Having Morning Watch to Contact the Lord in Spirit and in the Word

The most precious possession a human being can have is the presence of God and the indwelling of His word. I really appreciate this wonderful fact this morning: Praise the Lord that we have something very substantial, available, and practical in our hands. We have the Word. We can read the Word and receive it […]

When we Love the Lord and Enjoy Him as the Tree of Life, we Shine as His Testimony

 When we give the Lord Jesus the preeminence in all things and recover the loss of the first love, we enjoy Him as the tree of life and shine with Him to be the lampstand, the testimony of Jesus. Amen! Eating the tree of life, that is, enjoying Christ as our life and life […]

Being Exposed of and Delivered from the Commercial Mind, “What’s In It For Me?”

We have seen previously that God hates pure commerce – commerce is the most wicked thing on earth in God’s eyes. But we need to see further that commerce is not only something outside of us but it is part of our being – it is inside of us! We may not be outwardly involved […]

working with the Lord by giving Him our first love and doing the first works

The work that the Lord considers precious and good is the work that comes out of our first love for the Lord. The seeker in the Song of Songs has passed through many processes and was transformed until she arrived to the stage where she tells her Beloved, Let us rise up early for the […]

loving the Lord by giving Him the first place in our work and in our speaking

To love the Lord with the first love is to give Christ the first place in everything, and this means that we need to give Christ the first place in our work and in our speaking. Even in working for the Lord, we may do something out of ourselves and with a hidden motive to […]

to love the Lord with the first love is to repent and do the first works

What does it mean to love the Lord with the first love? What does it mean to give the Lord the preeminence in all things? What does it mean to give the Lord the first place? When we first see the Lord and are captured by His beauty, we love Him with the first love. […]

What does it mean to give the Lord the preeminence, the first place, in everything?

To give the Lord the first place in our life practically means to repent and do the first works. Rev. 2:5 warns us that if we don’t repent and do the first works, the Lord will remove the lampstand. These works issue from our first love for the Lord – they are a work issuing from a heart filled with zeal for the Lord’s love, and this is precious in the Lord’s eyes. We love the Lord so much that we just do the first works – and they come out of our zeal, our love for Him! In that day, when we will stand before God at His judgement seat, He will appreciate how much of what we have done out of love for Him. Only those things we do motivated by our love for the Lord are considered gold, silver, and precious stones. If we don’t do these works, the Lord will take the lampstand! Whatever we do in the church life, we need to love the Lord and do the first works – and we will be a corporate expression of the Triune God everywhere on the earth as the golden lampstands! [continue reading online – 12 ways we can give the Lord the preeminence in our life]