Prayer: Lord, we worship You from the depths of our being. You have gathered us into Your name again. Here we enjoy Your Spirit and Your word. We fully believe that You will open up to us more of the mysteries in Your word so that we can enter into them, enjoy them, and experience them. Lord, be with us. We need You. Amen!
During the past few meetings, I believe we have seen a glorious mystery, which is that the Triune God is working Himself into us to be our life. This life is simply God Himself becoming a law within us with its spontaneous power. Many times we do not know this law and do not feel this law. Nevertheless, it is working within us. Although we have many weaknesses, mistakes, and even failures, we have been preserved and maintained until today because there is such a maintaining and preserving law within us that has kept us here until now.
When we read the book of Romans, we can readily find out that its record is from the circumference to the center. This center is the Spirit of life. This Spirit has a law that operates daily in our spirit. Its main function is to free us in many ways. After man became fallen, his whole being was in a fallen condition. He was like a prisoner bound in the bondage of the flesh. Then Christ came. He is the embodiment of the Triune God. He became the Spirit of life and entered into us to be a law, daily regulating us within. This law frees us in Christ Jesus from all of the negative things and saves us from Satan’s law of sin and death in our fallen nature and from the body of this death.
When God created man, He created him according to His image and after His likeness. For this reason, the body He created was originally a pure vessel. However, man fell and brought into himself the source of death, Satan. When Satan entered into man, he became the law of sin and death in man’s flesh. This law of sin and death not only causes our flesh to have the spontaneous power to sin so that we lose our freedom and become bound by sin, but it also brought in death, which causes us to become powerless in doing good and insensitive in doing evil. As a result, whatever our flesh does becomes death and produces death. Hence, our body becomes the body of this death. But at the time we are saved, the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus frees us from the law of sin and of death and from the body of this death as well.
Furthermore, after man fell, Satan injected himself into the human body. As a result, the human body became corrupted and degenerated into the flesh, bringing mortality, aging, and dying with it. Hence, as far as our fallen body is concerned, we are not living daily, but dying daily. When a person is young, he likes others to celebrate his birthday. But after he becomes old and is in his seventies or eighties, he may not like others to celebrate his birthday anymore. This is like having a deposit of one hundred dollars. If I spend a dollar every year, it means that every year I have one dollar less. There is mortality with our body. This is its fate and its destiny.
Other than the problems we have covered, we have yet another problem, which is that we are common. While we are living on the earth, we are frequently defiled by the filth of the world, and subconsciously we become common. Paul beseeched us in Romans 12:2 that we should not be “conformed to this age.” “This age” refers to the present, practical part of the world. It is the part we touch and in which we live. Every age has its particular mode, characteristics, fashions, style, and tide. It is like a mold that molds people into its form. For this reason, what we wear and what we have should be as simple as possible. As long as our needs are met, that is good enough. However, only when the law of the Spirit of life regulates us can we love the Lord and be simple. Therefore, we should fellowship with the Lord and live in the law of the Spirit of life so that our living can be simple and can be freed from the entanglements of the world.
Romans 12 also shows us that a person who lives in the church and in the Body of Christ should have a high standard of living. He should only love, and should not hate. He should only bless, and should not curse. The only way to live this kind of life is by going along with the law of the Spirit of life, allowing this law to regulate and to eliminate from us all the negative elements and low manner of living, so that we can live a life with an excelling standard of morality.
Finally, Romans 16:17 charges us: “Those who make divisions and causes of falling...turn away from them.” The two thousand years of Christianity is a history of divisions. Our fallen nature likes to be different from others, to strive to be the first. It does not like to submit to others. All these items are factors for division. Only by being in spirit and going along with the law of the Spirit of life can we receive others from the depth of our heart, and only then can we maintain the oneness of the Body of Christ. Only then can we reckon all the churches to be the same and all the saints to be equally lovable, without any comparison, jealousy, or competition. For this reason, we need to be saved daily to live in the law of the Spirit of life to enjoy the divine dispensing of the Divine Trinity, so that our whole being can be released and can be saved, on the negative side, from the law of sin and of death, from the body of this death, from its mortality, from being common, from a low manner of living, and from division. In this way, we will be saved in the life of Christ and will reign in His life, and we will be delivered from every person, event, or thing that is contrary to God’s righteousness, holiness, and glory; we will subdue God’s enemy, Satan, and bring in God’s kingdom.
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