Our Environment Cooperates with the Spirit to have the Resurrected Christ Living in us

To live with the Divine Trinity is to have the resurrected Christ living in us; in our Christian life, we are under the killing of Christ’s death by the indwelling Spirit and through our outward environment so that we may experience the Spirit as the reality of the resurrected Christ. Amen!

This week in the morning revival we see two main ways of living with the Divine Trinity, the first being to live with Christ as Emmanuel, God with us, and the second, having the resurrected Christ living in us.

Regarding the matter of living with Christ as Emmanuel, we need to realize that Christ is our Emmanuel – He is God with us.

The New Testament starts with an individual Emmanuel, Jesus Christ, who was called by God, Jesus, but by men, Emmanuel; it ends with a corporate Emmanuel, the New Jerusalem.

According to Ezek. 48:35, the very last verse of the book of Ezekiel, the name of the city that God is gaining is, Jehovah is there.

The name of the New Jerusalem, the city that God is after and will gain for eternity, is, Emmanuel, God is there. Hallelujah!

We need to enjoy Christ as our Emmanuel today, remaining in the Lord’s presence and treasuring His presence to the uttermost, even allowing the Lord to rule us with and in His presence, so that we may become the city called, God is there.

Day by day we need to have the adequate enjoyment of Christ as the good land, and the issue will be the church as the temple of God and as the city of God.

The New Jerusalem is both the temple of God and the city of God; eventually, God in His economy will become the New Jerusalem, where both He and His chosen people are united, mingled, and incorporated together.

It is here, in the New Jerusalem, that God will have His full expression in a corporate way, and it is here that we as His people will enjoy God for eternity.

We need to realize that, the more we try to overcome and be spiritual, nothing works except the Lord’s presence; being in the Lord’s presence and having His presence with us is the real blessing, the real victory, and the real spirituality.

Anything that we seek apart from the Lord can become something that distracts us from the enjoyment of Christ; we need to be in the Lord’s presence and live in His presence today so that, for eternity, we would become His presence – we would become Jehovah is there, God with us. Hallelujah!

To Live with the Divine Trinity is to have the Resurrected Christ Living in us as we Live in Spirit

Gal. 2:20 is a well-known verse, a verse beloved by all believers, for here we see two I’s – the old I who was crucified with Christ, and the new I who lives by faith, in the organic union with the Lord.

For us to live with the Divine Trinity is to have the resurrected Christ living in us.

We have been crucified with Christ – the natural life in our soul has been crucified with Him, for our old man has been crucified with Christ (Rom. 6:6).

But we still live, and the life we live is the resurrected Christ living in us.

This is more than marvellous, for we have a new person, a new I, that lives in us; our old man has been crucified with Christ, and we are now a new man, a new I, that lives Christ, for we have the resurrected Christ living in us.

The old I has become a new I, and the new I has Christ living in him; the new I participates in God’s divinity, partaking of the divine life and nature for our enjoyment.

As believers in Christ, we participate in God’s life, in God’s nature, and in God’s being, which means that we pass through the process of regeneration, sanctification, renewing, transformation, conformation, and building.

As we pass through this process, we participate in God’s divinity and become deified to become the same as God in life and nature but not in the Godhead.

This all hinges on our living with the Divine Trinity by having the resurrected Christ living in us as we live in the mingled spirit.

Resurrection is not merely an event but a person; Christ said that He the resurrection and the life (John 11:25).

Even before He died and resurrected, Christ said that He is resurrection and life.

He said this in the context of Him being about to raise up Lazarus from the dead in John 11 when all those around Him were filled with unbelief and human opinions.

Today, praise the Lord, the reality of the resurrected Christ is the Spirit of reality in our spirit, and this Spirit contains the power of His resurrection.

Paul aspired to know the Lord and the power of His resurrection (Phil. 3:10).

Where is the resurrected Christ and the power of His resurrection? It is all in the compound Spirit who is now mingled with our spirit.

Exo. 30:22-25 shows us the holy anointing ointment and what was it made of, and the New Testament shows us that the reality of this ointment is the Spirit, the compound Spirit.

The holy anointing oil, the ointment, is composed of myrrh (signifying Christ’s precious death), cinnamon (signifying the sweetness and effectiveness of Christ’s death), calamus (the precious resurrection of Christ), and cassia (the repelling power of Christ’s resurrection).

Hallelujah, everything we need is in the Spirit, who Christ became by passing through the processes of incarnation, human living, crucifixion, and resurrection!

In particular, in this holy anointing oil, we have cassia, which was used in the old days to repel insects and snakes.

In the compound Spirit in our spirit, there is the power to repel all the negative things related to Satan.

When we contact the Lord by the exercise of our spirit, when we are in the meetings of the church and enjoy Him corporately, and when we call on the name of the Lord, there’s a divine and mystical repellent at work to eliminate and kill all the negative things of Satan in our being.

This is to enjoy and experience the power of Christ’s resurrection.

May we be those who live with Christ by having the resurrected Christ live in us day by day so that the power of His resurrection may be applied to our being to both eliminate the negative things and resurrect every part of our being.

Lord Jesus, we want to live with the Divine Trinity by having the resurrected Christ living in us. Amen, Lord, we want to contact You in spirit and live in the mingled spirit today so that it would be no longer us who live but Christ who lives in us. Hallelujah, we have been crucified with Christ and our old man has been put to death! Praise the Lord, we now live in faith, in the organic union with the Lord, for we have the resurrected Christ living in us! Amen, Lord, live in us today to impart all that You are and have accomplished into our being to make us part of the corporate expression of God!

The Outward Environment Cooperates with the Inward Spirit to Kill our Natural Man for the Manifestation of the Resurrected Christ within us

When we hear about the resurrected Christ living in us, we are happy and rejoice; however, we need to realize that, in order for such a One to live in us, we need to cooperate with the killing work of the Spirit through the cross and the environment.

In our Christian life, we believers in Christ are under the killing of Christ’s death by the indwelling Spirit and through our outward environment.

Rom. 8:28-29 tells us that all things work together for good for those who love God; all things work together for good to conform us to the image of Christ, the firstborn Son of God.

By His mercy, we have seen something of God’s purpose, and we have been called by God; we realize that it is God’s intention in this universe to work Himself into us and make us part of His corporate expression.

All things – all matters, all persons, all situations, and all environments – work together for good, to conform us to the image of Christ, that is, so that we may be transformed and conformed to the image of the firstborn Son of God.

Our human life is full of troubles, worries, and all kinds of sorrows, but when we turn to our spirit, we experience and enjoy the resurrected Christ living in us.

As we turn to the Lord, we realize that all the things and persons and environments are for our natural man to be killed so that the resurrected Christ may live in us.

Christ’s killing death and His uplifting resurrection are in the compound Spirit whom we are enjoying; as we enjoy Christ as the Spirit with our spirit, we experience the inner killing and the inner resurrecting, which result in us having more of God and less of us.

The Lord uses the people we live with, our family, our schoolmates, our workmates, our spouse and children, our boss, and everything and everyone around us to limit us and cause us to turn to Him in our spirit.

On one hand, we experience the killing work of the cross with the limitation of our environment, and on the other hand, we experience the resurrected Christ living in us.

There are a lot of negative things still in us that need to be killed by the indwelling Spirit in cooperation with the outward environment.

As death operates in us, life operates in others (2 Cor. 4:12).

The killing of Christ’s death, which is working in us through the Spirit and through His arranged environment, issues in the impartation of His life in us, through us, and out of us into others.

Death operates in us and life in others, for the killing of death which we are experiencing issues in the impartation of His life into others.

However, if we try to escape from the environment which God has arranged for us, we will not have any joy and peace.

The Lord may lead us to be in a very uncomfortable place, a place that we don’t naturally like or prefer; if we are there and enjoy the Lord in spirit, we will have joy and peace.

In 2 Cor. 2 Paul said he came to Troas for the gospel, but he had no rest in his spirit; in ch. 7, however, he said that in Macedonia he had a lot of persecution and his flesh had no rest.

Our soul fears the things in our environment and doesn’t find rest, but when we contact the Lord as the Spirit, the resurrected Christ living in us, we are comforted in our soul, for the Spirit of reality as the Comforter operates in us.

May we be governed by the Spirit as the presence of the Triune God, the rest in our spirit, and remain in the limited environment that God has sovereignly arranged for us, for it is here that we can experience the resurrected Christ living in us.

In Eph. 3:1 Paul says that he was a prisoner of Christ Jesus, and in 4:1 he said he’s a prisoner in the Lord; he was not only the Lord’s prisoner but also took the Lord as his prison, his dwelling place, and here he was rejoicing.

In Eph. 6:20 he says that he is an ambassador of Christ, and in 2 Cor. 5 he said he is an ambassador in a chain; his chain was a physical chain, but our chain may be our environment, a particular situation, or our family.

For us to experience the Spirit as the reality of the resurrected Christ, we need to turn to our spirit; when we are in our spirit, we enjoy the resurrected Christ living in us for the expression of God.

May we consult with the Lord and tell Him concerning everything; if we don’t like the environment, if we find it very limiting and even impossible, we need to have many human conversations with Him.

When we have such conversations with the Lord, we become intimate with Him, and He as the Spirit imparts Himself into us, bringing our whole being in resurrection.

When we contact the Lord in spirit and live in spirit, we are limited in our speaking, for we realize that it is God who arranges the environment and persons around us, and He does it so that the resurrected Christ may live in us.

Under God’s divine and sovereign arrangement, our entire environment is a killing, for all things in our environment are like knives to kill us.

The killing of the cross, the killing of Christ’s death, ushers us in resurrection; when we are willing to suffer and be killed, we magnify Christ, we live Christ, and He is manifested in us.

This is the process of being transformed, being daily under the killing of Christ’s death so that Christ may be manifested through us.

The Lord is sovereign in all that He does and in all His arrangement; He arranges whom we marry, where we do we live, what kind of job we have, and who is around us.

We think we choose our spouse and we work hard to get a job, but the Lord arranges all these things.

All the things in our environment cooperate with the Lord to apply the killing of Christ’s death to us so that His life may be manifested in our body for the renewing of our inner man, with the result that the resurrected Christ is living in us.

Thank You, Lord, for arranging all things to work out for good for those who love God and are called according to His purpose. Hallelujah, all matters, things, environments, and situations work together for good so that we may be transformed and conformed to the image of Christ, the firstborn Son of God! Amen, Lord, we open to You, and we do not want to escape or evade the environment You put us in. Keep us turning to our spirit to enjoy joy and peace even in the limited and limiting environment You put us in. Hallelujah, the outward environment cooperates with the inward Spirit to kill our natural man for the manifestation of the resurrected Christ within us!

References and Hymns on this Topic

• Sources of inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, a sharing by brother Ed Marks, and portions from, Collected Works of Witness Lee, 1991-1992, vol. 2, “The Christian Life,” chs. 7, 10, 14, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Living In and With the Divine Trinity (2021 Thanksgiving Day Conference), week 4, entitled, Living with the Divine Trinity (1) Living with Christ as Emmanuel and Having the Resurrected Christ Living in us, by Living Christ for His Magnification, and by the Grace of the Lord Jesus Christ in Our Spirit.
• Hymns on this topic:
  – The Christ of glory is my life, / He as the Spirit lives in mine, / That I with God be fully blent / And in His image shine. / I would exalt this glorious Christ, / Ever the Spirit I’d obey, / Making His glory fully known, / Filled with His grace for aye. (Hymns #509)
  – I am crucified with Christ / And it is no longer I who liveth, / But it is Christ who lives in me; / And the life which I now live / In the flesh, I live in faith— / The faith of the Son of God / Who loved and gave Himself up for me. (Song on, I am crucified with Christ)
  – May the Cross put me to death / That on Christ I may rely; / May His Holy Spirit fill, / That Himself I may apply. / May His death so work in me / Daily deeper than before, / That my self may be destroyed / And His life thru me may pour. (Hymns #412)