In order for us to grow in life, we must pay attention to our mingled spirit – we must know our spirit, use our spirit, and exercise our mingled spirit; furthermore, we must feed on the milk and the food of the holy Word, the living Word of God.
Today God is recovering the most difficult thing: the fulfillment of Eph. 4:15-16, the functioning of every member of the Body in their measure for the building up of the Body.
The way this happens is by all the members of the Body being headed up in Christ, taking Christ as the Head, and growing up into the Head in all things.
A very simple way to do this is to take Christ daily as the reality of all our necessities, and to take Him as our real rest, enjoyment, and satisfaction.
We need to exercise our spirit day by day, we need to pay attention to our mingled spirit, and we need to enjoy Christ as our everything.
We need to have a direct and intimate communication between us and Him; in this close and sweet communication all the riches of Christ are ministered into the members, and all the negative things are being eliminated, being swallowed up by the life-supply coming from the Head.
May the Lord gain on earth a group of people who not only know their God but also hold to the Head, receive the transmission from the Head, and allow the Lord to grow in them so that they may grow in life into the Head, Christ.
We need to take Christ as our breath; we need to daily breathe Him in by calling on His name.
It makes a great difference if early in the morning we call on the name of the Lord to just enjoy Him and breathe Him in. It makes a great difference when we call on the name of the Lord all throughout the day just to breathe Him in.
We need to take Christ as our drink, realizing that He is the living water for us to drink and have our thirst quenched.
We need to eat the Lord as our spiritual food, spending time with Him in the word to receive spirit and life. Amen, may the Lord’s word be living and active, operating, and supplying as we pray over the word of God!
We need to take Christ as the living light, the light of life, even the light of the world. We need to take Christ as our real clothing, our real covering. We need to take Christ as our real dwelling place.
We need to take Him daily as our enjoyment and satisfaction.
What a wonderful, all-inclusive, extensive Christ we have! He is our Head, He is our life supply, and we can enjoy Him by exercising our spirit and by paying attention to our mingled spirit!
We must Pay Attention to our Mingled Spirit and Exercise our Spirit to Grow in Life
When we set our mind on our spirit, our mind becomes life and peace. In order for us to grow in life, we must pay attention to our spirit (Rom. 8:6); we must know, use, and exercise our mingled spirit (1 Tim. 4:6-8).
What does it mean to set our mind on our spirit? In a very practical way, it means that we need to pay attention to our spirit. We need to ask the Lord how to exercise our spirit that we may contact Him, so that we may live by His reality.
We all have to admit that we are short of this; we don’t automatically pay attention to our mingled spirit, neither do we exercise our spirit at all times.
In the book of Ephesians in particular in every chapter our spirit is mentioned, showing us that the only way we can have the reality of the Body of Christ under the headship of Christ is to exercise our mingled spirit, the divine spirit with our human spirit to be one spirit.
Hallelujah, through regeneration our human spirit has been indwelt by the compound, all-inclusive, consummated Spirit to make it a mingled spirit!
Eph. 1:17 says, That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the full knowledge of Him.
We need to have such a mingled spirit of wisdom to understand and of revelation to see. For us to see the mystery of God’s economy, we need the revelation and the enlightenment.
Also, we need to understand and apprehend what we see by the divine wisdom.
God’s economy is a real mystery, yet it has been revealed to us; we can see God’s economy when we pay attention to our mingled spirit, for our spirit is of wisdom to understand and revelation to see God’s economy.
It is by exercising our spirit that we can see God’s economy, receive it, understand it, apprehend it, and participate in it.
Eph. 2:22 says, In whom you also are being built together into a dwelling place of God in spirit.
This spirit spoken of here is the mingled spirit; when we are in the mingled spirit, we are built together into a dwelling place of God. God today dwells in our spirit.
Our human spirit is indwelt by God’s Holy Spirit – God’s Spirit is the Dweller, and we are the dwelling place; our spirit is the dwelling place.
The dwelling place of God is in our spirit.
For us to have God dwell in us and dwell together with God, we need to know our mingled spirit; we need to exercise our spirit and be one spirit with the Lord (1 Cor. 6:17) so that we may be for the building of God’s dwelling place.
Our spirit is where the building of the church, the dwelling place of God, takes place. Praise the Lord for our mingled spirit!
Eph. 3:5 says, Which in other generations was not made known to the sons of men, as it has now been revealed to His holy apostles and prophets in spirit.
The mysterious economy of God has been hidden all throughout the ages; many tried to look into it, and even Job admitted that, though there was something in God’s heart for him, it was hidden from him.
But to us in the New Testament the mystery of God’s economy has been revealed not merely to our mind but in our spirit!
So we need to learn to discern our spirit from our soul by allowing the word of God to pierce and divide them (Heb. 4:12).
We shouldn’t be perplexed, complicated, and troubled by our mind, but always turn to our spirit to contact the divine Spirit and see God’s economy.
In the mingled spirit we have the capacity to see the mystery of God’s economy; in the mingled spirit we can understand, apprehend, and receive and retain God’s economy as our portion.
We just need to pay attention to our mingled spirit and exercise our spirit!
Eph. 4:23 says, And that you be renewed in the spirit of your mind.
This means that, when we pay attention to our mingled spirit, the spirit spreads into our mind to become the spirit of our mind.
Our mingled spirit slowly saturates our mind to control it, govern it, rule it, and become the spirit of our mind. It is by this spirit that we are renewed day by day into the image of our Creator (Col. 3:10).
We are being renewed in the spirit of our mind for our transformation into the image of Christ (Rom. 12:2; 2 Cor. 3:18).
May we pay attention to our spirit, exercise our spirit, and allow the mingled spirit to spread into our mind, seeping and spreading into all our thoughts, opinions, philosophies, and way of thinking, until it becomes the spirit of our mind.
It is in such a spirit that we are renewed for our sanctification, and we are conformed to the image of Christ.
Eph. 5:18 says, And do not be drunk with wine, in which is dissoluteness, but be filled in spirit.
We shouldn’t be filled with wine in our physical body but rather be filled in our spirit! Amen, our spirit needs to be filled with the processed Triune God, with the transcending Christ, with the consummated Spirit.
When we pay attention to our mingled spirit and are filled in spirit, we will be full of praise, singing and speaking one to another (vv. 19-20).
We will not only sing but also declare the songs, declare the word of God, and speak the word of God and psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs!
Amen, when we are filled in spirit, we will praise God and we will spontaneously be submissive to one another (v. 21).
The husbands love their wives and the wives are submissive to their husbands when they are filled in spirit (vv. 22, 25).
The way for us to have the proper church life and the proper family life, a life full of submission to one another and full of praising to the Triune God, a life with no quarrelling or murmuring, a life with no complaining, is being filled in spirit!
Eph. 6:18 says, By means of all prayer and petition, praying at every time in spirit and watching unto this in all perseverance and petition concerning all the saints.
On one hand we need to praise the Lord and live a submitting life; on the other hand, we need to live a fighting life. On one hand we praise the Lord and enjoy Him; on the other, we fight the enemy.
We fight the enemy by prayer, by exercising our spirit. We pray not by merely exercising our mind but even more, we pray in our spirit! Just as we use our feet to walk, so we need to use our spirit to pray.
In praying, the main faculty we should use is our mingled spirit; we need to pay attention to our mingled spirit in our daily life, and we need to exercise our spirit in our prayer to the Lord.
We receive the word of God by means of all prayer and petition by the exercise of our mingled spirit.
Thank You Lord Jesus for our mingled spirit! Thank You for coming into our spirit to be mingled with our spirit as one spirit! Grant us a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the full knowledge of Christ and God’s economy. Grant us to have wisdom to understand and revelation to see in our spirit what Christ and God’s economy is. Amen, Lord we want to pay attention to our spirit and exercise our spirit so that we may become the dwelling place of God in spirit! Hallelujah, everything of God and Christ and God’s economy is real to us in our mingled spirit! Amen, Lord, may we see the mystery of Christ by exercising our spirit; may we have the revelation of what God is and what He does in His economy in our spirit. Strengthen us into our inner man, Lord, so that we may apprehend with the saints all that the all-inclusive Christ is and has. May we be renewed in the spirit of our mind. May our spirit be strong and full to spread into our mind and renew our mind unto the full knowledge of God. Amen, Lord, we want to be filled in spirit, singing and praising and psalming with our heart to God so that we may have a proper church life and family life. We want to pray at every time in spirit, and even watch unto this with all perseverance. Thank You Lord for our mingled spirit, the key to our growing in life and contacting the Lord!
To Grow in Life we must Feed on the Milk and the Food in the Word of God
In order for us to grow in life, we must feed on the milk in God’s word (1 Pet. 2:2) and on the food in the holy Word (Heb. 5:13-14). We need to treasure the milk of the word, by which we may grow unto salvation.
The word of God is like milk for us to drink; this milk provides all the nutrients required for our spiritual growth in life. We need to desire the guileless milk of the word and drink it as we come to the Word of God.
The holy Word is the embodiment of Christ, the living word of God; we need to be in God’s word, drink the milk in the word, and grow unto salvation.
The way for us to grow is by drinking the guileless milk of the word. Also, we need to eat the solid food in God’s word, the word of righteousness (Heb. 5:13-14).
We never graduate from drinking the milk of the word, but we also go on to eat the more solid food.
We need to be experienced in the word of righteousness, eating the more solid food in God’s word, so that we may grow in life.
Amen, may we pay attention to our mingled spirit as we come to God’s word, and may we open to the Lord to both drink the guileless milk of the word and to eat the solid food in God’s word!
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message by Ed Marks for this week, and portions from, CWWL, 1993, vol. 2, “The Issue of the Dispensing of the Processed Trinity and the Transmitting of the Transcending Christ,” ch. 6, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, The Will of God (2020 spring ITERO), week 2, Knowing and Participating in God’s Great and Lofty Will to Head Up All Things in Christ.
- Hymns on this topic:
– Now the Triune God has come to dwell within / As the wonderful Spirit in us. / We are mingled with the Lord, we’re one with Him / As the life-giving Spirit in us. (Hymns #1113)
– Lord, teach me how to exercise, / My spirit now to contact Thee, / That in Thy Spirit I may walk / And live by Thy reality. (Hymns #493)
– Pray with one accord in spirit, / Not according to our thought, / But alone by the anointing, / As the Lord has ever sought. (Hymns #779)
