We have previously seen that the oneness of the Body of Christ is Christ Himself as the Spirit. We need to allow the Lord Jesus to mingle Himself with us – in order that we may be lowly and meek… only the lowly and meek can keep the oneness. Actually, only “the failures” among us are humble enough to keep the oneness.
It is not “the strong ones”, but by many of us having a failure after another that we are reduced and terminated to be a “zero” and not a “hero”. It is then that we bear one another in love(the inner substance of God).
It is not the “crowd persons” – the ones who push and press against the Lord but with no definite desire to touch Him – that live the Body life, but rather the desperate ones that need to touch the Lord or else there’s no other solution for them.
Actually, the arrogant, the proud, the self-confident ones – they break the oneness right and left by their own being – the Lord will eventually bring someone in their life that will expose them of their self, to show them that we all are just failures, needing the Lord to come and replace us every moment…
Any act apart from the Spirit is divisive – since the Spirit is the oneness itself. It is all in our mingled spirit. One of the enemy’s strategies is to draw us out of our spirit! We need to stay in the spirit, turn to the spirit, even be diligent to keep the oneness of the Spirit by turning to the spirit all the time!
There is no excuse for us not being in the spirit. Rather, we need to walk in the spirit for the Body’s sake!
As we endeavour to exercise our spirit for the Body life, we will realize that there’s something in us that cannot and does not want to live the Body life – it is the self. The Body is versus the self; the enemy of the Body is the self (Col. 2:18-19; 3:15).
There is a difference, though, between realizing this by ourselves in our mind (a mental comprehension of the concept) and being actually enlightened by the Spirit to see this. It is one thing to agree with the speaking that exposes the self, and it is another thing to see the vision of the self.
Peter saw a vision of Christ as the Son of God, and right away the self in Peter was manifested (Matt. 16). When we have the vision of the self, when the Lord really exposes our self, we will realize how mortal the self is, and how much it opposes the building!
The enemy hates this exposing, since this exposing of the self and seeing a vision of the self exposes him – as we are exposed, we agree with the light and the truth! If this disease, the self, has its course in us, it will kill us and dehumanize us…. Many times saints/believers have a powerful soul which is built up by necessity as they go through hard things and situations – this strong soul hinders the Body and blurs our vision of the Body.
There is an absolute remedy for this situation – there is a remedy that is absolutely invincible in dealing with our self: it is the cross! As we grow in life and pursue the glorious objective of the Body, the Lord comes in to expose our self.
Remember: the self is willing to suffer a lot, as long as it is not killed – even this suffering can make the self stronger. We need to see the fact that the cross in its primary meaning is not suffering but termination! Through the cross, the Lord Jesus died an all-inclusive and all-terminating death.
Our experience is based on the truth of the Lord’s all-inclusive death. In Rom. 6:6 we see that our old man has been crucified with Him – the totality of our fallen human being has been crucified with Christ! The old “I” died with the Lord Jesus! And He offered Himself to God on the cross through the eternal Spirit.
Through His process of incarnation, human living, death, and resurrection, Christ became the life-giving Spirit, and this Spirit is a COMPOUND Spirit.
Everything He passed through is compounded in this Spirit: His perfect humanity, His genuine human living, His divinity, His sweet death, the power of His resurrection – everything is in the Spirit! The Spirit that we received at our regeneration and which is daily transforming and saturating us is the compound ointment! We can enjoy and apply Him to our entire being today.
Experientially, as the Lord shines on us and we see our self, we deny the self and not stand with it! We say, No, I deny myself, I don’t stand with my self! And then, we take up the cross = we apply to this self the effectiveness of the crucifixion of Christ.
The cross of Christ is in the Spirit – when we contact the Lord by exercising our spirit, the cross of Christ is applied to our self! This is the medicine – call on the name of the Lord, and He as the all-inclusive medicine knows what’s wrong in us – the Spirit flows and goes exactly to the place where the medicine is needed! “Lord, right now I apply the effectiveness of Your death to my self!” – and this is for terminating the self and not for suffering.
In this way, the enemy of the Body – the self – is being killed and we are living in resurrection!
Hallelujah for this practical way to deal with the self! Whenever we see this element in us – whenever we’re exposed by the Lord to see our self – we’re motivated to admit that we don’t want to be in our self – so we say NO! to our self and right away we apply the cross by contacting the Lord Spirit! We call on the Lord’s name, O Lord Jesus! – and the Spirit flows in us, reaching exactly where He needs to and applies the death of Christ to our self… [enjoyment from the sharing in the recent European conference on the message, Oneness and the Cross]
Lord, remind us that it is no longer us that lives but we live a life together with You! Even when You expose us, Lord, remind us to NOT stand with our self but rather deny it! O, Lord, keep us calling on You to have the Spirit apply the death of Christ to our self! Continue to expose us and show us our self, Lord…
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