Scripture Reading: Num. 11:4-9; 21:5; Exo. 16:1-36; John 6:31-35, 48-51, 57-58, 63

DAY 1 Outline　MorningRevival

DAY 2 & DAY 3 Outline　MorningRevival

DAY 4 Outline　MorningRevival

DAY 5 Outline　MorningRevival

DAY 6 Outline　MorningRevival

«　WEEK 3　DAY 1　»

　　John 6:32-33 …My Father gives you the true bread out of heaven. For the bread of God is He who comes down out of heaven and gives life to the world.

　　48 I am the bread of life.

　　57 As the living Father has sent Me and I live because of the Father, so he who eats Me, he also shall live because of Me.

　　In John 6:57 the word because implies that there is a factor. The word by (used in the KJV), however, indicates an instrument, not a factor. To walk by Christ implies that Christ is the instrument for walking, as a cane is used for walking. To walk because of Him indicates that He is the factor of our walking. We do not live by Christ, taking Christ as our instrument; rather, we live because of Christ, taking Christ as a factor of our living. The food that we eat is not an instrument but a supplying factor. We live not by food but because of the food. Food supplies us so that we can live because of its supply. In using a cane as an instrument to walk, there is no need to eat the cane, but to live because of food, we must eat the food. Without eating, food cannot become a factor of our living. We live Christ in His resurrection, and we live Christ by eating Him. Eating brings in a factor to our being. When we eat a good breakfast in the morning, the nourishment we receive energizes us. The energizing element of Christ is a supply, a factor, for us to live Christ. (CWWL, 1989, vol. 3,”The Experience and Growth in Life,” pp. 17-18)

　　John 6 is unique in giving many details concerning the Lord Jesus as the bread of life…. As the bread of life [vv. 35, 48], He is the bread that came down out of heaven (vv. 41, 50, 51, 58), He is the bread of God (v. 33), He is the living bread (v. 51), and He is the true bread (v. 32). Here we have five characteristics of the Lord as our bread: the heavenly bread, the bread of God, the bread of life, the living bread, and the true bread. As the bread that came down out of heaven, He is the heavenly bread. As the bread of God, He is of God, He was sent by God, and He was with God. As the bread of life, He is the bread with eternal life, with zoe. As the living bread, He is living. The bread of life refers to the nature of the bread, which is life; the living bread refers to the condition of the bread, which is living. As the true bread, Christ is the bread of truth, or reality. Christ is true, real. He is the true food, and all other kinds of food are merely shadows of Him as the real food. The physical food that we take in every day is a shadow of Christ. The reality of the food we eat daily is Jesus Christ. Christ is the true bread of life sent by God to bring us eternal life. We all need Christ to be the bread of life to us. Today this bread is not merely the incarnated, crucified, resurrected, and ascended Christ but the Christ who has become the life-giving Spirit.

　　In John 6:63 the Lord Jesus said,”It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing; the words which I have spoken to you are spirit and are life.”…Here the Lord explained that what He would give us to eat is not the meat of His physical body; the meat, which is the flesh, profits nothing. What the Lord gives us is the Spirit who gives life. Here the”words” follow the Spirit. The Spirit is living and real but rather mysterious, intangible, and difficult for us to apprehend. However, the Lord's words are substantial. First, the Lord indicated that for giving life He would become the Spirit. Then He said that the words He speaks are spirit and life. This indicates that His spoken words are the embodiment of the life-giving Spirit. He is now the life-giving Spirit in resurrection, and the Spirit is embodied in His words. When we receive His words by exercising our spirit, we receive the Spirit who is life. (CWWL, 1982, vol. 2,”The Fulfillment of the Tabernacle and the Offerings in the Writings of John,” pp. 209, 216, 215)

　　Further Reading: CWWL, 1982, vol. 2,”The Fulfillment of the Tabernacle and the Offerings in the Writings of John,” chs. 18-19; CWWL, 1989, vol. 3,”The Experience and Growth in Life,” ch. 3

«　WEEK 3　DAY 2　»

　　Exo. 16:35 And the children of Israel ate the manna forty years, until they came to inhabitable land;…until they came to the border of the land of Canaan.

　　Num. 11:6 But now our appetite has gone; there is nothing at all but this manna to look at.

　　John 6:51 I am the living bread which came down out of heaven; if anyone eats of this bread, he shall live forever…

　　According to God's economy, we should live on Christ and on Christ alone. Christ should be our unique diet, and we should live by Him. We should not seek to live on any other food. Whatever satisfies, strengthens, and sustains us is our food. The unique food we take for our sustenance, strength, and satisfaction must be Christ. However, many believers do not take Christ as their unique source of satisfaction, strength, and sustenance. Instead, they are trying to be satisfied, sustained, and strengthened by other things. Because God wants us to live on Christ, we should be sustained, strengthened, and satisfied by Christ alone.

　　God wants to change our diet. His intention is to cut off the worldly diet and to limit us to a diet of heavenly food, which is Christ. Because terms such as temptation and loving the world have been used in a light way in Christianity, I prefer not to use them in speaking of the divine revelation in Exodus 16. I wish to inquire concerning your diet. On what are you living day by day? What do you take in to satisfy, sustain, and strengthen you? We all must face these questions and answer them. We all should be able to say,”The Lord is the only One who satisfies me. Apart from Him, I have no satisfaction. I am daily strengthened and sustained by Christ. He is the only food on which I rely.” (Life-study of Exodus, p. 418)

　　The people in the world, however, live by many different kinds of foods, …things such as education, sports, and amusements. Just as there are supermarkets for physical groceries, there are also psychological and religious supermarkets for psychological and religious groceries….Before we were saved, we were in Egypt enjoying the Egyptian diet with all the other unsaved people. But we have been saved and have made our exodus out of Egypt. Now God intends to change our diet. However, we may still desire to sit by the fleshpots in Egypt, to feed on cucumbers, melons, onions, leeks, and garlic, or to enjoy fish from the Nile. Therefore, we face the problem of having more than one element in our diet. We also have the problem of living on many things other than Christ. For example, although I encourage the young people to get a good education, I must remind them not to live on education. Education should not become our diet. From the time I was saved at the age of nineteen, Christ has been my satisfying food. I have obtained certain good things, but none of these things has satisfied me even once.

　　The Christ who is our food is the Christ who has become subjective to us. He is the processed God indwelling our spirit as the all-inclusive Spirit. On the one hand, Christ is in heaven as the Lord of all; on the other hand, He is dwelling in our spirit as the all-inclusive life-giving Spirit… We fellowship with the Spirit in our spirit….He is within us subjectively! The main purpose for His being so subjective to us is that He may be our food, our life supply. Anything which is to be our food and life supply must be something that can enter into us and then be assimilated by us. It must be taken in and become part of the very tissue and fiber of our being…. Whenever we eat a certain food, we join ourselves to that food.

　　For example, when I eat fish for dinner, I join myself to the fish. In the same principle, when we eat Christ as our real food, we are joined to Him and become one spirit with Him [cf. 1 Cor. 6:17]. Hence, the Christ who is subjective to us, to whom we are joined and with whom we are one spirit, is our food, our heavenly manna. Feeding on Christ and living by Him should not be an occasional practice. Rather, it should be the way we live twenty-four hours a day. (Life-study of Exodus, pp. 417-419)

　　Further Reading: Life-study of Exodus, msg. 35

«　WEEK 3　DAY 3　»

　　John 6:27 Work not for the food which perishes, but for the food which abides unto eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you…

　　1 Cor. 3:16 Do you not know that you are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?

　　The heavenly diet fulfills God's purpose. Those who built the tabernacle were not Egyptians. They were those with a heavenly constitution. It was at least four months after the children of Israel left Egypt that they began to build the tabernacle. During these months, their diet had been changed and their constitution was at least in the process of changing and of being replaced with the element of manna. By feeding on manna, God's people eventually became manna. As those constituted of manna, they could build the tabernacle as God's dwelling place. This picture shows that only those who have been reconstituted with Christ are qualified to build up the church as God's dwelling place today. (Life-study of Exodus, pp. 408-409)

　　In order for God's purpose to be accomplished, His people had to be reconstituted with manna. This reveals that our constitution must be rearranged through the eating of Christ. Christ must replace the Egyptian diet. For the building of the church, we all need to be reconstituted with Christ. Remember that those who built the tabernacle had experienced a change of diet and had begun to be reconstituted with the element of manna. Only such people can build God's dwelling place. In fact, after being reconstituted, they themselves are the dwelling place of God.

　　We need to ask ourselves what we hunger and thirst for and what kind of appetite we have. Our diet must change from an Egyptian diet to a heavenly diet. We must turn from the fleshpots, the fish, the cucumbers, the melons, the onions, the garlic, and the leeks to Christ, the unique heavenly food supplied by God. For Christ to be our diet means that He is everything to us. He is even our television, entertainment, music, newspapers, and sports. We all should be able to testify that the Lord has changed our diet from so many items to just one, the heavenly manna…. May the Lord change our diet so that we may be reconstituted with Christ and become God's dwelling place.

　　The Lord Jesus said,”Work not for the food which perishes, but for the food which abides unto eternal life” (John 6:27). Today all the people in the world are working for the food which perishes. This perishing food includes things such as television, sports, music, and entertainments. All satisfaction of this kind will perish. Christ Himself is the only food which does not perish. This food abides unto eternal life.

　　By food we mean anything we take into us for our satisfaction. If we understand this principle, we shall realize that today's worldly food consists not only of physical food, but also of all other things people live on, including education, money, position, promotion, sports, and entertainment. The worldly people have physical food and psychological food, but they do not have spiritual food. Instead of working for the food which abides to eternal life, they labor for the food which perishes.

　　The Lord Jesus is the real manna. In John 6 He indicates that we should seek Him and eat Him. However, not many Christians realize the need for a change of diet….This is the reason that Exodus 16 is even more crucial than Exodus 12. In chapter 12 we see a people who have been redeemed, but we do not see a people who have been reconstituted. At the time of chapter 14, God's people had come out of Egypt, but Egypt had not come out of them. According to their constitution, they were still Egyptians. Thus, God's intention was to change their constitution by changing their diet. By the time the children of Israel had built the tabernacle, their diet had been changed. Their constitution had probably begun to change also. When they were building the tabernacle, they did not eat Egyptian food. Instead, their diet consisted of manna. (Life-study of Exodus, pp. 409-411)

　　Further Reading: Life-study of Exodus, msgs. 32-35

«　WEEK 3　DAY 4　»

　　Exo. 16:21 And they gathered it morning by morning, each one according to his eating; and when the sun became hot, it melted.

　　S. S. 7:12 Let us rise up early for the vineyards; let us see if the vine has budded, if the blossom is open, if the pomegranates are in bloom; there I will give you my love.

　　Rom. 6:4 …We might walk in newness of life.

　　Exodus 16:21 says that the children of Israel”gathered it morning by morning.” The fact that manna came in the morning indicates that it gives us a new beginning. Because the earth revolves on its axis daily, every day we have a new beginning, a new turn. We also have new beginnings monthly and yearly. Manna is not related to the yearly or monthly beginnings, but to a daily new beginning. If God sent the manna yearly, we could not survive. If manna were sent monthly, we would not be strengthened, sustained, and satisfied. Thank the Lord that He sends the manna daily.

　　In our spiritual experience we need these daily turns, these daily new beginnings. Sometimes at the end of the day I am eagerly awaiting the next morning and a new beginning. As I go to bed at night, I may say,”Lord, after resting tonight, I expect to have a new beginning with You in the morning.” Praise the Lord for every new day, for every new beginning! Manna always brings us such a new start. (Life-study of Exodus, p. 430)

　　We may also say that every new beginning brings us fresh manna. If you expect to receive manna from the Lord, you need to pray,”Lord, I am ready for a new turn. I don't want to live the same way as in the past. I want to have a new beginning with You.” As you come to the Lord in the morning, are you willing to pray like this? If you tell Him that you are ready for a new start, you will experience the dew, and with the dew, the manna. However, if your desire is to relive the past, to live the same kind of life you did years ago, manna will not come to you. From my experience I can assure you that manna comes whenever you are willing to have a new beginning. In the morning let us come to the Lord and say,”Lord, I want a new beginning. I do not want to be the same as yesterday. I thank You, Lord, that in Your sovereignty and in Your economy, You offer us a new beginning every day of the year.” If you pray to the Lord in this way, eager for a new beginning, the manna will come in the morning with the dew.

　　Daily we need to go on with the Lord. We should not only read the Bible, but also deal with the living person of Christ who dwells in us. As we read the words of the Scripture, we must contact this living person. Instead of being occupied with doctrines or methods, we should desperately seek the Lord Himself. If we pursue the Lord in this way, we shall have a new beginning with Him every morning.

　　Our time with the Lord in the morning should not be according to tradition or custom. The custom in some households is to rise early and then spend time reading the Bible. But it is possible to read the Word every morning without gathering any manna, for we may not have living contact with the Lord. The printed words in the Bible do not give us life. In John 5:39 and 40 the Lord Jesus said to the religionists,”You search the Scriptures, because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is these that testify concerning Me. Yet you are not willing to come to Me that you may have life.” If we want to receive life, we must come to the Lord. To have life we must have Him.

　　As we seek the Lord for a new beginning and for the supply of manna, we need to turn to our spirit. However, it is easy for us to exercise the mind instead of the spirit. Because this is our tendency, it is a good habit to contact the Lord in the Word before we become occupied with the affairs of the day….The first thing we should do each morning is to come to the Lord in the Word and feed on Him. (Life-study of Exodus, pp. 430-434)

　　Further Reading: Life-study of Exodus, msgs. 36-37

«　WEEK 3　DAY 5　»

　　Exo. 16:14 And when the layer of dew lifted, there upon the surface of the wilderness were fine round flakes, fine as the frost on the earth.

　　John 6:35 Jesus said to them, I am the bread of life; he who comes to Me shall by no means hunger…

　　Psa. 119:140 Your word is very pure, and Your servant loves it.

　　Contrary to the human concept, manna was something small (Exo 16:14b). People usually appreciate something that is great, and we often praise the Lord for His greatness. However, where can you find hymns of praise for the smallness of Christ? We have looked through many hymnals, but have not found any hymns on Christ's smallness. Building materials may be very large, but food must be small enough to fit into our mouth. The food taken in by us must be small enough to eat. If we want to eat a large piece of meat, we need to first cut it into small pieces.

　　Many regard the four Gospels as the record of the life of a great person. Actually the Gospels do not emphasize Christ's greatness. Yes, the Lord Jesus was a descendant of David, a descendant of a royal family. However, He was born in a manger, and He was raised in the home of a carpenter in a small, despised town. This indicates that the Lord did not make a display of His greatness. On the contrary, He preferred to be small in the eyes of man. According to John 6, the crowd wanted to enthrone the Lord Jesus as a king, but He fled from such an exaltation of Himself. The next day He returned and presented Himself as the bread of life (John 6:35)…. Instead of being great, the Lord wanted to be small in order to be food for us. (Life-study of Exodus, pp. 435-436)

　　Manna was very fine and even [Exo 16:14a]….Even in virtues such as kindness or humility, we may be rough and unbalanced….When we take the Lord Jesus as our food, enjoying His word as our life supply, we are balanced. We become fine and even.

　　Exodus 16:31 indicates that manna was white. It was clean and pure, without any kind of mixture….Only Christ and His word are pure. The more we feast on Christ and eat His word, the more we are purified and saved from every kind of mixture. If we come daily to the Lord Jesus and take Him into us and feed on His word, we shall undergo a process of purification that makes us more and more pure. Those who feed on Christ eventually become simple and pure. Most people are complicated…. The only way to be simplified is to eat the Lord Jesus. The more we eat Him and receive His word, the more we are simplified. In this way we become single and pure. As we partake of Christ as our manna, we are not only purified and simplified, but we also become white. To be white means to be without stain….Although we may be good in certain respects, we may not be white. For example, our love and humility may have a certain natural color. Actually, none of our human virtues is white. But the more we take in Christ as our life supply, the more our natural color is eliminated, and the whiter we become.

　　The manna was also like frost (16:14). Frost is something between dew and snow. Both dew and frost are refreshing. But although dew refreshes, it does not kill germs. Frost, however, does kill germs. As manna, not only does Christ refresh us; He also kills the negative things within us. Whenever we experience Christ as the life supply, we are watered and refreshed, and the negative things within us, such as our negative attitudes, are put to death. We experience both the refreshing of the frost and its killing. All the worldly people are too hot in their pursuit of sinful pleasures and worldly amusements. Many of today's Christians are also too hot, too feverish; they need to be cooled down… We all need the experience of frost. Because we are so hot in certain matters, we need to become cool and sober…. As we partake of Christ and His word, we are cooled down and refreshed by the frost. (Life-study of Exodus, pp. 438-440)

　　Further Reading: CWWL, 1969, vol. 2,”The Crucial Revelation of Life in the Scriptures,” ch. 3

«　WEEK 3　DAY 6　»

　　Exo. 16:32 …This is what Jehovah has commanded, Let an omerful of it be kept throughout your generations, that they may see the bread which I fed you in the wilderness, when I brought you out from the land of Egypt.

　　Rev. 2:17 …To him who overcomes, to him I will give of the hidden manna, and to him I will give a white stone…

　　The hidden manna is for the overcomers. The open manna was for the enjoyment of the Lord's people in a public way; the hidden manna is a special portion reserved for His overcoming seekers who overcome the degradation of the worldly church. While the church goes the way of the world, these overcomers come forward to abide in the presence of God in the Holy of Holies, where they enjoy the hidden Christ as a special portion for their daily supply.

　　Do not think that it is impossible for you to be an overcomer. You can become an overcomer by enjoying Christ as manna. Eat the open manna, and Christ will become the hidden manna. This hidden manna will constitute you into an overcomer. It will also fulfill the requirements of the inner law of life and bring you into peace. As a result, you will be an overcomer according to Revelation 2:17. (Life-study of Exodus, pp. 459-460)

　　God commanded the people to keep one omer of manna, the very amount they collected and ate each day [Exo. 16:16,32]. This indicates that the amount of Christ we eat is the amount we can preserve. God does not command us to preserve any other kind of food before Him. But He does require us to preserve an amount of Christ which equals the amount we have eaten of Him.

　　Only the Christ we have eaten and experienced is worthy of remembrance. The Christ whom we enjoy will be an eternal memorial, because the Christ we experience and enjoy becomes our very constitution. He actually becomes the reconstituting element for God's people, that element which causes them to be reconstituted. Nothing of what we are, what we have, or what we can do is worthy of remembrance. Only the Christ who has become our constitution is worthy to be an eternal memorial. What we remember in eternity will be nothing other than Christ. For generation after generation, Christ will be our memorial.

　　According to the Bible, this memorial of manna indicates that as the real manna Christ is the source of supply for God's dwelling place. Christ is the heavenly supply to God's people for God's dwelling place on earth…. With manna as their supply the children of Israel built the tabernacle. The tabernacle was a symbol of the children of Israel, who were the real dwelling place of God by being supplied with manna and reconstituted with it. In this sense, the supply of manna even became the tabernacle.

　　What we shall recall concerning Christ in eternity will have two aspects: the aspect of the enjoyment of Christ as our reconstituting element and the aspect of Christ as the supply to make us God's dwelling place in the universe. These two aspects are clearly related to our experience in the Lord's recovery today. By taking Christ as our life supply, meeting after meeting we are enjoying Christ as our constituent, and we are building up God's dwelling place. These aspects of our experience of Christ will become a memorial in eternity. Do not think that when we are in eternity we shall not remember our experience today. On the contrary, we shall remember how we enjoyed Christ and how we took Him as our supply to become God's dwelling place. This is manna preserved as a memorial before God.

　　We are identical to the tabernacle in the Old Testament. Our spirit deep within is the Holy of Holies. In our spirit we have Christ as the Ark of God. The manna not eaten by us remains open, under the sky. But the manna we eat becomes hidden within us. Many Christians know only the open manna. Because they do not eat Christ as their manna, they do not have the hidden manna. But to those of us who are daily eating of the manna, the open manna is becoming the hidden manna. (Life-study of Exodus, pp. 450-453)

　　Further Reading: Life-study of Exodus, msgs. 38 -39