Message Five

Walking in a Manner Worthy of God

Scripture Reading: 1 Thes. 2:12;
Phil. 1:20-21a; Rom. 8:4; Gal. 5:16, 25

1. As believers in Christ and children of God, we should walk in a manner worthy of God—1 Thes. 2:12:
   1. First Thessalonians 2:12 is an explanation of 1:1; in order for the church to be in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ in a practical way, the believers must walk in a manner worthy of God—Eph. 4:1, 17; 5:1-2, 8; 2 Cor. 5:7; 1 John 1:7; 2:6.
   2. To walk in a manner worthy of God actually means to live God—Phil. 1:20-21a:
      1. Our daily life should actually be God Himself—John 5:26:
         1. Only God is worthy of Himself, and only God can be compared with Himself and match Himself—1 Pet. 1:15-16.
         2. Since only God is worthy of Himself, to walk in a manner worthy of God is to live God, that is, to express God in our daily living—1 Cor. 10:31:
            1. 1) As children of God with the life and nature of God, we can walk in a manner worthy of God by living God—John 1:12-13; 1 John 3:1.
            2. 2) To live God’s life means to live by God and even to live God Himself.
            3. 3) Only a life that lives God is worthy of God; when we live God, we walk in a manner worthy of Him—Phil. 1:20-21a; 1 Thes. 2:12.
      2. God’s economy is a matter of having God as life and living Him; according to His economy, God’s intention is to impart His element, His substance, and the ingredients of His nature into our being that we may live Him—1 Tim. 1:4; Eph. 3:16-19; Phil. 1:20-21a.
      3. To know God is to live God, and to live God is to know God—Heb. 8:10-11.
      4. God’s aim in His economy is that we, His chosen and redeemed people, have His life and nature inwardly and His image and likeness outwardly—Gen. 1:26; 2:9:
         1. In the divine life and by the law of the divine life, God will be wrought into us, and we will live Him and be constituted with Him in His life and nature but not in His Godhead—Rom. 8:2, 6, 10-11, 29.
         2. Eventually, we will be a corporate entity—the Body of Christ—to be one with Him and live Him for His corporate expression—Eph. 4:4-6.
      5. God’s intention was to make Job a man of God, filled with Christ, the embodiment of God, to be the fullness of God for the expression of God in Christ—1 Tim. 6:11; 2 Tim. 3:17; Eph. 3:16-19:
         1. God’s purpose in dealing with His holy people is that He desires that they would be emptied of everything and receive only God as their gain—Job 2:4-6.
         2. God’s intention is to tear us down and rebuild us with Himself as our life and nature so that we may be persons who are absolutely one with Him.
         3. God’s stripping and consuming were exercised over Job to tear him down so that God might have a base and a way to rebuild him with God Himself, thereby making him a God-man—42:1-6.
      6. To walk in a manner worthy of God by living God is to live the life of a God-man:
         1. We need to see that we are God-men, born of God and belonging to the species of God—John 3:3, 5-6.
         2. A God-man lives God and expresses God; the living of a God-man is the living of God in man—Phil. 1:20-21a.
         3. God-men are divine and mystical persons, doing everything with God, in God, by God, and through God—1 Cor. 10:31; Col. 3:17.
2. To walk in a manner worthy of God is to walk according to the mingled spirit; this is to live, move, have our being, and do everything according to the Spirit in our spirit—Rom. 8:4; Gal. 5:16, 25:
   1. The spirit in Romans 8:4 is not merely the Spirit of God, nor is it simply the spirit of man; rather, it is the mingled spirit, the mingling of God’s Spirit with man’s spirit—1 Cor. 6:17.
   2. To walk according to the mingled spirit is not only to walk according to the Spirit of God but also to walk by following our regenerated spirit, which is indwelt by the Spirit of God’s life—John 3:6; Rom. 8:2, 10-11.
   3. Obeying the sense of life, obeying the teaching of the anointing, and walking according to the spirit are three aspects of one thing—v. 6; 1 John 2:27:
      1. Obedience to the sense of life is related to Christ as life and is a matter of life—Rom. 8:6; Col. 3:4.
      2. Obedience to the teaching of the anointing is related to the Holy Spirit’s moving as the ointment and is a matter of the Spirit of life—Rom. 8:2.
      3. Walking according to the spirit concerns our walk according to the mingled spirit and is a matter not only of the Spirit of life but also of our regenerated spirit—v. 4; 1 Cor. 6:17.
   4. Walking according to the mingled spirit causes our flesh, self, and natural life to lose their position and function—Gal. 5:16; Matt. 16:24; 1 Cor. 2:11-15.
   5. Walking according to the mingled spirit allows the processed and consummated Triune God—the Spirit—to gain the full ground in us so that we may be one with Him for His corporate expression—Eph. 3:16-21.
   6. Every believer in Christ should have two kinds of walk by the Spirit—Gal. 5:16, 25:
      1. In the first kind of walk (peripateo) we take the Spirit as the essence of our life in our daily living—v. 16.
      2. In the second kind of walk (stoicheo) we take the Spirit as the path for our way so that we may fulfill God’s purpose and reach the goal of our life on earth—v. 25.
   7. By walking according to the mingled spirit, we keep ourselves under the “shower” of the divine dispensing of the Divine Trinity—Rom. 8:4, 11.
   8. Ultimately, the Bible requires only one thing of us—that we walk according to the mingled spirit—v. 4.
   9. To walk according to the mingled spirit is to let the processed Triune God fill and saturate us until He permeates our whole being to be expressed through us in a corporate way as the Body of Christ consummating in the New Jerusalem—Eph. 3:16-21; 4:4-6, 16; Col. 1:27; 2:19; 3:4, 10-11; Rev. 21:2, 10-11.