The word of the Lord Jesus in Matt. 7:21-23 is very sobering and exposing – many people do works of power in His name, cast out demons in His name, prophesied in His name, but the Lord does not recognize them or know them… We can do a lot of good and great things for the Lord – even miraculous things, with the help of the power of God – but if we do things independently of the Lord, He does not approve or recognize it. How much we need the Lord to shine on us and expose our self in all its good or bad intentions and doings, so that we may deny our self and exercise our spirit to be one with the Lord! [continue reading online]
a trainee’s testimony – loving the Lord and building up a romantic relationship with Him
I’m in love with Him, I always loved Him. Yet coming to the training made me doubt my love towards Him. Was my love temporary? Or was it an impulsive decision? Many times, I told myself, this was the greatest mistake that I made in my whole life – to be in the full time training…. A Christian life is a life of believing in the things unseen. We have never seen the Lord – yet we love Him (1 Pet 1:8). In every circumstance, I learned to go to the Lord, confess, repent, weep, and see that I am nothing but Christ is everything. It’s heart-aching, to come to Him and say, Lord, take it away if it’s something that replaces You. I want Thy increase and my decrease. [continue reading online]
a trainee’s testimony – we need to develop deep roots in the Lord by spending time with Him
As Christians we are like little plants – we don’t have much power, but if we have deep roots in Christ we will be unshakable, immovable. Sometimes our roots are in something else than Him. As a result, we are easily shaken, and with any small situation we are blown off. Our roots may be in our campus work. It might be somewhat successful, with some promising contacts, but as soon as they begin missing the meetings or making excuses to have appointments we will collapse and be blown off. We may be enjoying the Lord, but as soon as we suffer some persecution from those with whom we study or work we are rapidly blown away. We need to be rooted in Him, but how? [continue reading online]
the way to build up the church as the kingdom of God is death and resurrection
What is the way to build up the church? As revealed by the Lord in Matt. 16:16-18 and then in 21-26, the way the church is built up in a practical way is through death and resurrection. The Lord Jesus builds up the church through His death and resurrection – if He would have not died on the cross for us and if He would have not resurrected, there would be no church. It is the same with us today – if we do not die to ourselves and if we don’t live the resurrection life in the church life, we do not build up the church. [continue reading this article online]
The Flow of Life with the Ministry of Life out of and for the Magnificent House of God (2)
The ministry of life involves feeding, which is a supply for living. Paul told the Corinthians “I gave you milk to drink” (v. 3:2). Had they been mature enough to receive it, he would have given them solid food. This ministry is nourishment, not knowledge. We are ministers “not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life” (2 Cor. 3:6). The Spirit nourishes. This nourishment comes from healthy words (1 Tim. 6:3) which are according to godliness, a life lived one with Christ to express God (1 Tim. 3:16). [continue reading online, a review of message 5 in the recent ITERO]
by repenting and believing we can enter the kingdom of God to be God-men, God’s species
God became flesh – God became man – to enter into our race, our species, and now man becomes God in His life and nature (but not in His divine Godhead) to enter into the divine species. Man was created in the image and likeness of God with a spirit to receive God, but unless man makes a conscious decision under the divine light to receive the life of God, man is still man, part of the human kingdom. We are not “born Christian” by human birth but by our opening to the Lord to receive Him in our heat as Lord and Savior, even as our life. [read more online]
God desires that we would be recovered back to living under His direct rule in life
In us who are in the kingdom of God as a realm of life, the divine life should be able to move into our mind, our thinking, our imagination, our memory, our reasoning, our thoughts, our emotions (what is stored, buried, accumulated there? What anger, what feelings, what pains are suppressed there?). The river of water of life needs to go into every part so that it will bring life to our soul, until every part of our inner being would be alive with this river [continue reading online]