The Lord uses the environmental sufferings to consume, to kill, our outer man that our inner man may be renewed day by day. Second Corinthians 4:16 says, “Therefore we do not lose heart; but though our outer man is decaying [is consumed], yet our inner man is being renewed day by day.” The outer man should be consumed, killed, so that the inner man, our regenerated spirit as the person with the renewed soul as its organ, may be renewed day by day. This renewing is by God’s working with every situation in our daily environment. Every day we are troubled from many directions. This trouble could be from our spouse, our children, or our co-workers. This trouble consumes our outer man, our natural man, so that our inner man can be renewed with the supply of the resurrection life.
Since we believers all will be the consummating part of the New Jerusalem, we have to be renewed to be as new as the New Jerusalem (Rev. 21:2). The New Jerusalem is first called the holy city, so we have to be holy. Then it is called the New Jerusalem, so we have to be new. If we are not renewed, we are not qualified to be in the New Jerusalem. We have to be as new as the New Jerusalem.
Transformation is by the renewing of our mind; it is the issue of the renewing. Romans 12:2 says that we are transformed by the renewing of the mind. When your mind is renewed, you are transformed. Transformation is not any kind of outward correction, adjustment, but an inward metabolism by the addition of the element of the divine life of Christ into our being to be expressed outwardly in the image of Christ. Our digestion and assimilation of food are a kind of metabolism to receive a new element and discharge the old element. Because we have Christ’s life element added into our spirit, there is a kind of metabolism to bring forth something to be expressed outwardly in Christ’s image. If a person does not eat for a number of days, his face will become pale. In order to get a healthy color in his face, he needs to be fed properly. Then his face will become healthy and colorful. This is for expression. Today the spiritual transformation is the same. We must have Christ’s life element added into us by eating Him as our spiritual food. Then there will be the metabolism to discharge the old element by adding the new element of Christ’s life. Then this will be expressed outwardly to be the image of Christ. This transformation, this kind of metabolism, is by the Lord Spirit (the pneumatic Christ) to transform us into the image of the glory of Christ (2 Cor. 3:18). The Lord has now become the Spirit, and this Lord Spirit is the transforming Spirit.
We have to live and walk by the Spirit (Gal. 5:16, 25) and walk according to the mingled spirit (Rom. 8:4b), that the divine life of Christ may regulate us to transform us into the image of the Lord in glory. The Spirit not only causes a divine metabolism in us but also regulates us. He regulates our walk, and this also causes transformation in us. From within there is the metabolism; from without there is the regulation.
First Corinthians 3:9 and 12 unveil to us that we are God’s building and we have to build with gold (signifying God the Father’s golden nature), silver (God the Son’s redeeming work), and precious stones (God the Spirit’s transforming work), not with wood (signifying the nature of the natural man), grass (the fallen man, the man of the flesh), and stubble (the work and living that issue from an earthen source). This indicates that the building of God in which we are participating must be by transformed items like gold, silver, and precious stones, not by our nature, our flesh, and the things from the earthen source.
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