The first item of a walk worthy of God’s calling is for us to be diligent to keep the oneness of the Spirit with the transformed human virtues strengthened by and with the divine attributes; for this, we need to be transformed and we also need to eat and drink the humanity of Jesus in spirit. Amen!
We believers in Christ are learning to live the Christian life according to the divine revelation in God’s word.
One aspect of living the Christian life is doing all things one with the Lord, even doing all things in the person of Christ.
Our Christian life is an intimate, personal living and walk with the Lord and in the Lord.
We do not strive or struggle to do this or that to please God; we live one spirit with Him, even living in the gaze of the Lord, looking at Him intently to see what He wants us to do and say, so that we may fully be one with Him.
This is a deep and sweet experience. Others may be free to do this or that, go here and there, but we are beholding the Lord face to face, and we want to please Him in all things.
His love constrains us, we love Him, and we want to live to Him, not to ourselves.
We realize that the most precious thing is to behold the face of Jesus.
When we look at the Lord Jesus, when we turn our heart to the Lord and behold Him face to face, we gain more of Him.
He infuses us with what He is, and the result of our beholding the Lord is that we have more of Christ as our indwelling treasure.
We are earthen vessels, but we have a treasure in us – the Christ of glory, who is infused into us by our spending time to behold Him.
May our daily living with all its details and things be in this intimate, organic, sweet fellowship with the Lord in spirit.
May we learn to turn our heart to Him again and again so that we would behold Him face to face and He would infuse us with what He is and make us the same as He is.
As per 2 Cor. 3:16-18, the result of our turning our heart to the Lord to behold Him is that we also reflect Him, for there’s a process of transformation going on inside of us to make us the same as He is. Praise the Lord!
Though our vessel is worthless and fragile, we contain a priceless treasure, and we’re being daily conformed to this treasure by beholding the Lord face to face!
May we remain here, in the Lord’s presence and even in the index of His eyes, so that His desires would become our desires, His thoughts would be our thoughts, and His inner being would be dispensed into us for us to become the same as He is in every possible way.
Being Diligent to Keep the Oneness of the Spirit with the Transformed Human Virtues
Eph. 4:1-4 shows us how to live the Christian life, that is, how to have a walk worthily of the calling with which we were called.
Paul was a prisoner in the Lord; he was not just a prisoner in a Roman prison but even more, he was a prisoner in the Lord, a prisoner of Christ Jesus.
Outwardly, he was in a physical prison; inwardly, he was imprisoned in Christ, being in Him and allowing Him to limit him in every possible way.
As a prisoner in the Lord, Paul charges us to have a walk worthy of the calling with which we were called.
The first item of a walk worthy of God’s calling is for us to be diligent to keep the oneness of the Spirit as the reality of the Body of Christ.
We do this not in ourselves but with the transformed human virtues strengthened by and with the divine attributes.
We can keep the oneness of the Spirit with all lowliness and meekness, with long-suffering, bearing one another in love; with these virtues, we are diligent to keep the oneness of the Spirit in the uniting bond of peace.
How can we have these virtues? In our natural humanity, there’s no lowliness or meekness, and there is no long-suffering.
These virtues are to be found in our transformed humanity, for the transformed human virtues are in the humanity of Jesus in our spirit (Matt. 11:29).
The Lord is meek and lowly in heart, and He is long-suffering; such a One lives in us.
Our meekness and lowliness cannot survive real testing; we may be meek and lowly a little bit, but at one point our meekness and lowliness will run out.
But praise the Lord, the humanity of Jesus in His resurrection life can be ours today!
The more we’re transformed, the more we have the humanity of Jesus and we express the transformed human virtues, thus being diligent to keep the oneness of the Spirit in the uniting bond of peace.
When we have the humanity of the resurrected Christ, we spontaneously have the virtues required to keep the oneness of the Spirit.
This is seen in type in the tabernacle in the Old Testament; in this picture we see forty-eight boards of acacia wood overlaid with gold.
In themselves, the boards were not one, but because they were overlaid with gold and because there was a crossing bar that united them, they could be one.
In ourselves, we are not one, neither can we be one with the fellow “boards” in the tabernacle – the church; but in the “gold”, that is, in the divine nature, we are one.
When we experience the transformation of the Spirit and are overlaid with God, saturated with God, and infused with His element, we can be one.
The golden bar crossing the boards signifies the uniting Spirit and also the cross, for it crosses all the boards.
The uniting Spirit is not merely the Holy Spirit of God but the Holy Spirit mingled with our spirit, for it is of wood overlaid with gold.
Praise the Lord for our mingled spirit!
In the mingled spirit we have the transformed human virtues, for the uplifted humanity of Jesus is in our spirit.
When we turn to our spirit and live in our spirit, the transformed humanity of Jesus is ours with all the virtues of lowliness, meekness, and long-suffering.
We may try to be meek, lowly, and long-suffering in ourselves, but to no avail; the more we try, the more we fail.
Yes, the church life is the paradise of God and the most wonderful place on earth, but at the same time the saints in the church life are human beings, and offenses come in, preferences are manifested, and we will be hurt, offended, and even perplexed at some things.
The only way we can live the church life and keep the oneness of the Spirit is by exercising our spirit to partake of the humanity of Jesus and live out the transformed human virtues.
For us to keep the oneness of the Spirit, we need to be transformed.
If we’re not transformed, we will not have the lowliness and meekness to keep the oneness.
The more we are transformed, however, the more we spontaneously inherit and even display lowliness, meekness, and long-suffering.
Childish Christians, immature Christians, cannot keep the oneness of the Spirit.
But the more we grow in life and are transformed, the more we have the transformed human virtues of lowliness, meekness, and long-suffering, and we spontaneously keep the oneness of the Spirit in the uniting bond of peace.
Transformation is our need, even to be broken more indeed, so that the Lord may work Himself into us until His uplifted and transformed humanity becomes ours in our daily living.
If we’re immature in the Lord, we cannot keep the oneness, for there’s nothing in our natural being that is able to keep it.
But if we allow the Lord to transform us (2 Cor. 3:18; Eph. 4:2) and cooperate with Him, allowing the Spirit to cross us out and work Himself into us, we will have the transformed human virtues and we will keep the oneness of the Spirit.
May we bring this before the Lord in prayer and open to Him, allowing Him to do in us what He needs to do in order for us to have a walk worthy of His calling.
Lord Jesus, we want to walk worthily of the calling with which we were called. May our daily living as Christians be a walk worthy of God’s calling. We want to be diligent to keep the oneness of the Spirit as the reality of the Body of Christ. Amen, Lord, may we keep the oneness with the transformed human virtues strengthened by and with the divine attributes. We open to You. We exercise our spirit and we want to live in the mingled spirit so that the uplifted and transformed humanity of Jesus would be our portion. Amen, Lord Jesus, transform us so that we may have the meekness, lowliness, and long-suffering necessary for us to keep the oneness of the Spirit in the uniting bond of peace. Praise the Lord that the humanity of Jesus in His resurrection can be ours today! Amen, Lord Jesus, we want to live out Your humanity by exercising our spirit to be one spirit with You. May we be transformed so that we may have the humanity of the resurrected Christ and live out the transformed human virtues necessary for us to keep the oneness of the Spirit!
Drink the Spirit of the Glorified Jesus and Feed on the Lord to Enjoy and Live out the Humanity of Jesus
![Now on the last day, the great [day] of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes into Me, as the Scripture said, out of his innermost being shall flow rivers of living water. But this He said concerning the Spirit, whom those who believed into Him were about to receive; for [the] Spirit was not yet, because Jesus had not yet been glorified. John 7:37-39](https://i0.wp.com/www.agodman.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/Now-on-the-last-day-the-great-day-of-the-feast-Jesus-stood-and-cried-out-saying-1-683x1024.jpg?resize=400%2C600&ssl=1 "Now on the last day, the great [day] of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes into Me, as the Scripture said, out of his innermost being shall flow rivers of living water. But this He said concerning the Spirit, whom those who believed into Him were about to receive; for [the] Spirit was not yet, because Jesus had not yet been glorified. John 7:37-39")
The first item of having a walk worthy of God’s calling is to be diligent to keep the oneness of the Spirit with the transformed human virtues.
This doesn’t mean that we need to work hard to perfect ourselves or cultivate certain virtues listed in Eph. 4:1-4, and then we can keep the oneness, having a deliberate living and expressing certain perfected human virtues.
The Lord has given us everything we need.
The transformed humanity of Jesus is in the Spirit of the glorified Jesus. Praise the Lord!
The Spirit with our spirit is the Spirit of the glorified Jesus; this Spirit is the consummation of the processed Triune God, and in this Spirit is the uplifted humanity of Jesus.
All we need to do is to drink the Spirit and flow out the Spirit for the one Body, for when we do this, we drink and flow out the Spirit of the Man Jesus (John 7:37-39a; 1 Cor. 12:13; Acts 16:7; Eph. 4:2-3).
We were baptized into one Spirit in one Body, and we were all given to drink one Spirit.
This Spirit into whom we were baptised is the Spirit of the Man Jesus, even the Spirit of the glorified Jesus.
When we drink the Spirit, we enjoy the humanity of Jesus with His divinely enriched human virtues of lowliness, meekness, and long-suffering for bearing one another in love.
When the Lord Jesus was on earth, His divinity was expressed through His humanity, and His human virtues were uplifted, enriched, and bountiful.
He expressed the divine attributes through His aromatic human virtues, living a life of expressing the Father in every way.
Then, through His death and in His resurrection, He brought His humanity which He had perfected through His human living into His divinity, divinizing it and adding it to the Spirit.
When He resurrected, Christ brought humanity into divinity, and now in the Spirit – whom Christ became through His resurrection – we have the uplifted and resurrected humanity of Jesus with the transformed human virtues. Hallelujah!
This Jesus Christ as the Spirit is now joined to our spirit, and we have been baptized into Him and were given to drink Him as the Spirit.
The divinized, sanctified, and glorified humanity of Jesus is in the Spirit, and we can drink and flow the Spirit to drink and flow out the humanity of Jesus! Praise the Lord!
When we drink the Spirit by exercising our spirit, we drink not just the divine Spirit but even more, we drink the Spirit of the Man Jesus!
Wow, we can drink the humanity of Jesus by exercising our spirit!
When we exercise our spirit and drink the Spirit, the uplifted humanity of Jesus is dispensed into us, and we are constituted with the transformed human virtues for us to keep the oneness of the Spirit in the uniting bond of peace.
If we call on the name of the Lord and feed upon Him, we will enjoy Jesus as a man, and all the virtues of His uplifted humanity will be ours in the Spirit of Jesus (1 Cor. 1:2; 10:3-4, 17; 12:3b, 13; 16:13; Eph. 4:3-4). Amen!
The more we call on the name of the Lord Jesus, enjoying Him as our portion, we feed on the Lord, and we enjoy Jesus as a man; all His virtues will be ours in the Spirit of Jesus.
This is for the practice of the recovered church life in the Spirit of reality as the reality of the Body of Christ.
What an abundant supply we have in the Spirit of Jesus Christ, the Spirit of the glorified Jesus!
May we keep drinking the Spirit and flowing Him out for the keeping of the oneness of the Spirit!
Thank You, Lord, we can drink the Spirit of the glorified Jesus today! Hallelujah, we were baptized in one Spirit and we were given to drink the Spirit for the Body of Christ. Wow, in the Spirit of the glorified Jesus there’s the transformed humanity of Jesus! Amen, Lord, we want to drink and flow the one Spirit for the one Body of Christ! We call on Your name with the exercise of our spirit to drink and flow out the Spirit of the Man Jesus! We want to drink and flow out the humanity of Jesus with His divinely enriched human virtues of lowliness, meekness, and long-suffering for bearing one another in love. What a rich and bountiful supply we have in the Spirit of the glorified Jesus! Amen, Lord, we call on Your name and feed upon You to enjoy Jesus as a man! May all the virtues of Your uplifted humanity be ours in the Spirit of Jesus for the practice of the recovered church life in the Spirit of reality as the reality of the Body of Christ!
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Inspiration for this article/sharing comes from the Word of God, the enjoyment in the ministry, a sharing by brother Ed Marks in the message for this week, Life-study of Ephesians, msg. 36 (by Witness Lee), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, The Christian Life (2024 Memorial Day Blending Conference), week 1, The Intrinsic Significance of the Christian Life.
- Similar articles on this topic:
– The high peak of the vision and the reality of the Body of Christ, article via, Affirmation and Critique.
– Keeping the oneness of the Body, a portion from, Further Consideration of the Eldership, the Region of Work, and the Care for the Body of Christ, Chapter 2, by Witness Lee.
– Forgiveness and the Building Up of the Body of Christ, via, Shepherding Words.
– Human virtues for a degraded age, a portion from, Christ as the Reality, Chapter 15, by Witness Lee.
– What should our response be in the midst of turmoil? More via, Living to Him.
– Forbearance being the sum total of the human virtues, a portion from, The Experience and Growth in Life, Chapter 15, by Witness Lee.
– Did You Know You’re a Vessel God Wants to Fill? More via, Bibles for America blog.
– A record of the Lord’s acts and a description of His human virtues, a portion from, Life-Study of Mark, Chapter 1.
– New Jerusalem Declares God’s Excellencies, via, New Jerusalem blog.
– Theosis and the Virtues, via, Affirmation and Critique.
– The Scientific Way to Drink the Water of Life, via, Holding to Truth in Love. - Hymns on this topic:
– We are also born of Spirit / On the day when we believe, / And of Him we now are drinking / As we daily Him receive. / Yet we also must be baptized / With the Spirit from on high, / Thus to be equipped for service, / And be clothed with pow’r thereby. (Hymns #272 stanza 4)
– Thou in the Word art the Spirit and life, / Thus by the Word I may feed upon Thee; / Thou dost as Spirit in my spirit live, / Thus I may drink in the spirit of Thee. / Now to enjoy Thee I come to Thy Word, / On Thee to feed till my hunger is o’er. / Now in my spirit I turn unto Thee, / Of Thee to drink till I’m thirsty no more. (Hymns #811 stanzas 5-6)
– Deepest springs of life dispensing, / Like the hart I thirst for Thee; / Desp’rate, may I drink Thy fullness, / ’Til Thy river flows through me. / May my self be put to death, Lord, / Under Thy control I’d be, / Transformed to Thy living image, / I’d forever flow out Thee. (Hymns #1360 stanzas 3-4)
About aGodMan
Life-study of Ephesians, 2nd ed., pp. 297-299, by Witness Lee
For us to have a walk worthy of God’s calling we need to be diligent to keep the oneness of the Spirit with the transformed human virtues strengthened by and with the divine attributes.
For this, we need to be transformed so that the humanity of Jesus would be expressed through us.
Praise the Lord that the humanity of Jesus in His resurrection life can be ours today!
Yes Lord Jesus, transform us. Amen.
We cannot in our natural humanity be lowly, meek or have long-suffering, only through the humanity of Jesus can we have these virtues.
Like the Acacia wood we must be united with the Holy Spirit with our spirit in oneness.
Problems with oneness only come from ourselves and our nature.
Amen. Brother, we need to be crossed out. In ourselves, there are no real, lasting virtues; there’s only a pretense.
Our earthen vessel needs the thorough covering of the humanity of Jesus.
This is the Holy Spirit mingled with our spirit.
Each day, we must allow the Spirit to paint us with the golden nature of Christ until we find ourselves spontaneously inheriting such virtues as lowliness, meekness & long-suffering.
May the Lord grant us the willingness to be crossed out…
Aaaaameeen! Do it in us Lord!
Wow brother, in the picture of the tabernacle with its forty-eight boards of acacia wood overlaid with gold we see the genuine oneness in the Triune God.
In themselves, the boards were separate from one another, but In the gold they are one. In the mingled spirit which constitutes the uniting bars there is the transformed humanity with the virtues of lowliness, meekness, and long-suffering!
Lord transform us more with your life so that your humanity can be loved through us
Dear brother, to walk worthily according to the calling with which we were called we must keep the oneness, grow up into Christ the Head and learn Christ as the reality is in Jesus.
For this, we must be transformed persons by drinking the Spirit of the man Jesus so that His uplifted, resurrected humanity with its virtues of His lowliness, meekness, and long-suffering become our virtues mingled with His divine attributes.
Praise the Lord!
Through such a process we can bear one another in love in the resurrection life of Christ!
Praise the Lord! 🙌😃🙋🏼
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Eph. 4:2, footnote 1 on “lowliness,” Recovery Version Bible