It is only when we All are Transformed and Overlaid with God as Gold that are we one

As believers in Christ, we are in the process of transformation so that our natural being is transformed into the image of Christ, and God’s divine nature is constantly overlaying us until we become just like Christ; we’re being transformed and overlaid with God as gold until we’re fully one!

The picture of the tabernacle with the standing boards made of acacia wood overlaid with gold shows us a picture of the oneness in the Triune God, which has been enlarged to be the oneness of the Body of Christ.

Today in His recovery the Lord is overlaying us with Himself; without Him we are poor, wretched, miserable, blind, and naked, but we come to Him to buy gold refined by fire so that we may be overlaid with Him, covered with Him, and saturated with Him (see Rev. 3:18).

How can we keep the oneness in the Body? It is not by doing our best to be one with the saints or trying really hard to agree with what the saints say but it is by being overlaid with God as gold, by daily gaining more God through our experience of Him.

We are one not in our humanity – no matter how good it may be – but in the Triune God; the God whom we enjoy and experience makes us all one. On the one hand, the Spirit as the processed and consummated Triune God overlays us and saturates us, and on the other hand He crosses us, that is, He causes us to experience the cross of Christ.

The forty-eight standing boards in the tabernacle each had three rings, and there were some uniting bars that would cross them; these bars signify the crossing Spirit.

Whenever we exercise our spirit, listen to the Spirit speaking to us, and follow the leading of the Spirit, we are being crossed out, more of God as gold is added to us, and we are being built up and joined with the saints into the Body of Christ in oneness.

The more we have of God, the stronger our oneness is; for the sake of the oneness of the Body of Christ, we need to gain more of the experienced God – more of gold that would overlay us and cause us to be one.

Praise the Lord for such a wonderful picture of the oneness in the Triune God as seen in the picture of the standing boards in the tabernacle!

The Golden Nature of God Overlays only our Regenerated and Transformed Nature

It is important to realize that the only wood that was qualified to be used for the boards in the tabernacle was acacia wood, strong in character and high in standing; all other wood was disqualified.

Our human nature is not qualified to be overlaid with God as gold; the golden nature of God will never overlay our fallen nature, but it will overlay only our regenerated and transformed nature, which is signified by the acacia wood.

Therefore, we need to be transformed from wood into acacia wood to be qualified to be overlaid with God as gold for the building up of His dwelling place. The overlaying of gold occurs simultaneously with this transformation; wherever transformation is, there the overlaying of gold is also.

Being overlaid with gold always goes along with transformation; our fallen human nature as corrupt wood is being transformed as we are overlaid with God as gold.

In a practical way, our transformation depends upon our loving the Lord, contacting Him, listening to His word, praying to Him, and walking according to the spirit; as long as we have these five things, we are living Christ.

In order for us to be transformed we need to love the Lord and even tell Him,

Lord, constrain me with Your love! May Your tide of love flow in and constrain me to love You and live to You! Lord, I have no love in myself for You: fill me with Your love that I may love You with Your love! Amen, Lord, I just love You and I want to love You more!

We need to contact the Lord day by day, especially in the morning; we contact the Lord by exercising our spirit to call on His name and pray over His word, listening to His speaking within and without. The first thing we should do in the morning is call on the name of the Lord, tell Him we love Him, and open our whole being to Him; then, throughout the day we should contact the Lord in our spirit.

For us to be transformed we need to listen to the Lord’s word; like Mary, we need to sit at His feet, listen to His word, calm our being, and be infused with His desire and intention. We need to have a proper attitude to be infused with the Lord’s desire and preference, first by sitting at the Lord’s feet; we should simply draw near to Him and listen to Him.

The best way to be infused with the Lord is to come to Him, love Him, worship Him, remain in His presence, and listen to His word.

We need to put ourselves in a humble position; humility is a crucial condition for receiving God’s blessing, for the Lord resists the proud and gives grace to the humble. Humility is not belittling ourselves but ignoring and negating ourselves to consider ourselves as nothing but the Lord as everything; if we do this, He will give grace to us.

To contact the Lord and listen to His word we need to SIT DOWN, that is, not be busy or multi-tasking but be quiet before Him; quietness before the Lord is often the source for spiritual strength.

The greatest challenge for a believer is to be quiet before the Lord; our eyes are roaming about and our mind is so busy and distracted, and when we’re busy we can’t receive revelation easily.

To have the Lord’s image imprinted in us and be transformed into His image, quietness is a necessity. As we quiet down our being and open to Him, we receive His words, which are spirit and life; through His words He dispenses Himself into us, and His words communicate His desire into us for us to gain Him and become like Him.

This is how we are transformed: by sitting at the Lord’s feet, humbling ourselves, quieting ourselves down, and listening to His words to be infused with His desire and intentions.

To be transformed we need to pray; we need to persevere in prayer, watching in it with thanksgiving. We shouldn’t fall asleep in our prayer time with the Lord, and our perception before Him should not be dormant.

Lord Jesus, may we be transformed in our nature to be the acacia wood qualified to be overlaid by You as gold for Your building. Draw us to love You more, and constrain us with Your love that we may live to You and no longer to ourselves. We quiet down our being, Lord, to listen to Your word and be infused with Your intention. We sit down at Your feet, refuse any distraction or busyness, and simply open to You to be infused and saturated with Your words, which are spirit and life. Lord Jesus, we love You!

It is only when we All are Transformed and Overlaid with God as Gold that are we one

The reason there still is dissension among us is that we all have not yet been transformed and overlaid with God as gold.

We all have received the initial Spirit at the time of our regeneration – we all have the three rings installed, ready to be joined together; what we need is the spreading of God as gold and His overlaying us with a thick layer so that we may be joined together and built up.

The oneness is the spreading of God in all our being; only the God who transformed and overlaid us can cause us to be one for His building.

Only when we all have been transformed and overlaid with gold will it no longer be possible for there to be dissension among us. Until we are thus transformed and overlaid, we will always be in danger of falling into dissension. The only safeguard is to be overlaid with gold. We must not go on according to the natural being; instead of a natural humanity we must have a transformed humanity with the very humanity of Jesus as its element….Only the humanity of Jesus, which is a humanity in resurrection, is qualified to be overlaid with gold. I beg you to bring this matter to the Lord in prayer. We need much prayer in order to realize that the steps to the genuine oneness come from our experience of God….In order to have the reality of this word, we need time and much prayer. (Witness Lee, Truth Messages, pp. 94-96)

The only time there will be no dissension among believers is when we all have been transformed and overlaid with God as gold; in this experienced God we are all one. Our safeguard is to be transformed and overlaid with God as gold.

We should not live according to our natural human nature but allow the Lord to transform us daily by beholding Him and being infused with Him to be inwardly metabolically changed in nature, and we should pay the price to buy the gold, that is, allow God to overlay us with Himself.

When we touch the Lord as the Spirit, the cross will operate in us to cross us out and bring our whole being into resurrection, the realm in which we can have God’s building.

The transformation in resurrection brings in the overlaying gold; when we are transformed in our nature by allowing the Lord to work Himself into us, we experience His death and resurrection, and we gain a solid amount of God as gold.

May we allow the Lord to reach every part of our inner being to transform us with Himself. Transformation has nothing to do with self-correction or self-improvement; transformation takes place as we love the Lord, contact Him, listen to His word, pray to Him, and walk according to the spirit.

Only when we all have been transformed and overlaid with God as gold will it be no longer possible for there to be no dissension among us (2 Cor. 3:16-18; Rom. 12:1-5).

Lord Jesus, transform us in our nature and overlay us with Yourself as gold for Your building. We want to cooperate with Your transforming work by spending much time with You, loving You, praying to You, listening to Your word, contacting You, and walking according to the spirit. Keep us in a prayerful attitude before You so that we may allow You to transform us and overlay us with Yourself until we are all one! Amen, Lord, may we be transformed and overlaid with God as gold until we are fully one in You!

References and Hymns on this Topic

• Inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message by brother Ed M. for this week, and Truth Messages, ch. 10 (by Witness Lee), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Crystallization-Study of Exodus (part 4, 2016 Summer Training), week 42 / msg. 6, The Oneness in the Triune God Typified by the Tabernacle.
• Hymns on this topic:
  # Thy mighty love, O God, constraineth me, / As some strong tide it presseth on its way, / Seeking a channel in my self-bound soul, / Yearning to sweep all barriers away. / Shall I not yield to that constraining power? / Shall I not say, O tide of love, flow in? / My God, Thy gentleness hath conquered me, / Life cannot be as it hath hither been. (Hymns #431)
  # As I love You I set my being— / My spirit, my soul and body. / With my heart, my mind, and my strength, / Absolutely on Thee. / Lord, I let my entire being / Be occupied by Thee / As I enter in Your heart / I sense a fellowship sweet. / Occupied and lost in You; / My Lord, You’re my everything. / Fellowship so intimate; / In spirit Lord I enjoy Thee. (Song on enjoying Christ)
  # We must eat Jesus till God can / Have the fulfillment of His plan— / One man expressed for all to see, / One church in each locality. (Hymns #1146)