We abide in Christ and Christ abides in us by switching on the law of the Spirit of life in our spirit by always rejoicing, unceasingly praying, and always giving thanks; also, it is by dealing with the constant word in the Scriptures and the present word as the Spirit.
This whole week we saw that we need to learn the secret of being in Christ as the empowering One; Paul said that he can do all things in Him who empowered him, and he learned the secret to be content.
When we learn the secret of being in Christ as the empowering One, we can do all things in Him, and we can also be true, dignified, righteous, pure, lovely, and well spoken of.
What is this secret of being in Christ as the empowering One? It is the secret of abiding in the Lord, that is, dwelling in Him, remaining in fellowship with Him all the time, so that we may experience and enjoy His abiding in us.
To abide in Christ is to live in the Divine Trinity; to abide in Christ is to take Christ as our dwelling place. To have Christ abide in us is to live with the Divine Trinity, that is, having Christ’s presence as our enjoyment for Him to be one with us.
May we learn the secret of abiding in the Lord so that He may abide in us. May we abide in Christ as our King so that He can abide in us and make us His queen, His royal palace, His glorious church.
To take God as our habitation – our eternal dwelling place – is the highest and fullest experience of God. When we take Him as our dwelling place, He becomes everything to us; He becomes not only our supply and protection, but everything that we need.
To abide in Christ and to allow Him to abide in us is to live in the reality of the universal incorporation of the processed and consummated Triune God with the redeemed and regenerated believers.
It is a foretaste of the New Jerusalem – we are in God and God is in us, we live in God and God lives in us, and we as persons are in God and God as the person indwells us.
We abide in Christ so that He may abide in us by loving Him; when we love the Lord, the Father and the Son come to us to make an abode with us, and we abide in Him as He abides in us.
The more we love the Lord, the more we have His presence, and the more we enjoy all that He is; at the same time, He comes to us to make an abode with us and make us His dwelling place even as we are His dwelling place.
Finally, to abide in Christ so that He may abide in us is to care the inward teaching of the anointing; first the Lord’s blood cleanses us, and then His anointing teaches us all things, saturates us with the element of God, and we simply abide in the Lord.
Today we want to see the final two ways for us to abide in the Lord so that He may abide in us.
We abide in the Lord so that He may abide in us by Switching on the Law of the Spirit of Life in our Spirit
A very simple way for us to abide in Christ so that He may abide in us is by “switching on” the law of the Spirit of life in our spirit (see Rom. 8:2, 4).
Every day we need to switch on, especially in the morning; Christ is the law of the Spirit of life as an automatic principle installed within us, but we need to “switch Him on” by exercising our spirit.
The Lord’s abiding in us and our abiding in Him is altogether a matter of Him being the life-giving Spirit in our spirit; we abide in Him and He abides in us by means of the Spirit in our spirit.
By the bountiful, immeasurable Spirit in our spirit, we know with full assurance that we and God are one, and that we abide in each other (see 1 Cor. 15:45b; Rom. 8:16; 1 Cor. 6:17; Phil. 1:19; John 3:34; 1 John 3:24; 4:13).
How do we “switch on” the law of the Spirit of life? In 1 Thes. 5:16-18 Paul gives us some simple ways to do it: always rejoice, unceasingly pray, and give thanks in everything!
The way to abide in Christ as the empowering One so that He may be activated within us as the inner operating God is by rejoicing always, praying unceasingly, and giving thanks in everything.
Especially when we don’t feel like it, we need to rejoice; we need to praise the Lord!
And we need to keep breathing spiritually; just as physically we have to constantly breathe or else we die, so spiritually we need to unceasingly pray!
How can we pray unceasingly? To pray is not just to ask God for things or to tell God things; our simplest prayer is, O Lord Jesus… – calling on the name of the Lord to breathe ourselves out and to breathe Him in.
Just as a light bulb is always on if it is properly connected to the flow of electricity, so we need to unceasingly pray and in everything give thanks! When we pray, we are shining within; when we give thanks, we become enlivened within.
We need not only to pray, but give thanks in everything; prayer without thanksgiving will not work, so we need to pray and also give thanks, and we need to give thanks with prayer.
The activity of our spirit is to pray to the Lord; even without opening our mouth physically to say something, our spirit automatically “breathes” in us to have fellowship with the Lord.
We may feel down and out, but when we inwardly call, O Lord Jesus! – even though we may not make a sound outwardly, we will breathe in the Lord.
We all need to practice this kind of uninterrupted prayer, a prayer that is inaudible yet constant, always going on in our spirit.
When we pray unceasingly, we constantly exercise our spirit to contact the Lord; this will cause us to live and walk in our activated spirit, and we will spontaneously abide in the Lord and enjoy Him as our life.
Hallelujah, we know what the will of God in Christ Jesus is for us: it is to always rejoice, unceasingly pray, and in everything give thanks, and in this way we switch on the law of the Spirit of life in our spirit, and we abide in the Lord. Amen!
May we practice this in our daily life, and may we have such an uninterrupted prayer.
May we realise that the law of the Spirit of life, that is, the Triune God embodied in Christ and realised as the Spirit to be a spontaneous principle and automatic power, cannot operate in us unless we always rejoice, pray unceasingly and in all things give thanks!
If we do these three things, God’s economy will operate in us, we will switch on the law of the Spirit of life, and we will abide in the Lord.
Lord Jesus, we want to abide in You so that You may abide in us by switching on the law of the Spirit of life in our spirit! Thank You Lord for coming to be the life-giving Spirit in our spirit so that we can abide in You and You in us. Amen, Lord, may we be those who always rejoice, unceasingly pray, and in everything give things so that we may abide in the Lord and the Lord may abide in us! O Lord Jesus, keep us breathing You in! Keep us praising You and rejoicing in You! May we pray unceasingly and always give thanks, praying and thanking before You!
Abiding in the Lord for Him to abide in us by being in the Lord’s Constant and Instant Word
A wonderful and practical way for us to abide Christ so that He may abide in us is by dealing with the constant word of the Scriptures – which is outside of us – and the present word as the Spirit – which is within us (John 5:39-40; 6:63; 2 Cor. 3:6; Rev. 2:7).
When we come to the word of God – the written word in the Bible, we need to pray, Lord, I come to You in Your word; otherwise, we may be like the Pharisees who, even though they came to God’s word, they didn’t come to the Lord, so that they may have life (John 5:39-40).
We can receive life in our reading of God’s word only if we come to the Lord and touch Him.
It is the Spirit who gives life; the words which the Lord speaks to us are spirit and are life.
When we come to God’s word in the Bible we have the explanation, definition, and expression of the mysterious Lord; when we inwardly contact the Lord and have His present speaking, we have the experience of abiding Christ and the presence of the practical Lord (Eph. 5:26; 6:17-18).
The written word of God is the “logos”; the present, instant, spoken word as the Spirit is the “rhema”.
We need to learn to convert the logos into rhema so that we may have not only mental knowledge of God’s word but receive the instant speaking of the Lord within us.
When we pray-read the word, we receive the instant speaking of the Lord in His word, and His word abides in us; when His word abides in us, we abide in the Lord and He in us.
The Lord wants to cleanse us, wash us, and purify us by His speaking in His word, so that He might present the church to Himself glorious, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing.
When we convert the written word of God into the Lord’s present speaking in us, all our oldness and wrinkles are removed, and we are new and fresh with the Lord.
If we abide in the Lord’s constant and written word, His instant and living words will abide in us (John 8:31; 15:7; 1 John 2:14).
We abide in the Lord and His words abide in us so that we may speak in Him and He may speak in us; this is for the building of God into man and man into God. Wow!
On one hand we allow the word of God to abide in us richly, and in this way we abide in God, and on the other hand, we abide in the Lord Himself, and He abides in us; the result of this is that we speak in Christ and Christ speaks in us for the building of God into man and man into God. Wow, Hallelujah!
In 2 Cor. 2:17 Paul says that we speak in Christ before God, and in 13:3 he says that Christ speaks in us.
Whenever we speak, we need to pray that our speaking would be in Christ and that Christ would speak in us; this is genuine prophesying (1 Cor. 14:4), and this builds up the church. We need to prophesy by speaking in the Lord and by allowing Him to speak in us.
Lord Jesus, we want to abide in You by abiding in Your word; may Your word be not only black on white letters but living, instant, spoken, to impart life to us. Amen, Lord, may we pray over Your word so that we may have Your speaking, Your instant and present word imparting life to us! We want to abide in Your constant and written word so that Your instant and living words may abide in us! Amen, Lord, we abide in You and we let Your words abide in us so that we may speak in You and You may speak in us for the building of God into man and man into God! Amen!
This article can also be read in the Romanian language / Citiți acest articol în limba română vizitând următorul link, “Comutăm întrerupătorul” legii Duhului vieții și suntem în Cuvântul constant și instantaneu al Domnului.
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message by bro. Ed Marks for this week, and portions from, Collected Works of Witness Lee, 1978, vol. 1, “The Experience of Christ,” ch. 23, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, The Experience of Christ (2019 Memorial Day Conference), week 4, Abiding in Christ as the Empowering One—the Secret of Experiencing Christ.
- Hymns on this topic:
# Always rejoice; / Unceasingly pray; / In everything give thanks; / For this is the will of God / In Christ Jesus for you. (Scripture song)
# Always rejoice, ceaselessly pray, / In all give thanks, ’tis the all-excelling way. / Christ’s the living fountain, / My supply abundant, / All to His hand I entrust, and / He’ll preserve and keep me to the end. (Song on, Lord, for this day, thankful to You)
# Just to enjoy Thy word, / I come to Thee, dear Lord; / Spirit and life, I need to gain, / Through Thee, O living Word! … / Just to enjoy Thy word, / Let Christ’s word richly dwell, / Speak, teach, admonish, sing with grace / To saints and God as well. (Song on, Just to enjoy Thy word)
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