The Triune God is Operating in us in a Normal yet altogether Miraculous way Daily

As believers in Christ, we are under the operation of God, for the Triune God is operating in us both the willing and the working for His good pleasure (Phil. 2:13); we need to see that God’s operating in us is a miraculous normality, for even though He operates, it so normal and quiet, yet so miraculous. Amen!

If we read the book of Philippians we will realize that everything covered in this book is under God’s operating move.

For example, chapter 1 shows us that we need to live Christ and magnify Him for Him to be our living and our expression (Phil. 1:20-21).

Paul’s earnest expectation and hope was that in nothing he would be put to shame, though he was in prison, but rather that even now, in this situation, Christ would be magnified through him, for to him to live was Christ.

What a pattern Paul was in living Christ for His magnification!

In Phil. 2:5-11, 16 we see that we need to take Christ as our pattern and hold Him forth. He humbled Himself to the uttermost by becoming man, even by being a slave, emptying Himself and humbling Himself to be our slave and God’s slave.

He is our wonderful pattern, and we need to imitate Him not in an outward way but rather, by enjoying Him and experiencing Him so that He would live in us.

If we try to imitate Christ in ourselves and by our own efforts and abilities, that will be like a monkey trying to imitate a man. For Christ as the pattern to be effective in us, we need God’s operation. Amen!

In Phil. 3:14 we see that we need to pursue and gain Christ as our goal; forgetting the things which are behind, we stretch forward to the things which are before so that we may pursue Christ, gain Christ, and obtain Christ.

He is our goal and our life; we need to pursue Him daily, seeking to gain Him as the prize. Our goal is the uttermost enjoyment of Christ; we desire to enjoy and experience Christ so that we may gain Him.

Phil. 4:12-13 further shows us that Christ is the secret of our sufficiency; we need to learn Him as our secret.

We need to learn the secret that Paul learned; this metaphor used by Paul is of being initiated into a secret society with instruction in its rudimentary principles.

This “secret society” is the Body of Christ; we need to learn the secret of sufficiency, the secret of living Christ and magnifying Christ so that we may live in the reality of the Body of Christ.

The whole book of Philippians shows us how God operates in us through our experience of Him.

In Phil. 1 Christ is our living and expression, in ch. 2 He is our pattern, in ch. 3 He is our goal, and in ch. 4 He is our secret.

All these need God’s operation in us, and God is operating in us both the willing and the working for His good pleasure.

The Triune God is Operating in us both the Willing and the Working for His Good Pleasure

We may think it is our desire to know the Lord and our pursuing Him that brings us closer to the Lord, but it is actually the operation of the Triune God in us that does this.

It is not that we are strong, we are thirsty, we want to pursue and gain Christ, and we love Christ; rather, in ourselves, we are a failure.

We may think we’re burning and pursuing today, but in one, two, or five years, we will no longer be that confident in ourselves.

We may think we are absolute for the Lord, but when the first child comes, then the second and the third, we will realize we’re not that absolute.

The Lord shows us through our experience that we’re not as zealous, as burning, and as absolute as we thought; our pursuing of Christ is because the Triune God is operating in us both the willing and the working for His good pleasure.

Our pursuing strength is His drawing power; He draws us, and we run after Him.

When we read that God is operating in us, we may think that He does this to get us out of trouble or to make us a better person; we may think that God operates in us to make us stronger, more spiritual, and more successful.

But that’s not why He operates in us; God operates in us the willingness and the working for His good pleasure.

He operates the operation in us; He operates the willingness not for our spirituality, our success, or the betterment of ourselves, but for His good pleasure.

The One who operates in us is the Triune God – the Father, the Son, and the Spirit (Matt. 28:19; 2 Cor. 13:14).

The most crucial operation is God Himself, and God is Triune; He is the Father as the source, the Son as the expression, and the Spirit as the application.

The Triune God is operating in us. How can the God in the heaven operate in us and be in us if He is not the Triune God?

If He is not the God who went through a process to become a man and then a life-giving Spirit so that He may flow as the Son and reach us as the Spirit, how can He reach us?

Praise the Lord, our God is the Triune God: the Father is the source, working through the Son, who is the expression, and coming to us as the Spirit to reach us and apply to our being and experience all that God is and Christ has done. Praise the Lord!

It is not “God” in general who operates in us or around us; it is the Triune God who operates in us both the willing and the working for His good pleasure.

The willing is within, in our will, and the working is without (Phil. 2:13). The leading part of our soul is our mind; we think many things, but it is ultimately our will that decides to execute things.

Our will is crucial for the execution, the carrying out. For God to work out His economy, for Him to fulfill His will in man, He needs our cooperation; He operates, but He needs man’s cooperation, and this cooperation involves our willingness.

So often we are not willing; God operates, but we’re not willing, so we don’t cooperate.

We may be doing some shopping at the grocery store, and God wants us to speak to the person behind the counter, the salesperson; however, we may have many excuses, thinking we didn’t bring a gospel tract with us, we are not ready, we don’t want to get too close, etc.

We are not willing. The Triune God is operating in us, but we’re not willing. So the first thing that the operating God does in us is to operate the willingness in us; He touches our will.

He is in our spirit, and He spreads from our spirit into the various parts of our soul.

Although our mind is the leading part, a crucial part of our soul is our will, for that’s where we make the decision.

Our will needs to be subdued and become willing, submissive.

This is why Paul said in Phil. 2:12-13, As you have always obeyed, work out your own salvation…We as believers need to obey – we always obey, and we still need to obey, for our will is subdued by the operation of God touching our will.

God’s operation begins from our spirit and spreads into our mind, emotion, and will (Rom. 8:4-6).

The Greek word for “working” or “acting” in Phil. 2:13 is the same word for “operates”. And “His good pleasure”, the good pleasure of His will, is that we may reach the climax of His supreme salvation (Eph. 1:5; Phil. 1:19; 2:12).

The climax of His supreme salvation is not that we would go to heaven but that we would live and magnify Christ.

God saves us and is saving us to bring us to the climax; the highest point of our being saved is that we would be fully one with God, that we would live Christ to express Him and magnify Him corporately.

This is the ultimate of God’s salvation, and this is His good pleasure; this is the goal of the Triune God operating in us day by day.

Lord Jesus, spread from our spirit into all the parts of our inner being to operate in us both the willing and the working for Your good pleasure! Hallelujah, the Triune God is operating in us both the willing and the working so that we may be fully one with God, live Christ, and magnify Christ! We open to Your inner operation today; we are not willing, but we open to You and we allow You to subdue our will. Amen, Lord, make our will one with You; operate in us according to Your good pleasure. Make us those who live Christ for His magnification. May our will be submissive to You so that we may obey God to work out our own salvation, for it is God who operates in us!

God’s Operation in us is Normal yet altogether Miraculous, for His Operating is Quiet yet Great

1 Kings 19 shows us an important principle related to God’s operation in us; Elijah was discouraged with the situation in the people of Israel, thinking he was left alone as the only one who worshipped God, and that all are trying to kill him.

As he was discouraged and disappointed, he prayed to God and God appeared to him.

First, there was a strong wind, a mighty wind that breaks the rocks; however, God was not in it. Then there was an earthquake, yet God was not there.

And then there was a fire, but God was not in it. Elijah was expecting something spectacular, something great that will happen to him to get him out of that pitiful situation.

He might have thought that the great mighty wind, the earthquake, and the fire will bring God to him and encourage him, but God was not in them.

Lastly, there was a gentle, little, quiet voice, and God spoke to him; it wasn’t in the wind, the earthquake, or the fire, but in the gentle, quiet voice that God came to him.

God’s operating in us is a miraculous normality; it is altogether normal, yet altogether miraculous (Phil. 2:13; 4:6-7).

On one hand, the Triune God is operating in us both the willing and the working for His good pleasure, and this is amazing and spectacular.

On the other hand, this is so normal and quiet that we don’t even feel it.

Sometimes we may not even know that God is operating: we may not feel God, we may not feel that He answers our prayer or that He operates in us, for seemingly nothing happens.

But the Triune God is operating in us little by little, day by day, in a quiet, normal, and wonderful way.

We shouldn’t have the concept that, when God operates, things will shake, heaven and earth will move, and everything will change overnight; God doesn’t operate in that way.

God’s operating in us is many times so silent, so quiet, so normal, that we hardly recognize it.

If we recall our experience, sometimes we may pray to the Lord about a certain situation and concerning a particular decision to make, and we don’t seem to get a clear answer.

But somehow within us we have a certain inclination or feeling; it seems so human – maybe it is us wanting to take this direction, to go somewhere or visit someone, and we think it is us who wants to do this, but when we do it, we realize that this is God operating in us.

As we go forward according to the feeling within, we are confirmed that it is God leading us in this direction.

We need to have our concept revolutionised to recognize how God operates; we shouldn’t expect a kind of miraculous, spectacular, overnight change.

The Triune God is operating in us, but He does it in a normal yet miraculous way; it is normal outwardly but miraculous inwardly.

This is a miraculous normality.

Our being regenerated is the greatest miracle in the universe, for we now possess the divine life, the uncreated, eternal life of God – this is miraculous.

Yet this miracle didn’t happen in the way of breaking rocks, mountain exploding, or earthquakes – it happened in a very normal, quiet, common way.

God’s operating in us is not outwardly spectacular; however, in a spiritual sense, it is a great matter.

We need to pay attention to this quiet, normal operation of God; the Triune God is operating within us, miraculously yet normally and quietly.

Unlike the Pentecostal Christians today who are looking for signs, for something supernatural and spectacular, some visions in this kind of way, we need to cooperate with God’s inner operation, which is very quiet, very normal.

For example, we may walk on the street and see some blades of grass or some plant growing out of a break in the concrete pavement or in the wall.

We may wonder, how can this blade of grass, which we can easily break with our hand, break through the hardness of the stone or concrete.

This didn’t happen overnight, but little by little, a seed found some soil and a crack to sprout and grow.

This is how God is operating in us; His operation is a life operation, an organic operation.

Lord Jesus, cause us to see that God’s operating in us is a miraculous normality, for it is altogether normal, yet altogether miraculous. Thank You for being the inward operating God in us who operates in us quietly, silently, to work out the willing and the working for Your good pleasure. Keep us open to You; keep us in Your presence, conversing with You concerning all the things in our daily life. Save us from expecting God to do miraculous and extraordinary things in an outward way for us; keep us open to the Triune God’s operating within us. We want to pay attention to the quiet, normal operation of God within so that He may gain us His good pleasure.

References and Hymns on this Topic

• Sources of inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, a sharing by brother James Lee, and portions from, Life-Study of Philippians, msgs. 5-6 (by Witness Lee), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Living In and With the Divine Trinity (2021 Thanksgiving Day Conference), week 5, entitled, Living with the Divine Trinity (2) God Operating in us.
• Hymns on this topic:
  – We need to work out our own salvation / By obeying the inner operating God. / We need to be conformed to the mold of Christ’s death / By the power of His resurrection that we may attain / To the out resurrection from the dead. (Song on, The Christian life is a life)
  – Pray to labor with the Lord; / Let the Lord initiate / All the plan and all the work; / Then thru us He’ll operate. (Hymns #786)
  – Ever tender, quiet, restful, / Inclinations put away, / That Thou may for me choose freely / As Thy finger points the way. / Live Thyself, Lord Jesus, through me, / For my very life art Thou; / Thee I take to all my problems / As the full solution now. (Hymns #403)