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The reality of the Body of Christ is a corporate living of the conformity to the death of Christ—Phil. 3:10; 1 Cor. 12:12-13; 2 Cor. 4:10-12; Rom. 8:13-14; 12:4-5:
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The life of a Christ-pursuing God-man is a life of pursuing to die with Christ through the experience of the cross—Matt. 10:38; 16:24:
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The cross must become our experience; the cross that enters into our heart is the cross that has become our subjective experience for us to live Christ—Gal. 6:14; 5:24.
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A living under the cross touches the deepest parts of our being and every detail in our daily life.
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It is by the power of Christ's resurrection that we are conformed to the death of Christ—Phil. 3:10; John 11:25; Eph. 1:19-20; 3:16; S. S. 2:8-13.
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The reality of the Body of Christ is a living of being conformed to the death of Christ through the cross—Phil. 3:10:
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The cross—the death of Christ—is the centrality and universality of our way to live the Christian life in order to fulfill God's purpose.
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As Christ's continuation, we should live a crucified life every day—1 Cor. 15:31; 2 Cor. 4:10-11.
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We should be those who live a crucified life by taking Christ's death as the mold of our life; it is only by this kind of corporate living that we can have the reality of the Body of Christ—Phil. 3:10; Rom. 12:5; 1 Cor. 2:2; 12:27.
Morning Nourishment
2 Cor. 4:10 "Always bearing about in the body the putting to death of Jesus that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body."Gal. 6:14 "But far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom the world has been crucified to me and I to the world."
Paul says that we should be conformed to Christ's death. However, to experience the power of Christ's resurrection and be conformed to His death, we need to participate in His sufferings.…Hence, Paul says, “To know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death” (Phil. 3:10). To fellowship is to participate in; to fellowship in His sufferings is to be conformed to His death. With Christ there is a mold, the mold of His life of thirty-three and a half years on the earth, which is the mold of the cross. In God's eyes Christ's death did not happen only when He was crucified on the cross before men; rather, from the time of His birth He was bearing the cross daily. What did it mean for Him to bear the cross? It meant that death was upon Him all the time; He lived under the cross day by day. (CWWL, 1994-1997, vol. 1, “A General Outline of God's Economy and the Proper Living of a God-man, “pp. 518-519)
Today's Reading
The Lord Jesus told us, “If anyone wants to come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me” (Matt. 16:24). To deny the self is to take up the cross. When the Lord Jesus was on the earth, He lived a crucified life daily. Although He was holy and without sin, He still denied Himself by putting Himself to death that God might live in Him and be lived out of Him.Christ took up His cross daily by dying to Himself. Likewise, as God-men who pursue Him, we should bear the cross and live under the cross daily. This means that we should put our natural life on the cross by daily dying to our self and putting to death all the practices of our natural man and our flesh. A God-man is one who lives under the cross daily. Hence, to have merely the teaching of the cross is not enough; the cross must become our experience.
Such a living in the shadow of the cross touches the deepest part of our being and every detail in our life. We all know that we need to be careful when we talk to others. We brothers who are married, however, realize that we become very careless when we are talking to our wife. If we are those who live in the shadow of the cross, even our talking to our wife needs to be checked. Are we under the death of the cross when we talk to our wife in a certain way? If we are willing to check in this way, we will see that ninety-nine percent of the things that we say to our wife should never be said. They are things that we speak out of ourself; they are not spoken by the indwelling God in us but by our natural man. It may be that we do not criticize, judge, or condemn others; instead, we speak nice things about others. But is it Christ who speaks, or is it we who speak? We have to admit that most of the things that we say are by ourself without passing through the cross.
If living in the shadow of the cross can be practiced among us, all troubles will disappear. This not only means that we should not engage in gossip, speaking idle words, but also means that we should not even speak nice words, because we are those who need to die and be in the shadow of the cross. We should not speak but allow the Lord to speak. If we truly have this experience, regardless of what we say, we have the cross checking in us: “Is this spoken through the cross? Is the mold of the cross here?”
The principle is the same in our shopping. We all like to buy things. It is not a matter of whether we should buy a certain item but a matter of the cross. Even in small matters such as buying a necktie, we need to be in the shadow of the cross. (CWWL, 1994-1997, vol. 1, “A General Outline of God's Economy and the Proper Living of a God-man, “pp. 519-520)
Further Reading: A General Outline of God's Economy and the Proper Living of a God-man: A Fellowship with the Elders from Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Malaysia, chs. 3-4