We need to be Pure in Heart and Poor in Spirit in Serving the Lord in the Church Life

In the church life today we need to be pure in heart and poor in spirit, and we need the be strengthened into our spirit so that Christ may make His home in our heart.

Our heart needs to be pure and single for the Lord, seeking Him in purity, and our spirit needs to be unloaded and open, ready to receive more of Christ. When we are pure in heart and poor in spirit, we can serve the Lord and the saints in a proper way.

In serving the Lord in the church life we need to take care of our heart and our spirit, for when we have a proper heart and a proper spirit, we will serve in a proper way, according to God. We need to deal with our heart and with our spirit so that they would be proper, renewed, transformed, and exercised.

It is wonderful that the Lord gave us a new heart and a new spirit at the time of our regeneration, but we need to further cooperate with Him to maintain the newness of our heart and our spirit.

Our spirit was regenerated when Christ as life came into it, and our heart was renewed when we repented and believed into the Lord. Daily, we need to continue to come to the Lord to contact Him, and He will shine on us, we will repent, and our heart will be softened, renewed, and transformed.

The Lord doesn’t transform our heart by taking it out of us and giving us a new heart but by renewing our heart. He put in us a spirit that is not of cowardice but of power and of love and of sober mindedness, and we need to fan into flame the gift of God which is within us.

With our heart we need to love the Lord, and with our spirit we need to contact Him, having a spirit fanned into flame, so that we may serve God not in oldness of letters but in newness of spirit.

May we be those who do not make any excuse for themselves so that they would not exercise their spirit, but those who have a strong spirit in the church life, an exercised spirit, a spirit fanned into flame for the Lord.

When our spirit is exercised and strong, we will be led and directed by our spirit, and the Spirit with our spirit will dominate, govern, and control our being.

May we exercise to deal with our heart by coming to the Lord to repent again and again so that our heart may be soft and renewed, and may we exercise our spirit of faith and serve God in newness of spirit.

Hallelujah, newness is in our spirit, and faith is in our spirit. As long as we turn to the spirit, walk in the spirit, live in the spirit, and do everything in the mingled spirit, we are serving God in newness of life and with a proper heart and spirit, and the Lord has a way to minister life to the saints through us for their growth in life and perfecting in function.

May we be those pure in heart and poor in spirit so that we may be open to the Lord constantly, seeking only after Him, and being always able to receive something from Him in our spirit, that we may gain God.

We need to be Pure in Heart and Poor in Spirit in Serving the Lord in the Church Life

In serving the Lord in the church life and especially in taking the lead in the church we need to be pure in heart and poor in spirit (see Matt. 5:3, 8). Our heart has to be pure and single for the Lord, having a single eye and vision for Him and nothing else.

Our spirit needs to be empty, unloaded, open, ready to receive something fresh and new from God. We need to have singleness of heart, not having double vision but focusing only on the Lord whether we serve or do anything, for our only goal is to gain Christ.

These two – being pure in heart and poor in spirit – are absolutely essential in our serving the Lord in the church life and in taking the lead.

We need a pure heart to see God, and we need a spirit that is emptied to receive the kingdom of the heavens. To be pure in heart is to be single in our goal and aim; our goal should be God alone; even in our service and function in the church life, we should not have an intention to gain anything but God Himself.

Actually, purity it heart or pureness in heart is the rarest of all Christian virtues, for most Christians have a divided attention, focusing not only on Christ but also on something else besides Christ.

It is hard to find a Christian who is entirely pure. To be pure is to have no other aim but God Himself.

It is easy, however, to have replacements for Christ, for even our work for God, our service in the church, and our reading the Bible may take God’s place in our heart, and our focus in doing all these things may not be God Himself.

Actually, this is the principle of idolatry, having substitutes for God that demand our worship and our time.

We need to be purified in our heart and simplified in our heart so that we may seek only after God. Our unique intention and goal should be to gain God.

For our Christian walk and work we need to be pure in heart and poor in spirit, having no other goal besides God. We need to be poor in spirit, that is, nor being inwardly full and unable to receive more from God.

For example, we come to a meeting with a sense that we are inwardly rich and have no need, this will close the door to God (Rev. 3:16-17, 20); we need to pray, “O Lord, thank You for always being with me, yet I am still short of You; I want to be emptied in my spirit so that You can have more room in me; O Lord, I open to You and ask You to gain more ground within my spirit.”

This should be our inward condition in our heart and spirit. Even though we may experience something of Christ, we gain more knowledge of Him, and we enjoy Him, we still need to be freshly emptied within to receive more of the Lord.

Just as the Lord instructed us, we are His slaves, and even after serving Him, we still need to have our ear open to Him, listening to His further command, always being open and ready to hear Him and gain Him.

We should always have room in our being for the Lord Himself. If we come to a meeting and have the sense that we are inwardly rich and have no need, this closes the door to God.

We need to open our being, exercise to be poor in spirit, and humble ourselves so that we may always have more room for the Lord in us.

Lord Jesus, we want to be pure in heart and poor in spirit in our living and serving in the church life. Simplify our heart, Lord, that it may seek for nothing else but God. Purify our heart until it is single for You, seeking nothing else but to see God and gain God. Oh Lord, we are still so short of You. We want to be emptied in our spirit so that You may gain more ground in our being. Lord, empty us, unload us, speak to us, and fill us with Yourself in a fresh way. Lord Jesus, we love You!

Being Strengthened into our Spirit so that Christ may make His Home in our Heart through Faith

Our regenerated inner man, our mingled spirit, is the place where God dwells. God in Christ as the Spirit dwells in our regenerated human spirit.

However, we need to daily ask the Lord to strengthen us through His Spirit, according to the riches of His glory, into our inner man, so that Christ may make His home in our heart through faith (Eph. 3:16-17).

We need to be strengthened with power through the Spirit into our Spirit, and our heart needs to be possessed by the Lord so that He can make His home in it.

In serving the Lord in the church life we need to take care of the condition of our heart and our spirit, and we do this by praying to be strengthened into the inner man (our spirit) so that Christ may make His home in our heart.

If we are strengthened into our inner man by the Spirit, and if we are inwardly possessed by Christ so that He would make His home in our heart, we will spontaneously enter into the proper church life. This is the key to seeing and entering the church life in a proper way and with a proper heart and spirit.

On the one hand we need to be pure in heart and poor in spirit, and on the other, we need to be strengthened with power through the Spirit into the inner man so that Christ may make His home in our heart, and we will be strong to see and enter into the church life in an inward way, in the way of life.

As soon as we are helped to be in the right heart and spirit, we will discern what the proper church life.

When Christ possesses our heart by making His home in us, and when our inner man is strengthened, we will have an inner consciousness concerning what the proper church life is, and we will have a longing for the church life.

Knowing the church life is something inward; in our heart we have the highways to Zion (Psa. 84:5).

On the one hand, we have entered into God, but on the other hand, we are still on the highways to enter into God. We need to take the way of the church internally, not merely externally.

To take the way of the church internally we need to be pure in heart and poor in spirit, and we need to let the Lord strengthen us into our inner man so that Christ may make His home in our heart through faith for the church life.

When we are strengthened through the Spirit into our spirit and when Christ makes His home in our heart, God is able to do superabundantly above all that we ask or think concerning the church life; if all the saints pray daily for this, the glorious church life will spread and be prevailing throughout the United States and the whole world (Eph. 3:20-21).

Amen! May we daily pray and tell the Lord,

Father, strengthen us with power through Your Spirit into our inner man so that Christ may make His home in our heart through faith. May our inner man be strengthened by the Spirit and may our heart be possessed by Christ so that we may discern what the proper church life is. Lord, we want to take the way of the church internally, not merely externally, by allowing Christ to make His home in our heart as the Spirit strengthens us into our spirit. Amen, Lord, may our spirit be strong and may our heart be Your home for the church life!

References and Hymns on this Topic

• Inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message given by Minoru Chen for this week, and portions from, Collected Works of Witness Lee, 1975-1976, vol. 2, pp. 339-341, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Taking Christ as our Person and Living Him in and for the Church Life (2018 spring ITERO), week 4, The Heart and Spirit of a Leading One.
• Hymns on this topic:
  # Draw me, Lord, each day. / Take my veils away. / With a pure heart will I see You; / Lord I just love You. / Nothing else I seek; / No one else for me. / I would fully and absolutely / Give my whole being unto Thee. (Song on, Lord, You love me so immensely)
  # Make us in spirit poor; / Lord, take whate’er we think we know. / We’ll open to life’s flow, / And thus take in the life that makes us grow— / Lord Jesus, grow in us. (Hymns #1132)
  # Oh, strengthen my spirit, Lord Jesus, / Oh, strengthen my spirit, I pray; / Oh, strengthen my spirit with power / And spread to my heart today. (Hymns #1134)