In order for us to enjoy the eternal blessing of the Triune God dispensing Himself into us, we need to enter into and keep ourselves in the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, the inner flow of life, maintaining both the vertical and the horizontal aspects of our fellowship – with God and with the saints.
Lord Jesus, thank You for bringing us into this divine-human fellowship, the fellowship of the Spirit! Hallelujah, the Triune God is flowing in us by means of the divine fellowship, the inner flow of the divine life! Amen, Lord, we exercise our spirit to touch You. We want to remain in the flow of life. We want to maintain our fellowship with You by spending time with You in Your word and by prayer. We want to maintain our horizontal fellowship with the saints in the Body! Amen!
The New Testament reveals to us many ways in which we can enjoy the eternal blessing of the Triune God dispensing Himself into us; God’s only goal in time is to dispense Himself into His people, for it is by His dispensing that He gains what He is after.
In Romans 5:2 we have seen that we need to enter into and keep ourselves standing in the grace of Christ, which is nothing else but the Triune God as our enjoyment.
When we keep ourselves in the enjoyment of Christ, when we exercise our spirit to enjoy the Lord and touch Him in the Word and with the saints, partaking of His words of grace, we will remain under the divine dispensing.
We need to ask the Lord to open our ears to hear His words of grace. We want to see His lovely face and hear His sweet words of grace.
On the personal side, we need to spend time wth the Lord to enjoy Him in the Word, partaking of Him as grace day by day.
On the corporate side, we are together with the saints, learning to meet and practicing the church life in oneness and in one accord. When we dwell together with the saints in oneness, we enjoy the descending dew of the grace of life in the church life.
Personally, we enjoy His words of grace, we partake of the enjoyment of Christ, and we speak words of grace to others for them to be brought into the enjoyment of Christ.
Corporately, we keep ourselves in the genuine oneness for the gradual building up of the Body of Christ in the divine dispensing of the Divine Trinity. May we practice this day by day!
Enter Into and Keep Ourselves in the Fellowship of the Holy Spirit, the Inner Flow of the Eternal Life in us
When we were regenerated, we did not just receive something of the life of God and that’s it; we received the flow of the eternal life. We have been placed under the divine dispensing of the Divine Trinity to remain here.
Now we need to cooperate with the Lord to enjoy the eternal blessing of the Triune God dispensing Himself into us.
We do this by entering into and keeping ourselves in the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, the inner flow of the divine life (2 Cor. 13:14; Num. 6:22-27). The love of God as the source reaches us in the grace of Christ as the course and flows in us as the fellowship of the Holy Spirit.
The fellowship of the Holy Spirit brings the love of God the Father with the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ for our enjoyment.
When we are in our spirit, when we exercise our spirit to touch the Lord and remain in our spirit, we are in this fellowship or flow of the eternal life.
The Greek word for fellowship is koinonia, which means joint participation or common participation. Again, a very good illustration of this is electricity; electricity is mysterious yet very real.
We may think we don’t know what electricity is, but we see it manifested everywhere: on the train, at home, at the office, even on our phone; electricity is everywhere.
Electricity is manifested in light bulbs or lamps, and in all the electrical appliances around the house. As long as a device is plugged in, electricity flows. We have been plugged into the Triune God, who flows everywhere and all the time, and we now are under the divine dispensing of the Divine Trinity.
When we exercise our spirit and touch the Lord, we have fellowship with God, and we have the flow of the eternal life in us.
The fellowship is nothing else but the flow of the eternal life within all the believers who have received and possess the divine life.
By the flow of electricity, all the homes are kept in oneness. In a similar way, by the flow of the eternal life, the fellowship, all the believers are kept in oneness.
When we exercise our spirit to touch the Lord, when we call on the name of the Lord and pray-read His word, we are in the divine fellowship.
We need to enter into and keep ourselves in this fellowship of the Holy Spirit, the inner flow of the divine life.
In Numbers 6:22-27 God told Moses and Aaron to bless the people of Israel, and the blessing is simply the Triune God being everything to them.
God the Father, God the Son, and God the Spirit is the blessing; the blessing is the Triune God. When we remain in our spirit, touching the Lord and keeping ourselves in the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, we will enjoy the divine dispensing of the Divine Trinity, and we will be one.
In the fellowship of the Holy Spirit there is the oneness of the Spirit, which is in and for the Body of Christ.
On the one hand, we exercise our spirit to touch the Lord individually, contacting Him and allowing Him to flow in us and through us.
On the other hand, the fellowship of the Holy Spirit is the fellowship of the Body of Christ, so when we enjoy this fellowship, when we remain in the inner flow of the divine life, we keep the oneness of the Body and we are one with all the saints.
This flow of the eternal life is illustrated by the flow of the river of water of life in the New Jerusalem (Rev. 22:1). This river of water of life flows from the throne and reaches all parts of the city, even flowing out of the city through the gates to water all men. Hallelujah!
Lord Jesus, we want to enjoy the eternal blessing of the Triune God dispensing Himself into us today. We open to You. We want to enter into and keep ourselves in the fellowship of the Spirit. Hallelujah, by regeneration we were plugged into the Triune God and we were connected to the fellowship of the Holy Spirit! Amen, Lord, we praise You that we have received and we possess the divine life. We exercise our spirit to touch You, enjoy You, and remain in fellowship with You. Amen, Lord, we want to keep ourselves in the inner flow of the divine life. Hallelujah, in this inner flow of life we are one with the Lord and we are one with one another! Amen, Lord, flow in us and flow among us! Keep us in the fellowship of the Holy Spirit by keeping us in our mingled spirit! Praise the Lord, all believers in Christ have the flow of the eternal life within them, and in this fellowship of the Holy Spirit we are one! Amen, Lord, we want to be one with You and with one another under Your divine dispensing today!
Maintain the Vertical and Horizontal Aspects of the Fellowship of the Divine Life to Remain under the Divine Dispensing Today
In 1 John 1 we see that the fellowship of the divine life has both a vertical aspect and a horizontal aspect. In verses 2 and 3 we see that the life was manifested, and the apostles saw it and testified to us and reported to us the eternal life, which was with the Father and was manifested to us.
They didn’t teach us some new things: what they heard and saw, they reported to us so that we also may have fellowship with them, and indeed, our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son, Jesus Christ. How wonderful, how mysterious, and how sweet!
The vertical aspect of fellowship refers to our fellowship with the Triune God, and the horizontal aspect of our fellowship refers to our fellowship with one another.
The initial aspect of fellowship was vertical, but when the apostles reported the eternal life to others, they experienced the horizontal aspect of the divine fellowship. Very interesting.
In 1 John 1:6 we are told that if we say that we have fellowship with God and yet walk in darkness, we lie and are not practicing the truth; this refers to the vertical aspect of the divine fellowship.
Verse 7 continues to say that, if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another; this refers to the horizontal aspect of fellowship.
These two aspects are interrelated; they correspond to each other, and they influence each other. When we remain in the fellowship of life, the inner flow of life, the result will be joy and also the inner shining, the inner ruling of the light of life (John 1:4; 8:12; cf. 2 Cor. 5:13).
We need to maintain both the vertical and the horizontal aspects of the divine fellowship.
On the one hand, we need to fellowship with the Lord personally and individually, calling on His name, praying to Him, and fellowshipping with Him about all things.
On the other hand, we need to fellowship with the saints, reporting to them what we have enjoyed and seen in our vertical fellowship with the Lord.
We need to see that there’s a relationship between the vertical and horizontal aspects of the divine fellowship.
As we see in 1 John 1, we cannot say we have fellowship with God, yet we walk in the darkness; at the same time, when we walk in the light and fellowship with God, we also have fellowship with one another.
In other words, if we don’t have the proper fellowship with the Lord, it is difficult to have fellowship with our fellow believers.
In the same way, if we don’t have the proper fellowship with our fellow believers, the saints the Lord put us with, it is difficult to have fellowship with the Lord.
The reason for this is that the divine fellowship is one fellowship – one fellowship of the Holy Spirit, one flow of the divine life, which has two aspects: the horizontal aspect and the vertical aspect.
For example, we were brought into the divine fellowship not in a direct way by the Lord through the vertical aspect but by another brother or sister who preached the gospel to us and we believed.
Someone came to us and spoke the gospel to us, and we entered into the horizontal aspect of the divine fellowship. When we received the fellowship horizontally, we were brought into the vertical aspect of the divine fellowship.
Similarly, we may have a time with the Lord in the morning, Him and us, and we enjoy His grace in sweetness. The Lord is so precious, so sweet, so rich, and so nourishing to us when we touch Him in the Word!
But then, we come out and we speak to someone, and they say a word to us that brings us out of this vertical fellowship. We may say something to someone and we simply sense that the fellowship is interrupted. Oh Lord Jesus!
On the other hand, when we have vertical fellowship with the Lord, we will also have a good fellowship horizontally with the saints.
The horizontal aspect of the fellowship encourages us to have the vertical fellowship, specifically to pray. And when we have vertical fellowship with the Lord, we desire to have the horizontal fellowship with the saints, for there is only one fellowship: the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, the divine fellowship.
When we are not in this fellowship in a practical way, we are out of the Spirit, out of the Triune God, and out of the divine life (2 Cor. 13:14; 1 Cor. 1:9; Phil. 2:1).
Therefore, we should try to have fellowship with our fellow believers as much as possible. As we enjoy and participate in the divine fellowship, we are not only corrected but also molded and even reconstituted.
The divine fellowship brings the divine constituent into our spiritual being, causing a change in our being. It is not easy to maintain our personal fellowship with the Lord, but we need to aspire to do this.
We need to learn to contact the Lord hour by hour, even minute by minute, so that we may be under the divine dispensing.
Lord Jesus, thank You for bringing us into the divine fellowship, the vertical fellowship with God and the horizontal fellowship with the saints! Hallelujah, the apostles had fellowship with God the Father and reported to us the eternal life, and now we have fellowship with them and with God! Praise the Lord, we can have fellowship with God personally and individually, and we can have fellowship with the saints horizontally! Amen, Lord, we want to maintain the vertical and the horizontal aspects of the divine fellowship. May we fellowship with God and walk in the light, maintaining the vertical fellowship with God, so that we may also fellowship with the saints! Hallelujah, our fellowship with the saints is with the Father and with His Son, Jesus Christ! Amen, Lord, our aspiration is to maintain the vertical and horizontal aspects of the divine fellowship so that we may remain under the divine dispensing of the Divine Trinity in our experience! Amen!
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Inspiration for this article/sharing comes from the Word of God, the enjoyment in the ministry, a sharing by the brothers on this topic, and portions from, Collected Works of Witness Lee, 1990, vol. 1, “The Triune God to Be Life to the Tripartite Man,” chs. 17-19, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, The Ministry of the Word and God’s Dispensing for God’s Economy (2026 March ITERO), week 7, “The Eternal Blessing of the Triune God Dispensing Himself into Us for Our Enjoyment and the Accomplishing of His Economy ” – day 4.
- Hymns on this topic:
– Pray to fellowship with Jesus, / In the spirit seek His face; / Ask and listen in His presence, / Waiting in the secret place. (Hymns #784 stanza 1)
– How wonderful, the Son is God’s expression / Come in the flesh to dwell with all mankind! / Redemption’s work, how perfectly effective, / That sinners we with God might oneness find. / The Spirit is the Son’s transfiguration / Come into us as life the full supply. / Amazing fact, our spirit with the Spirit / Now mingles and in oneness joins thereby! (Hymns #608 stanzas 3-4)
– By this the very Triune God is now / The living Spirit mingling deep within. / Our spirit joins in oneness; this is how / We are one spirit evermore with Him. / ’Tis by this Spirit that we walk and act, / We have our being, think, and see all things; / We’re now within this Spirit! What a fact! / This Spirit to us all God’s fullness brings! (Hymns #1195 stanzas 7-8)
