Live a Grafted Life by Living in our Spirit, One Life and One Living with the Lord

As believers in Christ, we were grafted into Christ, and we need to live a grafted life, a life in which we and Christ are joined to grow organically; we have one life and one living with the Lord, for He lives in us and we live Him out. Amen!

What a wonderful change in our life has been wrought when Jesus came into our heart!

When the Lord had mercy on us and we heard the gospel, we were touched by Him, we were impressed with the love of God in Christ, and we responded.

The Spirit was working in our being to enlighten us, cause us to be open, and repent, and we responded to the Lord by repenting and believing into the Lord.

What happened at that time, when we repented and believed, is that we were cut off from the natural man and we were grafted into Christ. Hallelujah!

In God’s eyes, when we believed into the Lord Jesus, we were connected to Christ – we were plugged into Christ, grafted into Him, so that we may be branches in Christ. Amen!

The life-giving Spirit came into our spirit and brought the divine life into us; we were grafted together with Christ. Praise the Lord!

The New Testament shows us how God wants to be one with man, and He desires to be organically joined to man and man to be joined to Him until the two become one entity.

So God went through a process. God became a man, lived a perfect human life, died on the cross, and resurrected.

In His death, He was cut on the cross, and now there’s an opening for sin and impurity for us to be cleansed; furthermore, He was cut so that we may be grafted into Him!

In His resurrection He became a life-giving Spirit; as the Spirit, He can come into our spirit and dispense all that He is into us.

When we believe into the Lord Jesus, repenting and confessing His name, we are also cut; we experience the cutting of our natural man by repenting and believing, and we are joined to the Lord in spirit.

Praise the Lord, all genuine believers in Christ are joined to the Lord as one spirit, for they are grafted together with the Lord!

Christ is the true vine and we all are the branches in the vine. We don’t need to strive or struggle to please God – we simply need to abide in the vine!

When we abide in the Lord, exercising our spirit and living in our mingled spirit, we will have one life and one living with the Lord, and He will be expressed through us.

As Regenerated Believers, we should Live a Grafted Life, a Life in which we’re Joined to the Lord to Grow Organically

The process of grafting is just the beginning; the growth after that is what matters, for it is the goal of grafting.

As believers in Christ who are regenerated by the Lord with His life, we are grafted into Christ, and now we should live a grafted life (John 15:1, 4-5).

This means that we need to live a life in which two parties are joined to grow organically.

After we have been grafted into Christ, we should no longer live by ourselves; rather we should allow Christ as the Spirit to live in us and be expressed through us (Gal. 2:20).

The Christian life is a grafted life; to live the Christian life is to live a grafted life, that is, to live a life in which we’re joined to the Lord to grow organically in Him and with Him.

This means that we need to be an open vessel to the Lord; our being needs to be open to Him.

We are not tools in God’s hands nor are we instruments for Him to do this or that; we are vessels, and our vessel needs to be open to the Lord.

Just as the branch that is grafted into the tree simply needs to absorb the riches of the tree to grow and bear fruit, so we as believers in Christ need to absorb Christ and enjoy Him to grow and bear fruit.

Our vessel needs to be open to the Lord.

We are not here to do things for God; we’re here to be open vessels for Him to fill us.

May we all learn to open our vessel to the Lord. We may think that to open to the Lord sounds so simple, but in reality, it is not that simple.

We think we are open, but how open are we?

Do we really open our inward being so that the Lord can freely flow in our thoughts, emotions, desires, and will?

Do we open our inner being for the Lord to freely flow in us and also flow out of us?

Does the Lord have an unhindered way to flow in our inner being to renew our mind and inward parts so that we may be transformed into His image?

We all need to confess that we still reserve so many things in our being to ourselves, not giving the Lord the free access He needs to flow in and saturate us.

Our concepts are so different from the Lord’s concepts, and there’s darkness in our concepts.

The religious world today feeds us with concepts.

Especially these days in the age of the internet, when we are inundated and flooded with texts, messages, videos, audio, and everything imaginable, it is so easy to be infused with Satan’s thoughts and remain in the darkness of our human concepts.

There are so many things being promoted through the use of the internet, and it is easy for us to pick up these things, for many of them appeal to our untransformed being.

May we realize that our concepts are filled with darkness.

Our human concepts, no matter how sound and logical they may be, are not according to the divine light.

We need to be those who come into the light, come to God’s word to be shined on by Him, and be renewed by the Lord in our inner being.

May we learn to empty ourselves and allow the Lord to fill us.

We should no longer live by our flesh or by our natural being; instead, we should live by our regenerated spirit – a spirit grafted with Christ (Rom. 8:4).

It is through this grafting in our spirit with the Lord that we are united with Him, we are being mingled with Him, and we will be incorporated with Him so that we become the Body of Christ, the organism of the Triune God to express Him on the earth (Rom. 12:4-5).

May we live a grafted life today in our daily life by living one spirit with the Lord, being joined to Him to grow together with Him organically.

As we grow in the Lord and He grows in us, as we live in our mingled spirit in all things to be one spirit with the Lord all the time, He grows in us, He is expressed through us, and we become part of His corporate expression on the earth.

Lord Jesus, we want to live a grafted life today by living in our mingled spirit in all things. We want to live a life in which we and God, God and us, are joined together to grow organically. Hallelujah, we have been grafted together with God in our spirit, and now we are one spirit with the Lord! Amen, Lord, we want to live one spirit with You today. We no longer want to live by ourselves or in ourselves; we want to live by Christ and in Christ. We allow You, Lord Jesus, to live in us. Live in us today. Be expressed through us. May the pneumatic Christ live in us in all things so that Christ may be expressed through us! Oh Lord, we do not want to live by our flesh or by our natural being. We want to live by our regenerated spirit, for in our spirit we are one with the Lord! Amen, Lord, thank You for grafting us into Yourself so that we may be united with You, mingled with You, and incorporated with You to become the Body of Christ! Hallelujah!

Live a Grafted Life by Living in our Spirit to have One Life and One Living with the Lord

The Christian life is a very mysterious life; it is not a rational, logical, ethical, moral, or good life but much more than that.

It is a grafted life. To live the Christian life is to live a grafted life, that is, to live in our spirit so that we and the Lord have one life and one living.

We see this explained in Gal. 2:20 where Paul testifies how, in a mysterious yet practical way, he was crucified with Christ, he did not live any longer, yet he lived, but the life he lived was in the faith of the Son of God.

It is no longer I who live – this indicates that we live, but it’s not us who live, but Christ who lives in us.

This doesn’t mean that we move out and now Christ comes in; it is not an exchanged life. We don’t exchange our life for His life, nor do we exchange our person for His person.

Rather, we have the old “I”, which has been crucified with Christ (Rom. 6:6) and we also have a new “I”, which Paul says that he lives in the organic union with Christ.

The old “I” is the natural man, without the life of God; the new “I” is the regenerated new man with God’s life added to it.

On the one hand, we have been terminated by God – the old man has been crucified with Christ; this is our growing with Him in the likeness of His death by our repentance and faith in Him.

On the other hand, we have a new man within us, the living person of Christ who lives in us, and we live one with Him, having one life and one living with Christ. Praise the Lord!

Today we need to live a grafted life by living in our spirit so that we have one life and one living with Christ.

Just as the branch has one life and one living with the tree, drawing all its supply and doing everything in the tree, one with the tree, and for the tree into which it was grafted, so we today share one life and one living with Christ.

We have died in Christ through His death, and now He lives in us through His resurrection.

Because He is the life-giving Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45), He can live in us.

When we are not in our spirit, the natural man wants to fulfil the law of God and be good; however, we cannot fulfil God’s law, for keeping the law in ourselves will not make us perfect (Phil. 3:6).

God doesn’t want us to try to fulfil the law or keep it; He wants us to live Christ so that God might be expressed in us through Him (Phil. 1:20-21).

How can we live Christ? It is by living a grafted life, that is, by living one spirit with the Lord.

We are not here to exalt the law and keep it to the uttermost; we are here to live Christ, to have one life and one living with Him.

The law was used by God for a period of time to keep His people in custody until Christ came (Gal. 3:23), and the law conducts them to Christ (v. 24) so that they might receive Him to be God’s expression.

Now that Christ is here and we are grafted into Christ, we need to live one spirit with the Lord.

Our Christian life is a life in the mingled spirit, a life one with the Lord so that He and us, we and Him, would have the same life and the same living, with no discrepancy.

May we realize that, since we have been grafted together with Christ, we should no longer live by ourselves but rather, we should allow the Lord to live in us.

We shouldn’t live by our flesh or our natural being; rather we should live by our mingled spirit.

When we exercise our spirit and live in our spirit, we are united with the Lord, we are mingled with Him, and we will eventually be incorporated with Him to be the New Jerusalem! Amen!

The Lord will gain the New Jerusalem, the great universal incorporation of the mingling of God and man for us to reign in eternity!

The New Jerusalem is the fruit of our daily living; daily we need to live a grafted life by living in our mingled spirit so that we have one life and one living with the Lord!

Lord Jesus, we love You! We open to You. We want to live one spirit with You. We want to live Christ so that God may be expressed in us. We exercise our spirit today. We don’t want to merely keep the law or do things to please You; we simply want to live a grafted life today! Praise the Lord, we have been grafted together with Christ in our spirit and now we can live one spirit with the Lord! Hallelujah, we have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer we who live but Christ who lives in us! Amen, the life which we now live in the flesh we live in faith, the faith of the Son of God who loved us and gave Himself up for us. Oh Lord, we want to live in our spirit today. We want to let You live in us. We no longer want to live by ourselves but rather allow You to live in us. We no longer want to live by our flesh or our natural being but rather live by our mingled spirit! Amen, Lord, keep us in our spirit today! May we have one life and one living with the Lord by living in our spirit today!

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 Ray Mulligan in the message for this week, Life-study of Galatians, msgs. 10 and 16 (by Witness Lee), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, The Christian Life (2024 Memorial Day Blending Conference), week 2, The Grafted Life.
• Similar articles on this topic:
  – The grafted life, a portion from, The Experience and Growth in Life, Chapter 4, by Witness Lee.
  – 8 Verses that Show Jesus Christ Lives in You, via, Bibles for America blog.
  – Living a grafted life by the experience of the cross, a portion from, The Triune God to Be Life to the Tripartite Man, Chapter 10, by Witness Lee.
  – Live Christ Today and in New Jerusalem, via, New Jerusalem blog.
  – God entering into man to have one life and one living with man, a portion from, Living in the Spirit, Chapter 3, by Witness Lee.
  – Keys to the Normal Christian Life and Church Life, via, Living to Him.
  – To live Christ, a portion from, Life-Study of Colossians, Chapter 39.
  – How to live Christ, article via, Holding to Truth in Love.
• Hymns on this topic:
  – Since I’m in, why ask to enter; / O how ignorant I’ve been! / Now with praise and much rejoicing / For Thy Word, I dwell therein. / Now in Thee I rest completely, / With myself I gladly part; / Thou art life and Thou art power, / All in all to me Thou art. (Hymns #561 stanzas 9-10)
  – Oh, how precious this abiding, / Oh, how intimate and sweet; / As the fruit of life is added, / And our joy is made complete. / In the vine, in the vine, / In the vine, in the vine, / We would know Thee, Lord, / more deeply, / E’er abiding in the vine. (Hymns #1163 stanza 5 and chorus)
  – I am crucified with Jesus, / And He lives and dwells with me; / I have ceased from all my struggling, / ’Tis no longer I, but He. / All my will is yielding to Him, / And His Spirit reigns within; / And His precious blood each moment / Keeps me cleansed and free from sin. (Hymns #564 stanza 2)