Pray to be One with Christ, Put the Flesh to Death one with the Spirit, and Live in Spirit

For us to deal with the flesh, we need to pray to be one with Christ, put the flesh to death one with the Spirit, and live in the mingled spirit.

The main purpose of the record of Genesis is not to show the fall of man but to show how much God’s grace can do for fallen people; we need to cooperate with the Lord by praying and by putting the flesh to death so that we may live by grace and not in the flesh.

How grateful we are to the Lord that the Spirit, the pneumatic Christ, is dwelling with us to be grace with our spirit!

The Lord Jesus is the grace coming to dwell within us. And this grace is God Himself who was processed and consummated to be our enjoyment day by day.

Grace is daily working in us to supply us, support us, and motivate us in every aspect.

Grace dispenses and works the Triune God into us and works us into God to make us the same as he is so that together, we and He, He and us, become a totality of the mingling of divinity with humanity in the present age.

This entity is called the church, the Body of Christ, and in the coming age it will be a precursor or foretaste of the New Jerusalem, and ultimately, in the new heaven and new earth for eternity, it will be the New Jerusalem.

All we need to receive Christ as the Spirit of grace in our spirit in a continual way; day by day the Spirit is being transmitted to us as grace, and we need to continually receive the divine dispensing.

Just as we breathe all the time, so we need to receive the divine transmission all the time, being open to the divine dispensing of the Triune God into our being.

As we do the things we need to take care of in our daily life, as we do our job at the office, take care of chores at home, walk or travel, play sports, etc we need to keep our being open to the divine dispensing of grace.

This continual divine dispensing reaches us and infuses us with the very element of God to supply us and be everything to us.

We shouldn’t think that it is impossible for us to live a normal Christian life under the divine dispensing; rather, we should turn to the Lord again and again, and experience Him as the grace we need moment by moment.

We can ask Him to be our daily supply of grace. We can turn to Him in spirit to contact Him and enjoy Him.

In matter after matter and situation after situation, we can contact the Lord and enjoy Him as grace.

The issue will be that we will live a normal Christian life under the divine dispensing, and our living will express Christ.

The only way we can express Christ is by enjoying and experiencing Him as grace, and this grace is in our spirit.

We may have difficult situations, we may have trials, and we may be suffering; even in such situations, we can contact the Spirit of grace in our spirit, and this Spirit will impart God with all that He is into our being.

May we enjoy the Lord and open our being to Him in both big and small things so that, in any kind of situation, He would be the bountiful supply of grace to us, and we would live Christ and manifest Him.

God Absolutely Hates the Flesh but we can Find Grace in His eyes as Noah did

The book of Genesis starts with God’s creation and further restoration, and it shows us how God created all things including man.

However, due to Satan’s temptation and deceit, man fell by disobeying God; he then fell further and further until man became flesh, and God was completely displeased with man.

On one hand, what we see in the book of Genesis is the fall of man and the further and further fall of man; on the other hand, Genesis reveals to us what God’s grace can do for fallen man.

Yes, man fell from God’s presence to the rule of his conscience, and he fell further from the rule of his conscience to the rule of man, but God showed mercy and grace to man.

In the first fall, man didn’t exercise his spirit but rather, exercised his mind, so he was deceived by Satan to take of the tree of knowledge of good and evil; therefore, he fell from God’s presence and was cast out of the garden of Eden.

In the second fall, man overexercised his soul to invent a godless culture; the descendants of man invented the human culture under Satan’s inspiration to replace God as the sole provider for their needs with things they can do and build to try to meet their needs.

Due to the overexercise of his soul, man fell further to replace God with the things that he can do to provide for his needs of protection, supply, and entertainment. Oh, Lord Jesus!

Finally, in the third fall presented in Genesis, man abused the fallen body and became flesh; Gen. 6:3 says that man became flesh and all the thoughts of his mind and the imaginations of his heart were continually and altogether evil.

Therefore, God regretted that He created man and wanted to destroy the flesh.

God showed Noah the true situation of the corrupt age in which he lived (Gen. 6:3, 5, 11, 13; Matt. 24:37-39; 2 Tim. 3:1-3).

Man eventually fell to such an extent that he wholly became flesh (Gen. 6:3); the strongest and most evil enemy of God is our flesh; it is thoroughly and absolutely hated by God.

God hates the flesh, for the flesh is the totality of the fallen human being, and the flesh is in complete rebellion against God.

In a sense, God may tolerate our mistakes and transgressions, but He will never tolerate the flesh; anything that issues out of our flesh is an insult to Him.

At the time of the third fall, when the entire human race became flesh, God wanted to wipe them all out, for He hates the flesh.

But praise the Lord, Noah, God’s servant who walked with God, found favor in the eyes of God; he found grace with God, and God told him what He wanted to do.

Today in this age the whole of humanity is just flesh, for everyone behaves and lives according to their fallen human nature; we need to be like Noah today, those who walk with God and work with God, those who find favor in the eyes of God to end this age and bring in the next age.

We need to find grace in the eyes of God by coming to the throne of God to receive mercy and find grace (Heb. 4:16).

Just as Noah found favor in the eyes of God, so we can find grace in the eyes of the Lord by coming to Him in our mingled spirit to receive grace, enjoy grace, and live by grace.

Even in the Old Testament, before the Lord as grace came, Noah found favor in the eyes of God; we today can be the same, in this age of degradation and corruption, by finding grace in God’s eyes as we come to the throne of grace.

Lord Jesus, we come forward to You in our spirit to find grace in Your eyes. We come to the throne of grace to receive mercy and find grace for timely help. We refuse to be swept away by the flood of dissoluteness in the world today and we refuse to live in and according to our flesh. Oh Lord, we choose to walk with You and live in the mingled spirit, not in the flesh. We trust not in ourselves but in the grace of God, for grace can do everything in us and for us. Oh, how much can grace do for us in God’s economy! We come to You, dear Lord, to receive, enjoy, and experience grace in our daily living.

Pray to be One with Christ, Put the Flesh to Death one with the Spirit, and Live in Spirit

In the Old Testament, Amalek typifies the flesh; the flesh is not just the bad things we do or the sins we commit but the totality of the fallen old man with everything that comes out of it.

In Exo. 17:8-16 we see that Amalek came out to fight against Israel as they were journeying through the wilderness; the fighting between Amalek and Israel depicts the conflict between the flesh and the Spirit within us as believers in Christ (Gal. 5:16-17).

In this conflict we need to be those who cooperate with the Lord by praying one with Christ and by putting the flesh to death one with the Spirit; furthermore, we need to walk by the Spirit so that we would not fulfil the lusts of the flesh.

God loves man but He hates the flesh; the difference between man and the flesh is that God created man but the flesh is the totality of the fallen man with all that man does and is in his flesh.

The fact that God has a continual war with Amalek reveals that God hates the flesh and desires to exterminate it to the extent that even its memory is blotted out from the face of the earth (Exo. 17:16; Gal. 5:17).

The flesh can’t be changed; the flesh can’t be improved. If we try to improve or perfect the flesh, it becomes a better flesh, but even the better flesh cannot please God nor can it be involved in the things of God.

The flesh lusts against the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh; these oppose each other so that we do not do the things that we desire (Gal. 5:16-17).

How can we deal with the flesh? In Exo. 17 we see that the way the people of Israel prevailed over and defeated Amalek was by Joshua and the people fighting in the valley while Moses (with the help of Aaron and Hur) was praying on the mountain.

On one hand, we need to be one with the fighting Spirit, signified by Joshua fighting against Amalek; the Spirit fights against the flesh and applies the victory of the cross to the flesh.

On the other hand, we need to be one with the praying and interceding Christ on the mountain (signified by Moses praying on the mountain), being supported by the priesthood (signified by Aaron) and the kingship (signified by Hur, from the tribe of Judah).

The priesthood is related to the Holy of Holies, which in our experience is our spirit (Heb. 10:19); we need to come to the throne of grace in our spirit, in the Holy of Holies, to live in spirit and contact the Lord in spirit, even to remain in spirit.

To be victorious over the flesh we need to eat Christ as the heavenly manna, drink Him as the spiritual living water, and by being one with the interceding Christ and one with the fighting Spirit in our spirit. Amen!

For us to sustain our prayer and thus defeat the flesh, we need to be obedient to the Lord under His authority, we need to contact the Lord as priests, and we need to do all things for the building up of the church as the Body of Christ.

We need to realize that, according to Rom. 6:6, our old man has been crucified with Christ; this has been done once and for all, but in our experience, we need to apply this to the flesh as seen in Rom. 8:13.

Based upon the fact that our old man has been already been crucified with Christ on the cross two thousand years ago, we have the boldness and encouragement to put the flesh to death.

May we be those who cooperate with the Lord to put to death the practices of the body by the Spirit so that we may put the flesh to death and live in the mingled spirit.

When we initiate this, when we exercise our spirit to put to death the practices of the body, the Spirit works in us; the extent to which the Spirit works in us to put the flesh to death is the extent to which we cooperate with the Spirit.

In the battle against the flesh, we need to cooperate with the Lord by praying in order to be one with the interceding Christ (Rom. 8:34) and by putting the flesh to death in order to be one with the fighting Spirit (Luke 18:1; 1 Thes. 5:17; Rom. 8:13; Gal. 5:16-17, 24).

May we be such ones, the ones who cooperate with God to fight against the flesh by putting the flesh to death one with Christ in prayer and one with the Spirit in our living.

Lord Jesus, we want to cooperate with You by praying and by putting the flesh to death by the Spirit. Amen, Lord, may our daily living be in and by the Spirit, not in the flesh or in our natural man. Thank You for being in us as the interceding Christ and the fighting Spirit to put the flesh to death. We simply want to cooperate with You, dear Lord, to utterly defeat and blot out the memory of the flesh until our living is a living of grace. We open to You day by day and we come forward to the throne of grace to enjoy grace and receive mercy for timely need. We need You, Lord! We depend on You. We want to live one spirit with You. We turn from our flesh and we put the practices of the body to death by the Spirit. Amen, Lord, have a way in us!

References and Hymns on this Topic

• Sources of inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, a sharing by the brothers, and portions from, Life-study of Exodus, msgs. 46-48 (by Witness Lee), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, The Grace of God in the Economy of God (2022 International Chinese-speaking Conference), week 5, entitled, Receiving Grace upon Grace for Grace to Be Enthroned within Us So That We May Reign in Life to Become God’s Poem, the New Jerusalem, as the Ultimate and Consummate Product of the Grace of God in His Economy.
• Hymns on this topic:
  – In the flesh I need no effort to express / Marks of Adam’s nature and its sinfulness; / In the spirit I need not to strive or strain, / I can live as He is and in spirit reign. / Thru my death with Christ, from Adam I am free, / Thru my life with Christ, new life is given me! / Minding not the flesh, old Adam cannot move, / Minding just the spirit, life divine I prove. (Hymns #593)
  – By the cross discern the spirit, / Put the soul to death alway; / Bear the cross, deny the self-life, / Walk in spirit day by day. / By the cross discern the spirit; / Passing thru the riven veil, / Flesh and soul are wholly broken, / And the spirit doth prevail. (Hymns #748)
  – Lord, reveal Thyself to me, / That the flesh I’ll fully know; / May Thy grace so work in me, / That in dust I’ll lowly bow. / How I long for victory, / Yet, thru all my life, how weak! / Evil things I cannot leave, / Nor can do the good I seek. (Hymns #412)