Scripture Reading: Eph. 4:20-21; Matt. 11:28-30; 14:19; John 5:19, 30; 7:18; 10:30

DAY 1 Outline　MorningRevival

DAY 2 Outline　MorningRevival

DAY 3 Outline　MorningRevival

DAY 4 Outline　MorningRevival

DAY 5 Outline　MorningRevival

DAY 6 Outline　MorningRevival

«　WEEK 5　DAY 1　»

　　Eph. 4:20-21 But you did not so learn Christ, if indeed you have heard Him and have been taught in Him as the reality is in Jesus.

　　The reality in Jesus is the real situation of the life of Jesus as recorded in the four Gospels, a life filled with truth, reality…. Jesus lived in a way that always corresponded to God’s righteousness and holiness. In Ephesians 4:24 Paul says that the new man is created according to God in righteousness and holiness of the reality. This reality no doubt is the very reality in Jesus. Our standard of living should not be according to the law or according to the standards of society; it must be according to the truth in Jesus, the reality lived out by Jesus when He was on earth. Hence, the life of Jesus should be our life today in the church. In other words, the living of the new man should be exactly the same as the living of Jesus. The way Jesus lived on earth is the way the new man should live today.

　　If we would live in such a way, we should not reason according to right or wrong. Instead, we should consider the various aspects of our daily life according to the reality as it is in Jesus. For example, if we are about to go shopping, we should ask whether the Lord Jesus is going shopping. The life of the one new man must be that of the reality of Jesus. If we all live in a way that is heavenly, divine, righteous, holy, and glorious, we shall have a wonderful community life in the church. This is the corporate life of the new man. (Life-study of Ephesians, p. 781)

　　Christ is not only life to us but also an example (John 13:15; 1 Pet. 2:21). We learn from Him (Matt. 11:29) according to His example, not by our natural life but by Him as our life.

　　After a person is saved, deep within him he desires to live a life in the pattern established by the Lord Jesus. However, many either ignore this desire or cultivate it in a mistaken way, thinking that by self-effort they can succeed in imitating Him. It is a mistake to think that we can imitate Christ by the exercise of our natural life. The believers in Christ should imitate Him, but they should not do so according to their natural life.

　　The reality in Jesus is the real situation of the life of Jesus as recorded in the four Gospels. In the godless walk of the nations, the fallen people, there is vanity. But in the godly life of Jesus there is truth, reality. Jesus lived a life always doing things in God, with God, and for God. God was in His life, and He was one with God. This is the reality in Jesus. We, the believers, regenerated with Christ as our life and taught in Him, learn from Him as the reality is in Jesus.

　　It is a mistake to endeavor to imitate Christ by the efforts of our natural life…. When we believed in the Lord Jesus and were saved, God put us into Christ as the mold. This mold is the life of Jesus recorded in the four Gospels, a life absolutely according to reality, truth. Truth is the shining of light, the expression of light. Since God is light (1 John 1:5), truth is the expression of God. Every aspect of the life of Jesus recorded in the Gospels is an expression of God. In everything He said and did, He expressed God. This expression of God is the shining of light; hence, it is the truth, the reality. This life of Jesus according to reality is the pattern in which God has placed us. In this pattern we have learned Christ as the reality is in Jesus. This means that we have learned Christ according to the reality, the truth, shown in the Gospels, that is, according to the life of the Lord Jesus, which was wholly according to God’s reality, God’s truth. This life is the shining of light. The shining of the light is truth, and truth is the expression of God. Therefore, in the life of Jesus there is truth, reality. The essence of the pattern set up by the Lord Jesus is reality. This means that the essence of the life of Jesus is reality. We have learned Christ as the reality is in Jesus. (Life-study of Ephesians, pp. 393-395)

　　Further Reading: Life-study of Ephesians, msgs. 46-47

«　WEEK 5　DAY 2　»

　　Eph. 4:22-24 That you put off, as regards your former manner of life, the old man, which is being corrupted according to the lusts of the deceit, and that you be renewed in the spirit of your mind and put on the new man, which was created according to God in righteousness and holiness of the reality.

　　Paul does not say that we have been taught to put off the old man and to put on the new man. No, we have already put off the old man and have put on the new man. Our old man was buried in the waters of baptism. Hence, we have put off the old man. Furthermore, as we rose up from the water in resurrection, we were clothed with the new man. Hence, we have also put on the new man. Therefore, we have been taught in Christ as the reality is in Jesus that we have put off the old man and put on the new man.

　　Having put off the old man and having put on the new man is a condition of learning Christ. (Life-study of Ephesians, p. 400)

　　Romans 8:29 indicates that we are to be conformed to the image of Christ, the Firstborn among many brothers. To be conformed is to be molded. The Firstborn is the pattern, and the many brothers of the Firstborn are those who are to be conformed to this pattern. To learn Christ is simply to be molded into the pattern of Christ, that is, to be conformed to the image of Christ…. It is to be molded into the pattern set up by Him during His years on earth.

　　Based upon the accomplished facts of the putting off of the old man and the putting on of the new man, Ephesians 4:23 tells us to be renewed in the spirit of our mind. To be renewed is for our transformation to the image of Christ (Rom. 12:2; 2 Cor. 3:18). The spirit here is the regenerated spirit of the believers mingled with the indwelling Spirit of God. Such a mingled spirit spreads into our mind, thus becoming the spirit of our mind. It is in such a spirit that we are renewed for our transformation. In this way our natural mind is conquered, subdued, and put under the spirit. This, of course, implies a process of metabolic transformation. As this process takes place, the mingled spirit enters our mind, takes over our mind, and becomes the spirit of our mind.

　　By the spirit of the mind we are renewed to fulfill in experience what was accomplished in the putting off of the old man and the putting on of the new man…. We must experience and realize these facts by being renewed in the spirit of our mind. As these facts are realized in experience, we live a life that corresponds to the life of Jesus…. When we are renewed in the spirit of our mind to execute the fact of having put off the old man and having put on the new man, we live a life according to the truth, the reality that is in Jesus.

　　Ephesians 4:24 says that the new man was created according to God. The old man was created according to the image of God outwardly, without God’s life and nature (Gen. 1:26-27). But the new man was created according to God Himself inwardly, with God’s life and nature (Col. 3:10).

　　“Righteousness” [Eph. 4:24] is being right with God and with man according to God’s righteous way, whereas “holiness” is being separated unto God from anything common and being saturated with God’s holy nature…. In the life of Jesus righteousness and holiness of the reality were always being manifested. It was in the righteousness and holiness of this reality, which is God realized and expressed, that the new man was created.

　　We have put off the lusts and the falsehood of the devil and have put on the righteousness and holiness of God. This God is the truth, the reality, and this reality is seen in the living of Jesus on earth. The human living of Jesus was according to the reality, that is, according to God Himself, full of righteousness and holiness. (Life-study of Ephesians, pp. 393-394, 401-404)

　　Further Reading: Life-study of Ephesians, msgs. 48-49

«　WEEK 5　DAY 3　»

　　John 6:57 As the living Father has sent Me and I live because of the Father…

　　5:30 I can do nothing from Myself; as I hear, I judge, and My judgment is just, because I do not seek My own will but the will of Him who sent Me.

　　8:28 …I do nothing from Myself, but as My Father has taught Me, I speak these things.

　　As the God-man, the Lord Jesus has the divine nature with its divine attributes to be His content and reality for the expression of God. The God-man has the essence of God, the nature of God, and the attributes of God. He is a genuine man with the real human nature and the perfect human virtues to express God. However, in order to express God, He must have God as His content and reality…. We may use the illustration of a glove. A glove expresses the hand. But if a glove is to express the hand, it must have the hand as its content and reality. The God-man is both the “glove” and the “hand, ” for He has both humanity as the container and divinity as the content. (Life-study of Luke, p. 522)

　　Let us now go on to consider the Man-Savior’s God-man living. This is the living of a genuine man, but not by man’s life—man’s mind, will, and emotion—to express man in man’s virtues.

　　In John 5:30 the Lord Jesus said, “I can do nothing from Myself; … I do not seek My own will but the will of Him who sent Me.” In John 6:38 He went on to say, “I have come down from heaven not to do My own will but the will of Him who sent Me.” In a very real sense, our will represents our whole being…. The mind… represents our being only in thought; the will represents our being, or our soul, in its doings. You may have thought about many things, but how many of those things have you done? Perhaps out of a hundred matters we have thought, only two have been accomplished. The fact that the Lord Jesus did not seek or do His own will indicates that while He was living as a man, He was not living by His own mind, will, and emotion. This means that He was not living by His own life. Here “life” equals our being, and our being is composed of our mind, will, and emotion. The Man-Savior, the God-man, lived as a man, but He did not live by His own mind, will, and emotion.

　　The Lord Jesus had a genuine man’s living by God’s mind, will, and emotion—to express God in God’s attributes…. He came not to do His own will but to do God’s will. This means that He came to live as a man not by man’s life, but by God’s life. He lived by God’s mind, will, and emotion to express God in God’s attributes. These attributes are contained in and mingled with His human virtues.

　　The Lord’s God-man living constituted His qualification to be the Man-Savior and…constituted a prototype to His believers …for the “mass production, ” the reproduction, of the God-man in the believers. (Life-study of Luke, pp. 523-524, 526)

　　In the Gospel of Mark we see a person, the God-man, who lived a life that was fully according to and for God’s New Testament economy. Through His death, resurrection, and ascension, and by bringing His followers into that death, resurrection, and ascension, the Lord Jesus has brought forth the new man as the reality of the kingdom of God. First, this new man issues in the church. Then, in the coming age, the new man will develop into the millennium. Ultimately, in the new heaven and the new earth, the new man will consummate in the New Jerusalem. The Gospel of Mark presents the person of the God-man, the One who lived, acted, moved, and worked step by step according to God’s economy. (Life-study of Mark, pp. 445, 452-453)

　　Further Reading: Life-study of Mark, msg. 52; Life-study of Luke, msg. 61

«　WEEK 5　DAY 4　»

　　1 John 2:6 He who says he abides in Him ought himself also to walk even as He walked.

　　Gal. 2:20 I am crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live in faith, the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.

　　The processed and consummated Triune God passed through human living to set up a model for the many upcoming God-men—being crucified to live that God might be expressed through humanity. This is clearly unveiled in 1 Peter 2:21, which tells us that Christ in His human living left us a model, an example, for us to copy. (CWWL, 1994-1997, vol. 2, “The Practical Way to Live a Life according to the High Peak of the Divine Revelation in the Holy Scriptures, ” p. 42)

　　In Philippians 3:10 Paul says that he lived a life conformed to the death of Christ…. Paul put himself into that death-mold to be conformed there…. His old life was conformed to the image of the death of Christ by the power of Christ’s resurrection. The power of resurrection strengthened him to live the life of a God-man. The Lord expects that many of us would be such ones. (CWWL, 1994-1997, vol. 1, “The Practical Points concerning Blending, ” p. 129)

　　The human virtues taught by Confucius are the product of human effort. Those virtues do not have anything of God essentially. But the genuine Christian virtues taught by the Bible are not the result of human effort.

　　The Christian virtues taught by the Bible are very different from mere human virtues. The difference is that the nature of Christian virtues is the nature of God. Concerning this, Peter says in his second Epistle that we have become partakers of the divine nature (2 Pet. 1:4). Therefore, Christian virtues are the product not of outward effort but of an inward nature, the divine nature that we have received through regeneration. The Christian virtues are related essentially to the divine life, the divine nature, and God Himself.

　　Humanly speaking, for the good of society, we all must care for ethics, morality, behavior, and character…. Nevertheless, with respect to living God and expressing Him, mere human virtues are of no avail. Rather, they become a frustration to living and expressing the Lord.

　　If we would live God and express Him, we need to see that it is necessary even for the natural human virtues to be terminated…. The beginning of the gospel implies the termination of all things other than God Himself.

　　According to the vision of God’s economy presented in the New Testament, as God’s chosen people, those who have been replaced by and with Christ, we should live only a life of God. This means that if a married brother has the thought of trying to be a good husband, he should drop that thought and simply live a life of God…. He should not live a life of culture, religion, or ethics. Instead of seeing these things, he should see Jesus only. Eventually, he will live in a way that is much higher than culture, religion, ethics, or morality. He will have a love for his wife that is much higher than his natural human love.

　　We should not be occupied even with good things such as ethics and improvement of character or be frustrated by these things. Instead, we should be occupied, thoroughly filled, with the Triune God. The One who lived a life fully according to and for God’s New Testament economy, the One who has replaced us with Himself, is now the Spirit living through us. We should not allow anything other than this One to fill us and occupy us. (Life-study of Mark, pp. 475-476, 559-560)

　　Further Reading: CWWL, 1994-1997, vol. 2, “The Practical Way to Live a Life according to the High Peak of the Divine Revelation in the Holy Scriptures, ” chs. 1, 6; CWWL, 1994-1997, vol. 1, “The Practical Points concerning Blending, ” ch. 4

«　WEEK 5　DAY 5　»

　　Matt. 11:28-30 Come to Me all who toil and are burdened, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.

　　In the performing of the miracle of feeding five thousand people with five loaves and two fish, Jesus trained His disciples to learn from Him. In Matthew 11:29 the Lord told the disciples that they needed to learn from Him, indicating that He was their pattern.

　　Matthew 14:19 says that He took the five loaves and two fish and when He was going to bless them, He looked up to heaven. In other words, He blessed the food by looking up to heaven. Looking up to heaven indicates that He was looking up to His Father in heaven. This indicates that He realized the source of the blessing was not Him. He was the sent One. The sent One should not be the source of blessing. The sending One, the Father, should be the source of blessing. We need to see the pattern that the Lord set up for us here…. [He did this] in front of His disciples. After His blessing in this way, He told the disciples what to do. No doubt, what He did was a pattern for the disciples to learn from Him. (CWWL, 1994-1997, vol. 3, “The God-man Living, ” p. 561)

　　A co-worker who is invited to speak somewhere may think that since he has been speaking for the Lord for many years, he knows how to speak. All of us need to drop this kind of attitude and realize that we are not the source. No blessing is of us. Regardless of how much we can do or how much we know what to do, we must realize that we need the Sender’s blessing upon our doing by trusting in Him, not in ourselves. Even when we take our meals, we should learn of the Lord to look up to the Father as the source.

　　His looking up to the Father in heaven indicated that as the Son on earth sent by the Father in heaven, He was one with the Father, trusting in the Father (John 10:30). This is a very important principle. Whenever I speak for the Lord, I must have the sensation that I am one with the Lord, trusting in Him. What I know and what I can do mean nothing. Being one with the Lord and trusting in Him mean everything in our ministry. We should never go to minister the word by remaining in ourselves and by trusting in what we can do. If we trust in what we can do, we are finished. The blessing comes only by our being one with the Lord and trusting in Him.

　　The Lord did not do anything from Himself (5:19). This was also a pattern to the disciples. He was the One through whom the entire universe was created, but He would not do anything from Himself. This is the denying of the self, which He taught so much. He said that anyone who follows Him must take up his cross and deny himself (Matt. 16:24). He lived a life of denying Himself…. We should deny ourselves and not have the intention of doing anything from ourselves but have the intention of doing everything from Him.

　　The Lord did not seek His own will but the will of Him who sent Him (John 5:30b). First, He denied Himself; second, He rejected His idea, His intention, and His purpose. He would only seek the will of the One who sent Him. All of us should be on the alert for this one thing—when we are sent to do some work, we should not take that chance to seek our own goal. When we go to perform God’s work, do we go by seeking our purpose or God’s purpose? Brother Watchman Nee was always concerned that when he sent a brother out for the Lord’s work, that brother would take the chance to perform his own purpose. It is not easy to have a pure heart, without having our purpose, our goal, and our idea. We should just go seeking the idea, purpose, goal, and intention of the sending Lord. This requires much learning on our part. (CWWL, 1994-1997, vol. 3, “The God-man Living, ” pp. 561-563)

　　Further Reading: CWWL, 1994-1997, vol. 3, “The God-man Living, ” msgs. 12-14

«　WEEK 5　DAY 6　»

　　John 7:18 He who speaks from himself seeks his own glory; but He who seeks the glory of Him who sent Him, this One is true, and unrighteousness is not in Him.

　　Matt. 16:24 Then Jesus said to His disciples, If anyone wants to come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me.

　　The first God-man did not seek His own glory but the glory of the Father who sent Him (John 7:18). I was with Brother Nee for about twenty years. What bothered him the most about the co-workers was that it was hard to see one who was not ambitious. To be ambitious is to seek your own glory. In the service we render to the Lord in the church life, there is always our ambition. A brother may have the ambition to be an elder. In order to become an elder, he feels that he must first become a deacon. To him being a deacon is a step toward being uplifted to the eldership…. We are all fallen descendants of Adam and sick of the same disease, the same sin…. By the Lord’s mercy I have learned the secret of dealing with my self and my intention, and this has helped me to deal with my self-glorification. (CWWL, 1994-1997, vol. 3, “The God-man Living, ” pp. 563-564)

　　We need to see that our self, our purpose, and our ambition are three big destroying “worms” in our work. If we are going to be used for the Lord always in His recovery, our self has to be denied, our purpose has to be rejected, and our ambition must be given up. We should not have our own purpose; instead, we should have only the Lord’s will. We all have to learn of these three things: no self, no purpose, and no ambition. We should only know to labor, to work for Him, by denying our self, rejecting our purpose, and giving up our ambition. Self, purpose, and ambition are like three snakes or scorpions in us. We must learn to hate them.

　　The Lord Himself “went out to the mountain to pray, and He spent the whole night in prayer to God.” The next day He established the twelve apostles to visit and take care of the people who were troubled by unclean spirits and heal them (Luke 6:12-18). Luke reveals that the Lord’s sending was according to the Father’s answering of His prayer. He asked the Father who among His followers would be qualified to be apostles.

　　Now we need to consider what we should learn from the Lord’s example. If we saw that a certain brother was harassed, troubled, or sick, what would we do? Perhaps we would not have the heart to care for him. On the other hand, we might care for him and want to do something for him in his need. As a result, we might hurry to see this brother and do things for him. This is our natural doing; it is not divine. Instead, we should learn of the Lord Jesus. We should go to the Lord and pray, “Lord, my brother is very sick. What would You do, Lord? Would You burden me to take care of him? If so, I will bear the burden. If not, I will not do anything by myself as a human being. I want to take care of him with You, to make this care not a human doing but a divine doing.” Sometimes when we go to the Lord about a certain needy brother, He may ask us not to contact him at that time, because this brother is in His hand. (CWWL, 1994-1997, vol. 3, “The God-man Living, ” pp. 564, 546-547)

　　Our contact with all the saints, brothers and sisters, elderly and young, must be pure in every way. In speaking to an elderly sister as a mother, you need to be pure in your motive. It is evil to have impure motives. To have an impure motive means to seek gain for ourselves, to seek some kind of advantage or promotion. In our contact with all the saints in the church life we should have just one motive—to minister Christ to them that they may grow in the Lord. (Life-study of 1 Timothy, p. 81)

　　Further Reading: Life-study of 1 Timothy, msg. 9; CWWL, 1984, vol. 2, “Elders’ Training, Book 1: The Ministry of the New Testament, ” ch. 3