When we are Mistreated because of a Consciousness of God, we have Grace with God

As we enjoy God as grace, He becomes our inward motivation and outward expression in our intimate fellowship with God and our consciousness of God, and we have grace with God, for even when we suffer unjustly, grace is expressed through us. Amen!

Grace is not only the Triune God being processed and consummated for our enjoyment; grace comes to us for our enjoyment and experience, and grace is expressed and manifested in our living.

The living of a Christian should be the living of grace, and the experience of a Christian should be the experience of grace.

Every morning we need to open to the Lord in a fresh way to receive His supply of grace, and all throughout the day, we need to remain in the enjoyment of Christ so that our daily living would be the living of grace.

Our total living, especially in our sufferings, troubles, persecutions, and trials, should be the living of grace; in such situations, even more, the Lord is our burden-bearer.

When we encounter difficult situations, when we are being persecuted without a cause, and when trials come our way, we need to contact the Lord and touch Him as grace, and grace will be multiplied to us.

On one hand, we Christians live under the government of God, under His judgment, for judgment begins from His house, and we are judged in this age so that we won’t be judged in the next.

On the other hand, His grace is sufficient to us, and we can enjoy multiplied grace during the sufferings that we encounter.

God has measured to each one of us a certain amount of sufferings, and all human beings have sufferings in their life; to us, however, sufferings can be the embodiment of grace, for it is in our sufferings that we can experience Christ as our burden-bearer.

Grace can be multiplied to us through our sufferings, our limitations, and our weaknesses.

May we simply be open vessels, opening our vessel continually to the Lord so that, no matter what is happening outwardly, there will be a continual receiving of grace inwardly.

Today we enjoy Him as grace, receive Him as grace, and experience God in Christ as grace, and we set our hope wholly and perfectly on this grace.

Our hope is not set on having a better future with no more sufferings; our hope is set on the grace to be brought to us at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

Hallelujah, grace is for us to enjoy and experience today, and we will enter into more grace at the unveiling of the Lord Jesus at His return!

When we are Mistreated or Persecuted because of a Consciousness of God, we have Grace with God

In 1 Pet. 1:19-21 Peter speaks of grace with God, a particular expression related to grace; if, because of a consciousness of God, we are willing to bear sorrows and suffer unjustly, this is grace with God.

The Greek word rendered “grace” is “charis”, referring to the motivation of the divine life within us and its expression in our life, becoming in our behaviour gracious and acceptable in the eyes of both man and God.

Grace with God refers to an intimate fellowship with God and having a good conscience toward God.

According to the context, this refers to the believing slaves who were suffering unjustly at the hands of their unbelieving masters; because of a consciousness of God, they bore sorrows and suffered unjustly.

Under the system of slavery, the unbelieving masters opposed and persecuted their believing slaves because of the testimony of Christ in them; Peter says that this is grace.

Grace as the processed Triune God for our enjoyment becomes our inward motivation and outward expression in our intimate fellowship with God and our consciousness of God.

The more we enjoy God as grace, the more we contact Him and come forward to the throne of grace, the more we are inwardly motivated in our fellowship with God and we live in a consciousness of God.

We need to daily learn how to have grace, which is to take grace, possess grace, use grace, and apply grace (Heb. 12:28).

In all the situations of our daily living, we need to learn to contact the Lord and apply grace in all things.

Having a consciousness of God is in our relation to God; it indicates that we live in an intimate fellowship with God and we have and keep a conscience toward God that is both good and pure (1 Pet. 3:15; 1 Tim. 1:5, 19; 3:9; 2 Tim. 1:3).

As believers in Christ, we need to live in an intimate fellowship with God, having a daily living in a consciousness of God; as we enjoy the processed Triune God as grace, there will be a manifestation in our daily living, which is gracious and pleasant in our behaviour.

On one hand, the Christian life is an inward life, a hidden life with God, a life in which we contact the Lord and fellowship with Him in the mingled spirit.

On the other hand, the Christian life is a matter of behaviour, for the divine life within us wants to and will be manifested and expressed.

May we all learn to daily take Christ, possess Christ, use Christ, and apply Christ to all situations; may we simply learn to live Christ by enjoying Christ and expressing Christ so that we may have grace with God.

It may be that our boss or manager persecutes us because of our being a Christian, or that we are mistreated by our colleagues because we behave in a consciousness of God; this is grace with God.

It is normal for us Christians to live Christ and manifest His grace; if we daily enjoy the Lord and live in intimate fellowship with God, we will have a certain expression in our living, which becomes in our behaviour gracious and acceptable in the eyes of both men and God.

Lord Jesus, we love You and we love to fellowship with You and enjoy You. We want to live in an intimate fellowship with God, having a good conscience toward God. Keep us enjoying You as grace, dear Lord, even when others persecute us or mistreat us because of a consciousness of God. May we have grace with God day by day. May grace as the processed Triune God for our enjoyment become our inward motivation and our expression in our daily living. Amen, Lord, we want to learn how to have grace with God by taking grace, possessing grace, using grace, and applying grace in all the situations of our daily living! We love You, dear Lord Jesus, and want to express You by living in the organic union with You and by enjoying You as grace!

Living by the Divine Life in our Daily Life to express the Triune God as Grace and have Grace with God

Without the divine life, we all have problems in our daily life, our family life, and society; however, as believers in Christ, we have another life by which we should live and which we should enjoy to express it in our daily life.

The Christian life is a matter of behaviour; the CHrist we enjoy needs to be expressed through us in our daily living.

If we do not live by the divine life in our marriage life, no matter how much we love one another, we will have problems.

There are at least five major problems – our temper, our disposition, our habit, our background, and our way of understanding things.

No matter how much alike the husband and the wife may be, there will be differences between them regarding their temper, disposition, habit, background, and understanding.

Each of the spouses will have their own way of viewing things, their own habits, their own disposition, and their own temper; no matter how much they love one another, unless they live by the divine life, problems and quarrelling will arise.

When the situation in the family life is intolerable, there will be arguments and quarrelling; if someone visits at such a time and sees the spouses arguing, they will find this situation altogether unpleasant and unacceptable. Oh, Lord!

But when the husband and the wife live according to the divine life in their spirit, grace will be expressed in their living.

There will still be differences between them, but their way of living will be gracious, pleasant, and acceptable.

This is how the Lord Jesus lived; because of a consciousness of God, He lived one with God and expressed God, even when others mistreated Him and persecuted Him.

We need to live by the divine life in our daily life so that we may express the Triune God as grace and have grace with God.

Christ left us a model; when we enjoy God as grace, we follow the model of Jesus to express God in our daily living.

The Gospels are full of examples of how Christ expressed God and lived by the divine life, rejecting Himself, and having grace with all men.

This is our underwriting, and today we copy Him, imitate Him, and follow His pattern not in an outward way but by enjoying God as grace to express God and have grace with God.

When we express the Triune God as grace in the midst of unjust suffering, we become a reproduction of Christ; this is grace with God, and this is the reproduction of Christ.

Although our married life is basically sweet, there are many sufferings; unintentionally, we are offended, and we inflict sufferings on others.

But when we enjoy grace, take grace, and apply grace in our married life, it will become an expression of Christ and the church.

The processed Triune God as grace received and enjoyed by us becomes visibly expressed for others to see in our holy living and in the church meetings (Acts 11:23).

Others will come among us and will see grace being manifested and expressed!

We can testify that often when we visit an elderly saint or a saint in sickness, they minister grace to us more than we minister to them, for they enjoy grace in the midst of sufferings.

Hallelujah for the enjoyment of God as grace and the expression of the Triune God as grace in our holy living and in the church meetings!

As those who are called to enjoy and express Christ as grace in the midst of sufferings, may we enjoy grace with our spirit until we become a Xerox copy of Christ, our model, according to His God-man living!

Lord Jesus, we choose to live by the divine life in our spirit so that we may enjoy God as grace and express grace in our living. Save us from living according to our habits, temper, and disposition; keep us turning to You and taking You as grace until grace is expressed through our living. May the Triune God as grace whom we enjoy and receive be visibly expressed for others to see in our holy living and in the church meetings! Amen, Lord, make us those who enjoy and express Christ as grace even in the midst of sufferings and persecutions so that we may become a reproduction of Christ as our model! Live in us, Lord, and be expressed through us as grace in our daily living.

References and Hymns on this Topic

• Sources of inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, a sharing by the brothers, and portions from, Life-study of 1 Peter, msgs. 19-20 (by Witness Lee), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, The Grace of God in the Economy of God (2021 International Chinese-speaking Conference), week 4, entitled, Grace in Peter’s Epistles.
• Hymns on this topic:
  – Lord, keep me living, through deep sorrows and steep joys, / My human life is filled with days of darkness, days of songs. / What’s the purpose? What’s the reason for all this? / Lord, it’s only by Your grace, by the grace of God I’ll live. / Keep me living by the grace of God, / Make this a reality, Christ living in me. / Keep me living by the grace of God, / For the reality, of the Body of Christ. (Song on, Living by the Grace of God)
  – It is this grace-Christ as our inward strength- / Which with His all-sufficiency doth fill; / It is this grace which in our spirit is, / There energizing, working out God’s will. / This grace, which is the living Christ Himself, / Is what we need and must experience; / Lord, may we know this grace and by it live, / Thyself increasingly as grace to sense. (Hymns #497)
  – He giveth more grace when the burdens grow greater, / He sendeth more strength when the labors increase, / To added affliction He addeth His mercy, / To multiplied trials, His multiplied peace. / When we have exhausted our store of endurance, / When our strength has failed ere the day is half-done, / When we reach the end of our hoarded resources, / Our Father’s full giving is only begun. (Hymns #723)