In ourselves we’re not able to live a life of sacrifice, for our life is a selfish natural life; we need to abide in the Lord and enjoy His riches to bear fruit for the expression of His life for His glory, and the Lord within us will energize us and strengthen us to sacrifice ourselves for others.
The Christian life is a life of turning our eyes from ourselves, our efforts, our condition, our situation, and all things and setting our eyes on Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of our faith.
We need to look away from what we are and have unto Jesus so that we may be freshly infused with Him and abide in Him; He in us can live the Christian life.
Many times the seeking believers in Christ examine themselves, consider their own situation and condition, and try to improve themselves.
They want to be better brothers and sisters.
They are introspective, for they think that they can help themselves and therefore they do a lot of things to better themselves.
This is not what God is after. What God wants is that we turn our eyes to the Lord and spend time with Him.
Only Christ is the One who can live the human life and the Christian life.
And we as believers in Christ have been grafted into Him to grow into an organic union with Him in all things.
May we look to the Lord again and again, coming to Him as we are and receiving His rich infusion through His word.
May we let Him look at us, search us, infuse us, and transfuse Himself into us.
May we learn to forget about our condition and situation and just come to the Lord.
When we turn to Him in every situation, He becomes our joy, and He has a way to live in us.
We will spontaneously live Christ, for He will be expressed through us.
To this we have been called and for this we have been saved, that we no longer live but Christ lives in us, and the life we now live in the flesh we live in faith, the organic union with the Lord into whom we have been grafted (Gal. 2:20).
May this be our reality day by day.
May we care more for remaining under the divine dispensing by contacting the Lord than for improving ourselves or making ourselves better.
The Lord Jesus never tried to make His disciples better, to improve their behaviour, or to fix some of the flaws they had.
He simply wanted them to be with Him, to remain with Him, and eventually to get inside of them to be their life and everything.
May we not worry about improvement or for our behaviour but pay attention to the indwelling Christ to love Him, enjoy Him, and be one with Him.
We can Live a Life of Sacrifice not in ourselves but in the Organic Union with the Lord: He Energizes us to Live a Life of Sacrifice and He Lives in us
No matter how much we think we love the Lord and no matter how advanced we are in our Christian life, in ourselves we are not able to live a life of sacrifice, for our life is a natural life, a selfish life (Job 2:4; Matt. 16:25).
Our life is selfish, and at one point, no matter how much we sacrifice ourselves for others, we just cannot do it anymore, for we love ourselves and want to spare ourselves.
Only the life of Christ is a life of sacrifice. And His life is in us today.
Christ as the sacrificing Lamb lives in each one of us, the believers in Christ, and He energizes us to sacrifice ourselves for others to bring them cheer and to make them happy (2 Cor. 4:12; Eph. 5:2).
![I exhort you therefore, brothers, through the compassions of God to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, well pleasing to God, [which is] your reasonable service. Rom. 12:1 And walk in love, even as Christ also loved us and gave Himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling savor. Eph. 5:2](https://i0.wp.com/www.agodman.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/I-exhort-you-therefore-brothers-through-the-compassions-of-God-to-present-your-bodies-a-living-sacrifice-683x1024.jpg?resize=400%2C600&ssl=1 "I exhort you therefore, brothers, through the compassions of God to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, well pleasing to God, [which is] your reasonable service. Rom. 12:1 And walk in love, even as Christ also loved us and gave Himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling savor. Eph. 5:2")
It is by contacting the Lord in all our situations that we ourselves are able to live a life of sacrifice.
Only when we contact the Lord again and again, remaining in the organic union with him, that we’re able to remain in the death of Christ so that death operates in us and life in others.
If we contact the Lord and experience His sacrificing life, He will energize us and strengthen us to sacrifice for God and for others, for He repeats His life in us today (John 1:29; 20:22; 1 Cor. 15:45b; 6:17; Phil. 4:13; Rom. 12:1; Eph. 5:2).
Christ lived a life of sacrificing Himself for others, and now we live the same life today by contacting Him and remaining in the organic union with Him.
Paul testified that he will most gladly spend and be utterly spent on behalf of the souls of the saints; this can only come about when we contact and experience the Lord’s sacrificing life.
When we contact the Lord again and again, He repeats His life in us; He in us lives a life of sacrifice.
The more we experience Christ as the vine with His sacrificing life, the more we will be energized to sacrifice ourselves and to make God and others happy.
In our natural life, we want to make ourselves happy, and all we care for is our happiness and comfort.
But when we contact the Lord and abide in Him, remaining in the organic union with the Lord, we will live a life of sacrifice.
And this will not be painful or sorrowful to us; rather, we will be happy to sacrifice ourselves for others, for we love the Lord and we live in the organic union with Him.
The apostle Paul referred to himself as a drink offering, even as he was facing martyrdom.
We may not be in prison, about to be put to death for the sake of Jesus; however, we are the Lord’s witnesses today.
In Greek, the word for witness is the same as for martyr.
To be a witness of Christ is to be a martyr of Christ; there’s a kind of martyrdom involved.
Those who bear a living testimony of the resurrected and ascended Christ need to pay a price.
Rev. 2:10 says that we need to be faithful unto death.
All believers should be ready to sacrifice their life for the Lord.
Are we prepared to do this? Are we willing to do this?
Do we have such a heart for the Lord that we would be willing to sacrifice everything – even our own life? Oh, Lord!
We need to tell the new believers that the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the gospel.
The Lord wants us all to be martyrs if not physically, at least psychologically, being willing to sacrifice ourselves for the Lord’s sake and for the sake of the saints.
We do not promote any kind of outward martyrdom, but we want to be those who are willing to give everything for the Lord.
We can do this only in the organic union with the Lord, for the One who can live a life of sacrifice lives in us.
When we sacrifice ourselves for the Lord’s sake and for the sake of others, they drink the new wine, and we ourselves are full of new wine; we are even beside ourselves with joy for the Lord.
When we’re one with the Lord to put everything on the altar, when we are willing not to get a promotion at work but rather suffer the loss of all things, even suffer rejection, giving everything to the Lord, we are filled with the Lord as the new wine, for we do this in the organic union with the Lord who is our life, our life of sacrifice.
May we have the heart to give everything to Christ so that the Lord would have the ground to honour us; in this way, we will be faithful unto death.
This will cause us to be the happiest persons in the universe; the happiest person is the one who is the most unselfish.
We will be “drunken” with happiness, for the Lord’s joy becomes our joy.
We will bring happiness to those who contact us, and we will bring cheer to God (2 Cor. 1:24; 5;13).
We can do this only by abiding in the Lord, by remaining in the organic union with Him in our daily life.
Lord Jesus, we acknowledge that in our ourselves, in our natural life, we’re not able nor willing to live a life of sacrifice, for our life is a selfish life. Oh Lord, only Your life is a life of sacrifice. We turn to You. We contact You in the midst of all our situations. We do not want to improve ourselves or try harder to sacrifice ourselves for others’ sake or for the Lord. We simply want to enjoy Christ as the sacrificing Lamb living in us. Energize us, Lord, to sacrifice ourselves for others to bring them cheer and to make them happy. Live in us today. We just want to remain in the organic union with You in our mingled spirit. We don’t want to do anything apart from You. We simply want to contact You and experience Your sacrificing life. Strengthen us into our inner man and make us willing to sacrifice ourselves for God and for others. Amen, Lord, we want to experience Christ as the vine with His sacrificing life so that we may be energized to sacrifice ourselves to make God and others happy! Hallelujah, what a joy it is to abide in the Lord and live a life of sacrifice for others to be cheered and for God to be satisfied!
Abide in Christ for Him to Abide in us and Bear Fruit for the Glorification of God
![Abide in Me and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither [can] you unless you abide in Me. I am the vine; you are the branches. He who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit; for apart from Me you can do nothing. John 15:4-5](https://i0.wp.com/www.agodman.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Abide-in-Me-and-I-in-you-5-683x1024.jpg?resize=400%2C600&ssl=1 "Abide in Me and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither [can] you unless you abide in Me. I am the vine; you are the branches. He who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit; for apart from Me you can do nothing. John 15:4-5")
As believers in Christ, we are branches in Christ as the vine.
We have been grafted into Him through faith and baptism, and now we’re the branches in Christ – He is the vine, we are the branches (John 15:4-5).
We can live a life of sacrifice for others to be cheered only by abiding in the Lord.
Apart from the Lord, we can do nothing, just as the branch cannot do anything apart from the vine.
Our life and enjoyment as believers in Christ are to abide in Christ as the vine, and it is by abiding in Christ that we can bear much fruit for the glorification of God.
Whatever we are, whatever we have, and whatever we do must be in the Lord and by the Lord in us, for we are branches in Christ as the vine.
It is crucial for us to abide in the Lord.
Everything depends on this. When we abide in the Lord, He abides in us; we first need to abide in Him, and then He will abide in us.
When we abide in the Lord, we will spontaneously bear fruit. His abiding in us depends on our abiding in Him.
When we abide in Him and He abides in us, we bear much fruit; however, if we do not abide in the Lord, there’s no fruit, for apart from Him we can do nothing.
Christ is the true vine; He is an organism full of life, like the tree of life (Gen. 2:9).
He branched out in humanity and has reached us; now we are the branches of Christ, the vine, and we bear fruit to express the riches of the Father’s life in the divine dispensing.
What does a branch do? It just abides in the vine.
It doesn’t need to do this or that, nor does it need to work or struggle; it simply needs to abide in the vine, enjoying the rich supply from the vine, and it will grow, bear fruit, and therefore manifest the riches of the vine.
When we abide in the Lord and He abides in us, the riches of His life flow into us and are expressed through us.
Day by day we need to abide in the Lord and live a life that bears fruit, and in this way, we glorify the Father.
When we abide in the Lord and He abides in us, He flows in our being and flows through us to express the riches of His life, and there’s much fruit.
Fruit bearing is the overflow of the riches of the inner life.
When we enjoy the Lord to the uttermost, abiding in Him and allowing His words to abide in us, we simply overflow with Christ.
We overflow with His riches. He overflows through us and in us.
Bearing fruit is a matter of the overflow of our inner life.
May we continuously enjoy Christ as everything to us so that we may have an abundance of the inner life.
This inner life flows abundant and free, and it overflows through us to bear fruit.
This is how we can live a life of sacrifice – by abiding in the Lord to enjoy the riches of His life and overflow with His riches.
All that the Father is and has, all that Christ has accomplished and attained, is now in the Spirit who is the life-juice in the divine and mystical vine, the organism of the Triune God.
When we turn to our spirit and contact the Lord, when we remain in our spirit in our daily living to abide in Him, we enjoy the transmission, the rich divine dispensing of all that the Triune God is and has.
This rich dispensing will not only quench our thirst and satisfy our hunger but even more, it will overflow from us, for it is an abundant dispensing.
The result is that we bear fruit for the Father to be glorified.
The Father is the source of the vine, the Son is the vine, and the Spirit is the life juice of the vine.
We believers are grafted into this great, universal vine, which is the organism of the Triune God.
We can tap into all that God is and enjoy His rich flow, for within this vine there’s the circulating life flow of the Spirit.
The Spirit carries the riches of the Father in Christ to sustain us as the branches in the vine.
May we abide in the Lord today to enjoy all His riches and bear fruit for the manifestation of God, for the glorification of the Father!
Lord Jesus, we want to abide in You today so that You may abide in us. Oh Lord, apart from You we can do nothing. Keep us abiding in You today. Keep us enjoying You today. Flow in us. Flow Your riches into our being. Only by abiding in You can we bear much fruit. We choose to abide in you today. We want to do everything in You, with You, for You, and one with You. May our daily living with all its activities be in Christ. Flow in us today. We open to the rich flow of life. We open to receive the divine dispensing of all that the Triune God is and has. Amen, Lord, we just want to enjoy all that You are until we overflow with Your riches. May there be the overflow of the divine life for the manifestation of the riches of God’s life in us. Amen, Lord, bear fruit in us. May the inner life overflow to reach others for the dispensing of Your life into them. Hallelujah, we are branches in the organism of the Triune God to manifest the riches of His life for His glorious expression!
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, and portions from, The Conclusion of the New Testament, msg. 286 (by Witness Lee), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Laboring on the All-inclusive Christ Typified by the Good land for the Building up of the Church as the Body of Christ, for the Reality and the Manifestation of the Kingdom, and for the Bride to make Herself Ready for the Lord’s Coming (2023 Winter Training), week 5, entitled, A Land of Vines.
- Similar articles on this topic:
– Mutual Abiding unto New Jerusalem, via, New Jerusalem blog.
– What is the Believers’ Organic Union with Christ? Article via, Radio Newsletters – the hearing of faith.
– The Ministry Produced through Revelation and Suffering, Part One: Revelation (4), via, Shepherding Words.
– The believers’ organic union with Christ, article via, Affirmation and Critique.
– 3 Key Verses on the Holy Spirit with Our Human Spirit, via Bibles for America blog.
– The organic union of the dispensed Triune God and the believers, a portion from, The Vision of the Divine Dispensing and Guidelines for the Practice of the New Way, Chapter 1, by Witness Lee.
– Abiding in Christ to maintain our organic union with Him, article by Ed Marks via, Affirmation and Critique. - Hymns on this topic:
– Yet Thou art the Vine, Thou saidst it. / And I am a branch in Thee; / When I take Thee as my Savior. / Then this fact is wrought in me. / Now I’m in Thee and I need not / Seek into Thyself to come, / For I’m joined to Thee already, / With Thy flesh and bones I’m one. / Not to “go in” is the secret. / But that I’m “already in“! / That I ne’er may leave I’d ask Thee. / Not how I may get within. (Hymns #561 stanzas 5-7)
– Let us contemplate the grape vine, / From its life now let us learn, / How its growth is fraught with suff’ring, / Midst environment so stern; / How unlike the untamed flowers / Growing in the wilderness / In a maze of wild confusion, / Making patterns numberless. (Hymns #635 stanza 1)
– The work must be the fruit of life, / Born thru the Spirit’s flowing; / As branches of the Lord, the vine, / Fruit bearing, life bestowing. / ’Tis Christ Himself thru us to work, / Himself as life expressing, / And all the riches of His life / To others manifesting. (Hymns #910 stanza 2)
About aGodMan
The Conclusion of the New Testament, pp. 2935-2938, by Witness Lee
We are branches in Christ, the vine, and all we have to do is abide in Him, for apart from Him, we can do nothing.
What we are, what we have, and what we do must be in the Lord and by the Lord in us.
When we abide in Him, He abides in us, and we bear much fruit; this fruit is for the glorification of God the Father to express the riches of His life.
Amén, amén
Amen!
May the be riches of the divine life expressed through us for the glory of God.
Day by day may we bear fruit which glorifies the Father!
today we see that we are those branches , which are nothing have nothing and become nothing apart from the vine we are infinitely nothing hallelujah for this speaking because we today are in this practice and truth to bear fruit.
Amen, Lord, keep us abiding in you for apart from you we can do nothing, we are nothing and have nothing. Lord how much we need you.
Amen. Oh Lord Jesus! May there be the riches of the divine life being expressed in us and through us for God to be glorified!
Amen! Thank you Lord for this privilege, keep us abiding today
Amen – Oh Lord, cause us to abide in You today!
Our Christ is a vine and we, the branches, are totally dependent on the vine for the inner life of Yeshua as the Spirit.
This inner life is the only life that can bear fruit which can glorify our Father.
Day by day, we need to remain in the vine so that we may overflow with the riches of the inner life of Christ.
Abiding in the Christ of God is a crucial matter.
Amen Lord Jesus! Keep us abiding in You today to bear fruit of the Triune God for His expression!
Praise the Lord! 😃🙌🙋🏽
We need to see the crucial matter of abiding in the vine.
The true vine is the Christ, the embodiment of the Triune God, who lived a sacrificing life as the new wine to cheer God and man.
When we as branches abide in such a one, with Himself, as our life supply through the overflow of the inner enjoyment, we will bear much fruit to the glory of the Father.
Listen to the audio version of this article via,
Youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iAwvVAjkxuM
Rumble:
https://rumble.com/v4rac00-abide-in-christ-and-live-a-life-of-sacrifice.html
Yes, His abiding in us depends on our abiding in Him. This mutual abiding will bring forth fruit.
The Father is the source of the vine, the Son is the vine, and the Spirit is the life-Juice of the vine.
Praise the Lord! What a mystery process He passed through!
04/24/24 A Land of Vines (Week 5, Day 3)
John 15:4-5 say, “Abide in Me and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me. I am the vine; you are the branches. He who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit; for apart from Me you can do nothing.” Two points are clearly covered in this verse: abiding and fruit-bearing. Actually, our abiding is for our fruit-bearing. The word for “abide” in this verse means, not just to dwell, but “to remain.”
As branches in the Vine, we, the believers in Christ, must abide in Him, that is, to always remain in Him, in order for us to continually receive His life supply, the supply of wine and oil, so that we too can flow out wine and oil to others. By ourselves, we are nothing, have nothing, and can do nothing. By ourselves, we cannot cheer others, nor supply life to others. Only by our constantly abiding in Christ as the Vine can we be able to cheer others and enliven and strengthen others.
In John 15 the Lord used the illustration of the vine tree to show that we, the branches of the vine, must bear fruit. If we do not understand what fruit-bearing is, we can learn of the vine tree. Branches are not good speakers, but they are good fruit-bearers.
Bearing fruit does not depend upon our speaking or eloquence. It depends upon the riches of the life within us. Fruit-bearing is the overflow of the riches of the inner life. If we are short of life within, we will have nothing with which to bear fruit. Fruit-bearing is a matter not of speaking or eloquence; it is a matter of the rich flow of the inner life.
When an electric lamp is joined to the electricity, the electric lamp is abiding in the electricity, and the electricity is also abiding in the electric lamp; the two are united. The issue of such a union is that the electric lamp shows forth and expresses the electricity within it by shining forth light.
The shining forth as the expression of the electricity is the “fruit bearing” of the lamp, the effect of the lamp. When the effect of the lamp is shown outwardly, it becomes the function of the lamp. The function of the lamp is to express the electricity that fills the lamp inwardly. The lamp’s bearing fruit and producing an effect before men is its showing forth of all that is within.
This is the best illustration to portray our relationship with Christ. We abide in the Spirit of Christ, and Christ also abides in our spirit. This is communion and union. The issue of such a communion and union is that we have the crystal of Christ’s life in us. This crystal is the fruit that we bear, which is Christ Himself. This is the principle of our living and work.
We all should preach the gospel in this way—to transmit the Christ from within us into our friends and everyone in our family. We all are branches of the vine. When Christ’s life is transfused into us and passes through us, flowing out from us into others, they will have Christ’s life and become the fruit we bear as branches of the vine. This is the goal of our gospel preaching.
Amen and Amen!!!!
The vine is everything to the branches. The branches depend on the vine for life, nourishment, and supply. Apart from the vine we, the branches, can do nothing. This requires for us to abide in the Lord and for the Lord to abide in us. On the other hand
the vine is virtually nothing without the branches. Without the branches the vine will have no expression, no propagation, no spread, no multiplication.
Thank You Father for this encouraging word that we are branches of the vine. Thank You for making us part of this universal organism. May we glorify and express You through fruit bearing. Make us fruitful branches. We pray for Your spread, increase, and enlargement.
The Christ whom we experience subjectively as the offerings becomes wine in us, causing us to be ecstatically happy and joyful.
Eventually, we are saturated with Christ as the heavenly wine and are one with the wine and even become wine; in this way we are qualified to be a drink offering.
The most happy person is the most unselfish one. The most selfish people are always the most miserable…We have no energy to sacrifice, for our life is a natural life, a selfish life.
Only the life of Christ is a life of sacrifice. If you contact this Christ and experience His sacrificing life, He will energize you; He will strengthen you to sacrifice for God and for others. Then you will be the most happy person; you will be drunk with happiness.
This is the experience of Christ as the vine tree. By this experience you will become a vine to others. All of those who contact you will be happy with you, and you will bring cheer to God.
📖H W M R (Day 5 Week 2)