christ Himself)
# By Thy Spirit daily strengthened / In the inner man with might, / I would know Thy love surpassing, / Know Thy breadth and length and height; / Ever of Thy riches taking, / Unto all Thy fulness filled, / Ever growing into manhood, / That Thy Body Thou may build. (Hymns #840)
# Thru Thy love, as life Thou enter’st / Fellowship with Thee to give; / Thru Thy light we take Thy cleansing / And in fellowship may live. / By the light and blood which cleanses, / The anointing we shall know; / Then the life of love Thine essence, / More and more in us will flow. (Hymns #13)
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