Fresh Speaking
(Judy's notes from Lord's Day, June 13, 2010)
From the beginning, there is God. If we have eyes to see, with God, there is a process. There is not a "poof", it's all done, there is not a big bang.
In Genesis, God's creation went through a process first God created the heavens and the earth, next He created light, and the dividing of the light from darkness, then God made the firmament, and divided the waters, etc. (Genesis 1:1 2:3) Each day, there was more of a process, and each day was dependant on the previous days. God was very methodic and sequential. He worked step by step. We'd like to think that man, whom God created on the sixth day, was the final product, but there was one more day, the seventh day, God's finished His work and rested. God desires rest, and after man's creation, God had rest.
In the past weeks, we have seen that God has a plan, an economy. In His economy, He's doing something. He is administrating His plan. From generations, His plan was a mystery hidden from the ages. It was revealed by revelation ("That by revelation the mystery was made known to me " Eph. 3:3). The Lord lived a human life, went to the cross, resurrected, and became the life-giving Spirit to get into man. God's plan had a process and an issue. First God Himself went through a process the word became flesh, He then lived 33 ½ years that was a process. Then there was death, and even that was a process, with a few days of testing by man, and then the process of His dying upon the cross. The process then continued. In the three days before His resurrection, He was doing something, proclaiming God's victory to the fallen spirits, the fallen angels in Hades (1 Peter 3:18-20). All of this was step by step, with the resurrection as the issue, resulting in God becoming the life-giving Spirit to be imparted into man. Everything He did was for Him to get into the man whom He created. He overcame all the obstacles in the Old Testament, He lived as a man, and died upon the cross so that He could come into man! We can legally come to God because He is righteous and has to receive us!
God has imparted Himself into us, but we're just regenerated. Although God has imparted His life to us, He doesn't stop there, He is still not done. Now He's continuing to work to gain us in every corner of our heart, and in every way.
In Eph., Paul prayed in chapter 1:17-18 "that God may give to us a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the full knowledge of Him, the eyes of your heart, having been enlightened, that you may know what is the hope of His calling". In Eph.3: 14-19 , he prays "For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father, of whom every family in the heavens and on earth is named, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory to be strengthened with power through His Spirit into the inner man that Christ may make His home in your hearts through faith, that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be full of strength to apprehend with all the saints what the breadth and length and height and depth are and to know the knowledge surpassing love of Christ that you may be filled unto all the fullness of God". These prayers regard a process. Notice how Paul uses the word "that" that God may give to us a spirit of wisdom and revelation, that you may know what is the hope of His calling, that you'd be strengthened with power into your inner man, that Christ may make His home in your hearts through faith, that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be full of strength to apprehend with all the saints, that you may be filled unto all the fullness of God. In creation there were 'that's", that there might be plant life, that there might be animal life, that there might be man. Here in Eph., that Christ may make His home in your hearts, that you may be filled unto all the fullness of God, etc. It would be nice if we would immediately be filled with all the fullness, but just as with the creation, we need to trace back, you need the previous experience. Being filled unto all God's fullness is a process which, just as in Genesis, doesn't just happen overnight in a flash, for this is not how God operates. We are going through a process within us. Little by little we are being filled unto all the fullness of God.
Our hearts have 1,000 corners. Sometimes He puts His finger on something we don't want to bring to Him, but He touches on it. This isn't the initial salvation. Christ wants to make His home in your hearts! The book of Ephesians was written to believers. We have a difficulty allowing Christ to make home in our hearts, this is "step 2" which comes out of "step 1", being strengthened with power into our inner man. Out of step1 comes step 2, that Christ may make His home in our hearts. In ourselves, we may give Him a fraction, but when we are strengthened, then the Lord can speak to us, as with the example given by a brother of how the Lord spoke to him to pick up the dirty clothes and put them down the laundry chute. At first the brother ignored the Lord's speaking, but then went back to do what He said. We may walk away, but He puts His finger upon something and we have to go back and do it.
When our inner man is strengthened, there is the overcoming of our resistant outer man. The Lord becomes stronger in our inner man. He begins to make home in our hearts and we go on. Our apprehending with all the saints depends upon step 1 and step 2. With these little speakings, Christ begins to make His home in our hearts, and then, as we come together, we can apprehend Christ in one another. We apprehend more of Christ in one another. Today He's going through a metabolic process that eventually we will be filled unto all the fullness of God.
A further word:
There is a process that is still going on in time. The reality has been accomplished, but throughout time there is a process going on to reveal His heart. His heart is that He would be known and seen and that we would render our hearts to Him. God desires the church, His Body to express Himself. We are not in a "vacuum" unto ourselves. He is unveiling Himself to us. Having been so blessed to have seen glimpses of His church, His Body, His treasure, we should hold nothing back from Him, but, do we value this treasure to such an extent that we let Him be so valuable in our daily life? Do we value Him to such an extent that, without Christ, our daily life would be meaningless? Has He affected our life to the point that we can't go throughout any part of our day apart from Him? When all He is becomes the practical death and resurrection in my daily life (like the brother's example of "dying" to himself, and picking up the dirty clothes), then He is not theoretical. My life is in Him and with the saints, we give Him room to make His home in our hearts. This cannot possibly be in one person only. His fullness is expressed by being joined to the saints. By ourselves, we see glimpses of God, but to see the fullness of God, we need the corporate life. We see the result of our personal experience and enjoyment of Christ in our corporate times together, not only in the meetings, but also during the times we spend together apart from the meetings. It is in the corporate life that we experience what is upon God's heart. If we are able to look back, where we are now is the result of God's economy progressively moving forward. Such ones as Martin Luther and Zinzendorf did something marvelous upon which others built and upon which we now stand. The Word was opened to Darby and the Brethren by their spending time together in the Word. Brother Nee, and Brother Lee each saw something further. This is our heritage, and we are not apart from all those who went before us.
We cannot become a stagnant people, we must go forward. We have been so blessed! In our daily lives, in every moment of our day we should constantly be living our lives with the realization that apart from Christ, what else has value, and what else has meaning? It is only when we are in spirit that we can say that! The Lord has not yet achieved what He is after. We need to exercise our spirit or we will be consumed and the Lord will wait, but then He will go on with some other people. Can we have a heart to grow, and be for our young people? May our children be affected by the change in our lives! What a joy to give our whole life and nothing less than to be given to Him! To live such a life, we need to be freed from all that binds us so that our lives will become what He desires, and others will see this and give their lives too, then we will give Him glory! In order that we wouldn't become "inbred", what He's unveiled in our hearts needs to grow, for others to see and to spread to all kinds of people.
Lord, take my life for what God is after! My life must not go unto vanity. May my life be dependent upon you saints, and your life be dependent upon me that we wouldn't go on in the vanity of our life, otherwise, our lives are meaningless. Lord, we've seen so much, may we not stop! Lord, may my life, our lives, be consecrated to You. May we apprehend You with all the saints!
(Nancy's notes from Lord's Day, June 13, 2010)
From the very beginning God shows us the matter of process. Not one instant bang and its done. If we have eyes to see, we will see there is a process. Creation took seven days, not just bang and here is man. There was a process, step by step. and each step depended on the previous. There had to be light for the herbs, herbs for the animals and animals for man. God is doing something - always! There is a process going on - sequential - step by step. The last step in creation was man, and then God rested.
God's economy is God's plan. God has a plan that He is working out. God's economy is His way of administering things. Paul spoke of the mystery of this economy. Before Christ, God's plan was hidden. Now we see this plan, but only in snippets. In this process, God is after something.
There are two steps: Process and Issue.
First God went through a process. The Word became flesh. He lived a human life, was tested and crucified, walked through death and was resurrected, He ascended to the heavens, and became the life-giving Spirit. The result of this process - God became the life-giving Spirit. Everything He did, even creation was with this view. He overcame every obstacle so that He could get into man. Sin and the enemy were taken care of in that one step - the cross. The righteous One paid the price for us. In God's economy, He is working this plan. He is not done. He is now imparting Himself as life into us. The process is not done yet! He is continuing to follow His plan by working Himself into us.
Eph. 3:14-19
"For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father, of whom every family in the heavens and on earth is named, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit into the inner man, that Christ may make His home in your hearts through faith, that you being rooted and grounded in love, may be full of strength to apprehend with all the saints what the breadth and length and height and depth are and to know the knowledge-surpassing love of Christ, that you may be filled unto all the fullness of God."
Paul prays for our experience. In Eph. 1:18 He prays that the eyes of our heart would be enlightened. Here he prays that this and that this. 4 that's.
Lets go back and look at creation. God created the heavens and the earth that there might be plant life, that there might be animal life, that there might be man. For man to come out on day six, He needed day five.
For us to be filled with all the fullness of God, we need to apprehend with all the saints, and for this we need to be strengthened with power into our inner man. God went through a process to impart Himself into us.
Now we go through a process. Christ makes His home in our heart. We don't just have four corners in our heart but about 1,000 corners! The Lord puts His finger in one little corner and we resist. He wants to make His home. This was written to the Christians. We have difficulty letting Him make home. If this was step 1, it would not happen. We need to be strengthened. We say "Take my heart Lord!" yet only give a fraction. For Him to make His home it takes being strengthened. When He says to pick up your dirty clothes, etc. we need to be strengthened. How do we allow Him to dwell in our heart? By strengthening. In our contact with Him our inner man is strengthened. As our inner man becomes stronger in our little situations, He can make home.
We want to start with apprehending with all the saints, but this is not the first step. This needs the previous step. As Christ makes home, you enter into much more reality of the riches of Christ in the saints. Apprehending comes from the strengthening in our daily lives. Praise the Lord for the process and the issue. Christ in us, making His home and filling to all the fullness of God.