Our need today is to be those who are being renewed day by day with the fresh supply of the resurrection life to replace our culture and to become the one new man in reality by becoming as new as the New Jerusalem! Amen!
Our God is forever new; there’s no oldness in Him, and whatever He does is new. He created all things, but the old creation doesn’t have His element, so it is old; however, in the new creation, everything is new, for His element is being infused into His people.
The only way we can become new is by receiving the new element of God, the element of newness.
The reason the new creation is new is because it has the element of God in it.
When we are not under the divine dispensing, constantly receiving the new element of God, we are old; oldness comes in whenever we don’t stay in the process of being renewed.
Newness is God Himself; for us to become new as new man consummating in the New Jerusalem is for us to become God in life and nature but not in the Godhead. Hallelujah!
Our forever-new God is infusing His ever-new essence into our being to renew our entire being.
On our side, we need to open to Him and remain in the process of being renewed.
We may experience sufferings, hardships, and troubling situations, but we need to keep ourselves open to the Lord, contacting Him as the new One so that we may be renewed with His new and fresh element.
Even as we pass through things that are unpleasant, when we are constricted and limited, and when nothing in the environment gives us any joy, we still need to be open to His infusing, for He is constantly dispensing His new element into us.
We do not pray for sufferings; these come simply as a part of being a human being, and as believers may partake of an extra portion of sufferings.
What we want is to be renewed by turning to the Lord in spirit, taking Him as our fresh supply of resurrection life, and allowing Him to renew us day by day.
In order for the new man to come into full existence, we all as members of the new man must experience a thorough renewal of our mind; our mind is old by default, and whenever the mind is not set on the spirit, it is old and deadening. Oh, Lord!
May we come to our forever new God again and again, and may we take Him as our life and our everything, being open to His constant dispensing day by day.
May we experience a daily renewal of our mind, and may we allow the Lord’s ever-fresh and ever-new element to renew our mind and remove anything that is not God, replacing our old element with Himself!
Our need to be Renewed Day-by-Day to become the one New Man in Reality walking in Newness of Life
For the one new man to come into being in reality we need to be those who are being renewed day by day.
We need to day-by-day be supplied with the resurrection life to replace our culture and to become the one new man in reality (2 Cor. 4:16).
And our being renewed is not something that automatically happens by our understanding this need and agreeing with it; rather, we need to open to the Lord and tell Him, Lord Jesus, make us persons who are renewed day-by-day!
Fill us every day with the fresh supply of Yourself as the resurrection life to replace our culture!
Our putting on the new man doesn’t take place once for all; on the contrary, this is a lifelong matter.
Daily, hour-by-hour, even moment-by-moment, we need to be in the gradual process of renewing, a process that goes on throughout our Christian life.
We believers in Christ, as parts of the new man, should walk in the newness of the divine life in resurrection and serve in newness of spirit (Rom. 6:4; 7:6).
Regarding our living, we shouldn’t walk as the Gentiles do, in the vanity of our mind; rather, we should walk in newness of life, being the new creation in the Lord.
This means that we need to walk according to the spirit and not according to the flesh; our mind needs to be set on the spirit, and our walk should be according to the mingled spirit.
Day by day we need to be renewed in the spirit of our mind and walk according to the spirit that spreads into our mind.
In regards to our service to God, we need to serve in newness of spirit and not in the oldness of the letter; our service to God should be in our spirit in the gospel of His Son. Amen!
As believers in Christ, we need to be renewed to be as new as the New Jerusalem, since we all are becoming the New Jerusalem by walking in newness of life and building the NEw Jerusalem by serving in the newness of spirit.
When we walk in newness of life, we are becoming the New Jerusalem, and when we serve in newness of spirit, we are building the New Jerusalem.
This has very much to do with our soul being renewed; in 2 Cor. 11:2-3 we see that we’re betrothed to Christ as a virgin pure loving Him, and we should not be deceived by the enemy in our mind.
The more our mind is being renewed by the mingled spirit spreading into our mind, the more we love the Lord.
The more we think about the things of the Lord, the more we love Him.
However, our heart may have some problems; there may be some blockages to our being renewed with the Lord, so we need to anything that raises up in the way of renewing.
The four symptoms of our heart are that our heart can be hardened (2 Cor. 3:14), blinded (2 Cor. 4:4), rebellious (2 Cor. 10:4-5), or deceived and corrupted (2 Cor. 11:3).
If we have these four symptoms, we will be hindered from being renewed unto the full knowledge of Christ.
So it is good to pray that the Lord would rescue our thoughts, search our heart, know our inner parts, and see if there’s any wicked way in us, and lead us on the eternal way. Amen!
We need to put on the helmet of salvation, taking Christ as our salvation.
The enemy wants to inject his thoughts into us, injecting in us the wrong kind of fear – not the proper fear of the Lord, but just fear for us to be afraid.
We need to reject all forms of fear and set our mind on the things which are above, loving the Lord with all our heart and fearing only Him.
Lord Jesus, fill us every day with a fresh supply of Yourself as the resurrection life to replace our culture for the one new man! Amen, Lord, make us persons who are renewed day by day. Renew us in our mind, emotion, and will until we are as new as the New Jerusalem. We open our entire inner being to You, dear Lord. Rescue our thoughts so that they may focus on You. Search our heart and lead us on the pathway of life. Keep us in the daily process of being renewed for the practical existence of the one new man consummating in the New Jerusalem! Amen, Lord, we want to deal with any blockages in our heart until Your life can freely flow into our mind, emotion, and will to inwardly renew us!
We’re Renewed by the Cross, the Holy Spirit, our Mingled Spirit, and the Word of God
According to 2 Cor. 4:16, we are being renewed in the spirit of our mind for our daily transformation into the image of Christ through the consuming of our outer man by the suffering in our environment for the renewing of our inner man.
God has four great provisions for us to be renewed; He has provided us four main things for us to receive the renewing: the cross, the Holy Spirit, our mingled spirit, and the holy Word of God.
In 2 Cor. 4 we see that Paul was always under the killing of the cross, the Lord’s death; however, he concludes that, even though the outer man is decaying, the inner man is being renewed day by day.
When we are in the midst of suffering, we may question, Why am I suffering? What’s the reason? The Lord may not give us a direct answer to our questions, but we need to realize that, as we are suffering, we need to receive the renewing.
If we suffer but are not renewed, we do not gain the benefit.
As we pass through sufferings, we need to run to the refuge, our mingled spirit; we need to turn from our mind to our spirit, and we need to turn from our feelings to our mingled spirit. It is in the mingled spirit that we are being renewed.
We may think that our sufferings are not fair, and we may be correct; the Lord’s sufferings were not fair, and actually, no sufferings are fair.
However, even though our sufferings are not fair, the Lord’s calling for us to suffer is fair, for He has the right to place us into the unfair treatment we’re in so that we can receive the renewing.
As we are suffering, we need to learn to turn to our spirit and be open to the Lord, asking Him to renew us.
While we are in the midst of suffering, we need to receive the renewing; otherwise, the suffering we pass through means nothing to us.
Praise the Lord, within us there’s a refuge – our spirit, and when we turn to our spirit, we are being renewed (Psa. 91:1; 27:5; 31:20; Isa. 32:2; 2 Tim. 4:22; Gal. 6:17-18)!
God is faithful to arrange our environment so that, little by little and day by day, our outer man will be consumed and our inner man will be renewed by the fresh supply of the pneumatic Christ as the resurrection life.
The second provision is the Holy Spirit; Titus 3:5 tells us that the Holy Spirit is renewing us. First, the Holy Spirit regenerates us, and then He renews us every day.
As we turn to our spirit day by day, we receive the new supply of the Spirit daily to renew us metabolically. Amen!
The third provision is our mingled spirit – our human spirit mingled with the divine Spirit.
It is in our spirit that the divine Spirit dwells, and this spirit is spreading into our mind to become the spirit of our mind; in this spirit of the mind, we need to experience the renewing (Eph. 4:23). In the spirit of the mind, we are renewed for our transformation.
The fourth provision is the holy Word of God, the Bible. The way we are cleansed, washed, and renewed by Christ as the Head of the Body and the Bridegroom is by the washing of the water in the Word (Eph. 5:26).
The more we turn to the Lord and remain in the word of God, reading and praying the Word, the more we are washed and renewed.
We all need to receive the washing of the water in the Word of God daily.
No matter what we go through, we need to seek to be renewed by turning to our spirit, contacting the divine Spirit, and reading the word of God with much prayer; in this way, we are being renewed inwardly for the one new man.
We need to daily come to the Lord in His word and in particular every morning we need to be revived in His word, having a time with the Lord in His word to just enjoy Him and be revived in our whole being (Matt. 13:48; Luke 1:78-79; Prov. 4:18; Judg. 5:31; 2 Cor. 4:16).
And when we come to the Lord’s table, we should come in newness (Matt. 26:29); the Lord never takes an old table, so we should have the table in newness, being one with the Lord.
One way to be renewed is by saying, “I’m sorry; forgive me”; asking the Lord to forgive us, and asking for forgiveness from others causes us to be renewed.
Thank You, Lord Jesus for the wonderful divine provisions You gave us for us to be renewed day by day! May we daily come to You even while we pass through sufferings, being open to the renewing! Amen, Lord, though our outer man is decaying, may our inner man be renewed day by day! May we not focus on the sufferings or how unfair we are treated; may we turn to You again and again and exercise our spirit over Your word so that we may receive the renewing of the Holy Spirit! Amen, Lord, we open to Your renewing right now! We come to You again and again, and we come to Your holy word with an attitude of prayer so that we may remain in the process of being renewed day by day!
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Sources of inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message by Ed Marks for this week, and portions from, Collected Works of Witness Lee, 1989, vol. 2, “Being Renewed Day by Day“, pp. 350-353, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, The All-Inclusive, Extensive Christ Replacing Culture for the One New Man (2020 Thanksgiving Conference), week 4, Being Renewed Day by Day with the Fresh Supply of the Resurrection Life to Replace Our Culture and to Become the One New Man in Reality by Becoming as New as the New Jerusalem.
- Hymns on this topic:
– Now we Thy new creation are- / New spirit and new heart; / We’re daily from the old renewed, / New life Thou dost impart. (Hymns #16)
– The Spirit ever giving life / Transforms me thus with life divine; / Renewing all my inward parts, / In life He makes Christ’s image mine. (Hymns #244)
– By the cross discern the spirit, / With the mind by light renewed, / All emotion consecrated, / And the will in love subdued. (Hymns #748)
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