The Ministry of the Word, Vol. 23, No. 04 - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook The Ministry of the Word, Vol. 23, No. 04 write by Various Authors. This book was released on 2019-04-01. The Ministry of the Word, Vol. 23, No. 04 available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. This issue of The Ministry of the Word contains the first seven messages given during the fall 2018 term of the full-time training in Anaheim, California. The general subject of this series of messages is "The Central Vision." The central vision of the completing ministry of the apostle Paul is composed of three major items--God as our contents, Christ as the mystery of God, and the church as the mystery of Christ. The completing ministry of Paul revealed in his fourteen Epistles is an expansion of what he saw concerning what the Lord spoke to him at his conversion. The heavenly vision of Paul's completing ministry must be seen by us, and this vision must be renewed in us day by day.
The Ministry of the Word, Vol. 22, No. 04
The Ministry of the Word, Vol. 22, No. 04 - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook The Ministry of the Word, Vol. 22, No. 04 write by Various Authors. This book was released on 2018-04-01. The Ministry of the Word, Vol. 22, No. 04 available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. This issue of The Ministry of the Word contains the first eight messages given during the fall 2017 term of the full-time training in Anaheim, California. The general subject of this series of messages is "The Crucial Revelation of Life in the Scriptures." The central thought of God in this universe and in eternity is to have Christ as His expression through the church with the shining in life. God's expression is based on life and light, and the light is the shining in life. In order for God to have an expression of Himself in Christ through the church, the divine life that expresses Him must be embodied and expressed in Christ and then dispensed into, worked into, and expressed through the church. Only the life of God can express God. Based on this principle, we will see the crucial revelation of life throughout the Scriptures. Genesis 1 and 2 are not merely a record of creation; actually, nearly every item recorded in these two chapters is a revelation of Christ who is life to God's people for the producing and building up of the church. According to Genesis 1, God created many forms of life, beginning with the lowest form and progressing to the highest form of created life, that is, man, whom God created in His image. The purpose of the creation of man with God's image is that this man would express God. However, the created man had only a human life. Any form of created life can only express itself; it cannot express another kind of life. This means that man is unable to express God if he has only his created human life. In order for man to express God and fulfill His purpose, man must obtain and receive the life of God as his life. God has to enter into man to be life to man. Genesis 2 reveals that the bride of Christ--typified by the woman built from the rib taken from the man--is produced and comes into being by life. The real Eve, the church, the counterpart of Christ, which will consummate in the New Jerusalem, is built with the resurrection life that was released by the Lord through His death and imparted through His resurrection. This counterpart of the Lord is a building of life. For God to gain His corporate expression through the church, He must dispense and work Himself into us, His people, His believers. This is accomplished through our eating and drinking Him. We need to pass through three stages of the enjoyment of Christ by eating Him. The first stage is the eating of Christ as the Passover lamb in Egypt, the second stage is the eating of Christ as the manna in the wilderness, and the third stage is the eating of Christ as the rich produce of the good land. By our eating in the first two stages, we are energized to leave the world and are constituted with Christ as the heavenly element. Only in the third stage of the enjoyment of Christ as our food can we fulfill God's purpose. It was not until the children of Israel entered into the good land and enjoyed the produce of the land that they were able to defeat all the enemies, build up God's dwelling place on the earth, and bring in the kingdom of God. Likewise, for us to reach the goal of God's economy, we need to progress until we enter into the highest stage of eating Christ as the all-inclusive Spirit, as typified by the rich produce of the good land. In this stage we overcome the spiritual enemies, we are built up to be God's dwelling place, and we establish God's kingdom on earth. The history of God's people is not only one of eating but also one of drinking. In the Old Testament, before coming into the good land and building the house of God, the children of Israel journeyed through the wilderness. During that journey they came to Marah, a place of bitter waters. Moses followed God's command to cast a tree into the bitter waters; the waters then became sweet. This tree signifies the tree of life, the crucified and resurrected Christ, who today is the Spirit mingled with our spirit. In our spirit we have the crucified and resurrected Christ as our Healer. He is the One who transforms our bitter circumstances and makes them sweet, and He also heals all our diseases. Before the building of the house of God, the Bible speaks of the springs of water (Exo. 15:22-27), the water out of the cleft rock (17:6), and the water from the well (Num. 21:16-17). Christ as the living, spiritual rock was smitten by the authority of God's law so that the water of life in resurrection could flow out of Him and into His redeemed people for them to drink. After God's people built the house of God in the good land, the Bible speaks of the river of God's pleasures (Psa. 36:8b), the river whose streams gladden the city of God (46:4), a fountain going forth from the house of Jehovah (Joel 3:18), and living waters going forth from Jerusalem (Zech. 14:8). We need to experience the flowing of the living water out of the house of God (Ezek. 47:1-5). In order to be in the flow, we have to be in the building; that is, we need to be in the church. In the New Testament we can see the crucial revelation of life in the book of Matthew. In the decree of the kingdom's constitution given by the Lord in chapters 5--7, He displayed the two possible ways people may live and work before God (7:13-14, 21-27). The broad way that leads to destruction is according to the worldly systems satisfying the natural tastes, to get the crowd, to maintain a career of man, and to achieve man's enterprise. The constricted way is according to the divine regulations. This way, which leads to life, fulfills the spiritual requests, brings in God's elect, bears the testimony of Jesus Christ, and carries out God's economy for the building up of the Body of Christ. We take this way by walking in the spirit; this will restrict us and cause us to live a normal Christian life. We will thereby become vital, healthy believers who take the way of life for God's building. There are three basic elements in Matthew. First, Christ is the King as the kingdom bringing in the reality of the kingdom. Second, He is the King in His all-inclusiveness. Third, He is the kingly bread. When we partake of this kingly bread, we eat, digest, and assimilate the King and the kingdom with its reality, and we eat and digest the King in His all-inclusiveness. The ruling element is in the food. When we take in this food, we gradually become the reality of the kingdom of the heavens. The Announcements section at the end of this issue contains a list of upcoming conferences and trainings hosted by Living Stream Ministry and a website link for information related to similar events in Europe.
The Ministry of the Word, Vol. 23, No. 03
The Ministry of the Word, Vol. 23, No. 03 - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook The Ministry of the Word, Vol. 23, No. 03 write by Various Authors. This book was released on 2019-03-01. The Ministry of the Word, Vol. 23, No. 03 available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. This issue of The Ministry of the Word contains the six messages from the Thanksgiving weekend conference held in Charlotte, North Carolina, November 22-25, 2018. The subject of this series of messages is "The Reality of the Body of Christ." The banners in the following section embody the crucial truths and the main burden of the conference. The Announcements section at the end of this issue contains a list of upcoming conferences and trainings hosted by Living Stream Ministry and a website link for information related to similar events in Europe.
The Ministry of the Word, Vol. 23, No. 12
The Ministry of the Word, Vol. 23, No. 12 - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook The Ministry of the Word, Vol. 23, No. 12 write by Various Authors. This book was released on 2019-12-01. The Ministry of the Word, Vol. 23, No. 12 available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. This issue of The Ministry of the Word contains the nine messages given during the international training for elders and responsible ones held in Bangalore, India, on October 3 through 5, 2019. The general subject of this series of messages is “The One New Man Fulfilling God’s Purpose in Creating Man.” The eternal purpose of God is to have a corporate man to express Him and represent Him. For this purpose God created man in His image and according to His likeness so that through His economy man may receive His life and nature and thereby become His expression. God’s intention in giving man dominion is for him to exercise God’s authority over the earth in order that the kingdom of God may come to the earth. However, the first man, Adam, became damaged and degraded; therefore, he failed to fulfill God’s purpose in creating man. Christ, as the second man and the last Adam, became a prototype and pattern of the expression, living, conduct, and work of the new man who fulfills God’s intention. In His humanity Christ expressed the bountiful God in His rich attributes through His aromatic virtues. Christ’s God-man living constituted Him to be a prototype so that He may be reproduced in us and live again in us, the church as the Body of Christ and the new man. The church, the Body of Christ, is the one new man to accomplish God’s eternal purpose. On the cross Christ created the new man in Himself by abolishing in His flesh the law of the commandments in ordinances—forms or ways of living and worship, which create enmity and division. As the Body of Christ, the church needs Christ as its life; as the one new man, the church needs Christ as its person. The cross abolished the ordinances in order to give place to the Spirit. The more we are in the mingling of the divine Spirit with our human spirit, the more we will be set free from ordinances in order to bring forth the one new man. The goal of the Lord’s recovery is to bring forth the corporate one new man. The creation of the new man was completed on the cross, but the renewal of the new man is still going on today. For the practical existence and reality of the one new man, we need to put off the old man and put on the new man by being renewed in the spirit of our mind and by taking Christ as our person. The renewing of our mind and of our entire being is carried out by the renewing Spirit being mingled with our regenerated spirit as one mingled spirit to spread into our mind. When we live our life by taking Christ as our person, especially in making decisions, our living will be the living of the new man. Moreover, for the bringing forth of the one new man, we must grow and mature in life by growing up into Christ in all things. The reality and practicality of the new man require our persevering in particular prayer, such as the prayers modeled by Paul in Ephesians 3:14-17 and the Lord Jesus in John 17, which is our response to Christ’s activities in His heavenly ministry. Furthermore, we must labor and struggle according to the operation of God to dispense Christ into others in order to present every man full-grown in Christ until we all arrive at the oneness of the faith, a full-grown man, and the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. The dispensing of Christ is a service carried out by all believers as faithful stewards of the mysteries of God, which is Christ and the church. A steward is a dispenser, one who dispenses the divine life supply to God’s children. The stewardship of grace is the dispensing of the riches of Christ into our being so that we may grow and become the church. All the local churches in the different countries are the one new man; thus, they need to practice the church life in the consciousness of the new man. If we take Christ as our life and as our person in the new man and with the new man, spontaneously we all will speak the same thing and do the same one work for the unique Body, the universal one new man. In this way the new man will grow and mature, and we will arrive at a full-grown man. This will be the ultimate church life—a universal new man taking Christ as his person and living out Christ; this will conclude this age, usher in the kingdom, and bring the Lord back. The Announcements section at the end of this issue contains a list of upcoming conferences and trainings hosted by Living Stream Ministry and a website link for information related to similar events in Europe.
The Ministry of the Word, Vol. 23, No. 05
The Ministry of the Word, Vol. 23, No. 05 - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook The Ministry of the Word, Vol. 23, No. 05 write by Various Authors. This book was released on 2019-05-01. The Ministry of the Word, Vol. 23, No. 05 available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. This issue of The Ministry of the Word contains the remaining eight messages given during the fall 2018 term of the full-time training in Anaheim, California. The general subject of this series of messages is "The Central Vision." There are three aspects of the central vision. The first aspect is God as our contents, the second aspect is Christ as the mystery of God, and the third aspect is the church as the mystery of Christ. Christ is the mystery of God, the church is the mystery of Christ, and Christ and the church are the great mystery.
