DAY 1 Outline　MorningRevival

Scripture Reading: Job 42:1-6; 2 Cor. 3:8-9; 4:10-12, 16-18; 5:18-20

DAY 2 Outline　MorningRevival

DAY 3 Outline　MorningRevival

DAY 4 Outline　MorningRevival

DAY 5 Outline　MorningRevival

DAY 6 Outline　MorningRevival

«　WEEK 6　DAY 1　»

　　Phil. 3:13-14 Brothers, I do not account of myself to have laid hold; but one thing I do: Forgetting the things which are behind and stretching forward to the things which are before, I pursue toward the goal for the prize to which God in Christ Jesus has called me upward.

　　Psa. 73:26 My flesh and my heart fail, but God is the rock of my heart and my portion forever.

　　Job’s three friends could not speak anything because they had no knowledge, no understanding, concerning the purpose of what had happened to Job. The scene here indicates that Job and his friends were ignorant concerning that most painful and most terrifying occurrence, and were puzzled in their godliness, unable to discern what the reason was, what the purpose was, and what the result would be. Actually, Job’s experience was a step taken by God in His divine economy to carry out the consuming and stripping of the contented Job in order to usher Job into a deeper seeking after God, that he might gain God instead of His blessings and his attainments in his perfection and integrity. God’s stripping and consuming were exercised over Job to tear Job down that God might have a base and a way to rebuild him with God Himself that he might become a God-man, the same as God in His life and nature but not in His Godhead, in order to express God. (Job 2:13, footnote 1)

　　The divine revelation in the Bible is progressive. Up to Job’s time the progression of the divine revelation had reached only the level of Abraham’s time, that is, that sinners need God’s redemption with the shedding of the blood of the burnt offering (Job 1:5; 42:8). The divine truths regarding such matters as regeneration (John 3:6; 1 Pet. 1:23), renewing (2 Cor. 4:16…), transformation (Rom. 12:2…), conformation (8:29), and glorification (vv. 23, 30…) were not explicitly revealed to man in God’s Old Testament economy. God could not speak such things to Job and his friends because they were in a primitive stage of the divine revelation (cf. John 3:7-12; 16:12-13). These things were not revealed in completion until the apostle Paul’s time. Paul received a full and explicit revelation of things concerning which Job and his friends had no understanding (Eph. 3:3-6, 9-11; Col. 1:25-27). Without the Epistles of Paul it would be difficult to understand the book of Job, because the conclusion of Job does not give us an explicit view concerning the purpose of God’s dealing with His people. However, in the view of the New Testament it is very clear that God’s purpose in dealing with His holy people is that they would be emptied of everything and receive only God as their gain (Phil. 3:8; cf. Psa. 73:25-26). The desire of God’s heart is that we would gain Him in full as life, as the life supply, and as everything to our being. (Job 2:13, footnote 1)

　　In God’s sanctuary the psalmist was instructed to take only God Himself as his portion, not anything other than God. The one who does not care for God may gain many things and seem to prosper. However, the one who cares for God will be restricted by God and even stripped by God of many things, as was the case with Job (Job 1:6—2:10) and the apostle Paul (Phil. 3:7-8). God’s intention with His seekers is that they may find everything in Him and not be distracted from the absolute enjoyment of Himself. It is not a matter of keeping the law, as in Psalm 1, or of being right or wrong, but of gaining God and keeping God as everything. (Psa. 73:26, footnote 1)

　　The book of Job, written early in the progression of the divine revelation…, does not contain a clear revelation of God’s purpose in dealing with His people. This revelation was given not to Job but to Paul. As unveiled in Paul’s Epistles, God’s purpose in dealing with us is to strip us of all things and to consume us so that we may gain God more and more (Phil. 3:8; 2 Cor. 4:16). (Job 1:1, footnote 1)

　　Further Reading: Life-study of Job, msgs. 30-31

«　WEEK 6　DAY 2　»

　　John 1:14 And the Word became flesh and tabernacled among us…

　　1 Cor. 15:45 …The last Adam became a life-giving Spirit.

　　Rom. 8:29 …Whom He foreknew, He also predestinated to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the Firstborn among many brothers.

　　We want to see the most marvelous, excellent, mysterious, and all-inclusive transformations of the eternal and Triune God in His becoming a man. God is complete, perfect, and unchanging, but He has had many transformations. In my youth I was taught that the Lord Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever (Heb. 13:8). But after I got into the intrinsic depths of the Scriptures, I found out that merely to say this is not adequate in the interpretation of the deep mysteries concerning Christ, because the Bible shows that God has been transformed. God became a man. Is this not a transformation? (CWWL, 1994-1997, vol. 1, “Crystallization-study of the Epistle to the Romans,” p. 378)

　　The Triune God became a God-man, bringing divinity into humanity and mingling divinity with humanity as a prototype for the mass reproduction of many God-men. He became the embodiment of the Triune God (John 1:14), bringing God to man and making God contactable, touchable, receivable, experienceable, enterable, and enjoyable.

　　He could not have lived a human life unless He had been transformed into a man. He lived a human life, yet He lived not by His human life but by His divine life to express the divine attributes in His human virtues. Such a living is the model of the human living of His mass reproduction of the many God-men (1 Pet. 2:21).

　　His death was not merely the all-inclusive death. It…was the all-problems-solving death. To accomplish such a death, He became the flesh of sin (but only in its likeness—Rom. 8:3). He had the likeness of the flesh of sin, but within Him there is no sin (1 John 3:5). It was by this that He was made sin (2 Cor. 5:21) and condemned sin in the flesh (Rom. 8:3)…. We need to pay our full attention to this. He was God. First, He became a man. Second, He became the embodiment of God, which was the real tabernacle. Then He became the Lamb [John 1:29].

　　In His becoming a man, He also became a serpent (only in its likeness as the bronze serpent—Num. 21:4-9; John 3:14)…. By becoming a serpent, He destroyed the devil, the ancient serpent (Rev. 12:9; 20:2), who has the might of death (Heb. 2:14), and He judged the world, which is the system (invented by the satanic systematization), the cosmos, of the devil, its ruler (John 12:31). As the last Adam (1 Cor. 15:45b), He ended the old man. As the end of the old man, He crucified the old man (Rom. 6:6) and terminated the old creation. The old man is the representative, the center, of the old creation, so by destroying the old man He terminated the old creation.

　　In His all-conquering resurrection He accomplished three main things. First, He uplifted His humanity for Him to be begotten of God as God’s firstborn Son (Acts 13:33; Rom. 8:29). Second, He became…the many sons of God as His many brothers (1 Pet. 1:3; Rom. 8:29). He was born to be the firstborn Son, and He became the many sons of God…. In the new man, Christ is all the members and in all the members [Col. 3:10b-11] . We became Christ in His resurrection….Third, Christ, as the last Adam, became the life-giving Spirit, the pneumatic Christ, the all-inclusive compounded Spirit, as the consummation of the processed and consummated Triune God (1 Cor. 15:45b; Exo. 30:23-25). (CWWL, 1994-1997, vol. 1, “Crystallization-study of the Epistle to the Romans,” pp. 378-380)

　　Further Reading: CWWL, 1994-1997, vol. 1, “Crystallization-study of the Epistle to the Romans,” msg. 17

«　WEEK 6　DAY 3　»

　　Hosea 11:4 I drew them with cords of a man, with bands of love…

　　Rom. 8:37-39 …In all these things we more than conquer through Him who loved us….Neither death nor life…nor things present nor things to come nor powers nor height nor depth nor any other creature will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

　　The phrase with cords of a man, with bands of love indicates that God loves us with His divine love not on the level of divinity but on the level of humanity. God’s love is divine, but it reaches us in the cords of a man, that is, through Christ’s humanity. The cords through which God draws us include Christ’s incarnation, human living, crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension. It is by all these steps of Christ in His humanity that God’s love in His salvation reaches us (Rom. 5:8; 1 John 4:9-10). Apart from Christ, God’s everlasting love, His unchanging, subduing love, could not be prevailing in relation to us. God’s unchanging love is prevailing because it is a love in Christ, with Christ, by Christ, and for Christ. (Hosea 11:4, footnote 1)

　　Because of God’s unchanging love for us and the fact that Christ has accomplished everything on our behalf, neither tribulation nor persecution can suppress or defeat us; rather, in all these things we more than overcome and conquer through Him who loved us. (Rom. 8:37, footnote 1)

　　The love of God is the source of His eternal salvation. This love is in Christ and has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit (Rom. 5:5). Nothing can separate us from this love of God (8:38-39). In God’s salvation this love to us has become the love of Christ (v. 35), which does many marvelous things for us through the grace of Christ until God’s complete salvation is accomplished in us. These marvelous things provoke God’s enemy to attack us with all kinds of sufferings and calamities (vv. 35-36). However, because of our response to the love of God in Christ, these attacks have become benefits to us (v. 28). Hence, we more than conquer in all our afflictions and calamities (v. 37).

　　By the end of chapter 8 Romans has covered the first half of God’s salvation in Christ. This salvation has saved us to the extent that, on the one hand, we are in God’s acceptance enjoying the source of this salvation, which is God’s love in Christ, from which we cannot be separated by any person, matter, or thing; and, on the other hand, we are in God’s life being conformed by the Lord Spirit to reach the ultimate goal of this salvation, that is, to enter into the incomparable divine glory and be glorified together with God (vv. 18, 30). (Rom. 8:39, footnote 1)

　　In His all-transcending ascension He became the Head of all things to be the Head of the Body of Christ (Eph. 1:22-23; Col. 1:18). He was made the Head of all things that He might be the Head of the Body. He also became the Lord and Christ (Acts 2:36), the Leader (of all the kings) and Savior (5:31), our High Priest in God’s New Testament economy (Heb. 4:14; 7:26; 9:11), the Mediator of the new covenant (v. 15), the surety of the better covenant (7:22), the Paraclete (Advocate, Comforter) of the New Testament believers (1 John 2:1; John 14:16, 26; 15:26; 16:7), the New Testament believers’ Intercessor at the right hand of God and within them as well (Rom. 8:34, 26), and the heavenly Minister (Heb. 8:2). In eternity past He was not all these items. He became all these items in His all-transcending ascension.

　　The transformations of the eternal and Triune God in His becoming a man are for the accomplishment of God’s eternal economy. Such a vision should control, direct, and be our goal for our whole life until we see Him. (CWWL, 1994-1997, vol. 1, “Crystallization-study of the Epistle to the Romans,” pp. 380-381)

　　Further Reading: CWWL, 1994-1997, vol. 1, “Crystallization-study of the Epistle to the Romans,” msg. 17

«　WEEK 6　DAY 4　»

　　2 Cor. 3:16-18 …Whenever their heart turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. And the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. But we all with unveiled face, beholding and reflecting like a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, even as from the Lord Spirit.

　　How do we open our heart to the Lord? Whenever we have to make a determination or decision, we should first say to the Lord, “O Lord, I love You. I am willing to please You.” This kind of prayer opens our will to the Lord, and once our will is opened, the Lord will enter into it. In addition, whenever we love or desire something, we should stop for a moment and say to the Lord, “O Lord, I love You. I want to please You.” This opens our emotion to the Lord. When we do this, the Lord will surely enter into our emotion. Similarly, whenever we begin to think about something, we should stop our thinking for a moment and say to the Lord, “O Lord, I love You. I want to please You.” This kind of statement opens our mind to the Lord, and through this opening, the Lord will be able to enter into our mind. Whenever we open to the Lord in our mind, the Lord’s Spirit will gain the opportunity to enter into the different parts of our soul. (CWWL, 1955, vol. 3, “The Way for a Christian to Mature in Life,” pp. 307-308)

　　Whenever our heart opens to the Lord, this Spirit spreads out from within us into our mind, emotion, and will….One obvious proof [of this] is the freedom mentioned in 2 Corinthians 3:17….Once you have the Spirit of the Lord in your mind, your mind will have freedom. Once you have the Spirit of the Lord in your emotion, your emotion will also have freedom. And once you have the Spirit of the Lord in your will, it will surely be freed.

　　If someone says that a meeting is boring, we must realize that it is he himself who is bored within. Because his spirit, his inner being, is bored, he feels that everything is boring…. If you do not let the Spirit of the Lord spread out of you, you will be restrained and depressed….Your mind, emotion, and will are not released and thus have no joy…. If you do not let the Spirit pass through you, surely you will not have freedom.

　　Second Corinthians 3:18… includes the phrase reflecting like a mirror. If we have our face covered with a veil, there will be a barrier between the light and us. It is not until we have the veil taken away that our face and the light can be face to face. Then we can see the light. This is like the reflecting of a mirror. Because the Spirit is in us, we have freedom, our face is unveiled to the Lord, and we are face to face with Him. His glory shines upon our face, and we reflect His glory like a mirror. We cannot pretend to do this.

　　If day by day we love the Lord and give Him the opportunities, day by day the Lord will spread out from within us. Then we will grow and be transformed day by day. Ultimately, we will be transformed into the image of the Lord….This image is the Lord Himself. People will realize that we have a certain condition. This condition is the image of the Lord. We can also call this a condition of having glory, freedom, release, the presence of the Lord, and the Lord’s Spirit. These five things are actually one. The Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. When we have freedom, our face is unveiled to see the glory of the Lord. Then, from glory to glory, we are transformed into the image of the Lord.

　　When the Lord lives out from within us, we grow and become mature. Therefore, we need to open our heart to the Lord and let Him spread out from our spirit into our mind, emotion, and will….When our mind is like His mind, our desires are like His desires, and our decisions are like His decisions, we will have His image. (CWWL, 1955, vol. 3, “The Way for a Christian to Mature in Life,” pp. 308-310, 313-315)

　　Further Reading: CWWL, 1955, vol. 3, “The Way for a Christian to Mature in Life,” chs. 17-19

«　WEEK 6　DAY 5　»

　　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.

　　16 Therefore we do not lose heart; but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day.

　　Through regeneration,…the second birth, we all became a new man. Now outwardly we are old [by our natural birth], but inwardly we are new. However, God is not satisfied to leave us in the old man. He wants our old man to be renewed by transformation. Transformation transfers us from one form, the form of the old man, to another form, the form of the new man….The Lord accomplishes this by the killing of Christ’s death.

　　Putting to death here [in 2 Corinthians 4:10] means “killing.” The death of Christ kills us. His death is the killing capacity within us. (CWWL, 1991-1992, vol. 2, “The Christian Life,” pp. 479-480)

　　We should not forget that His death is included in the all-inclusive, compound Spirit…, typified by the compound ointment in Exodus 30:23-25. This compound Spirit has God as the base, typified by one hin of olive oil. This oil is compounded with four spices—myrrh, cinnamon, calamus, and cassia. These spices typify the elements of Christ’s death and resurrection. Furthermore, the number four typifies the created man. Thus, the Spirit, typified by the ointment, is a compound of God and man. The God-man, Jesus, has been compounded together with the elements of His death and resurrection.

　　Within today’s antibiotics there is some element that is very active to kill the germs. In like manner, within this compound Spirit as a big dose, there is the element of Christ’s death, which is active in killing all the negative things within us.

　　Under God’s divine and sovereign arrangement, our entire environment is a killing….The wives, the husbands, the children, the brothers, and everything in our environment are used by the Lord as knives to kill us.

　　The killing of the cross, the killing of Christ’s death, ushers in resurrection. When we are willing to suffer and be killed, we live Christ, we magnify Christ, and Christ is manifested in us. Then we are transformed. We enjoy Christ under the killing of His death.

　　Everything related to us is under the Lord’s sovereign arrangement. What kind of job we have and whom we marry are altogether not up to us. A brother may choose a sister to be his wife, but later this brother may think that he made a mistake. This is why the Lord charges the husbands to love their wives (Eph. 5:25). Under the Lord’s sovereign arrangement, we are like lambs brought to the slaughter every day…. Every day we are under the killing of Christ’s death that His life may be manifested in our body in the renewing of our inner man. (CWWL, 1991-1992, vol. 2, “The Christian Life,” pp. 480-483)

　　Whatever we are by birth, whether good or bad, whether useful or not, is natural and altogether a hindrance to the Holy Spirit in constituting the divine life into our being. For this reason our natural strength, natural wisdom, natural cleverness, natural disposition, natural shortcomings, natural virtues, and natural attributes, plus our character and habits, must all be torn down in order that the Holy Spirit may form in us a new disposition, new character, new habits, new virtues, and new attributes. In order to accomplish this work of reconstitution, the Holy Spirit of God moves within us to enlighten, inspire, lead, and saturate us with the divine life. He also works in our environment to arrange every detail, person, matter, and thing in our situation to tear down what we are naturally. (Watchman Nee—a Seer of the Divine Revelation in the Present Age, p. 115)

　　Further Reading: CWWL, 1991-1992, vol. 2, “The Christian Life,” chs. 9, 14-15; CWWL, 1967, vol. 2, “An Autobiography of a Person in the Spirit,” chs. 1-2

«　WEEK 6　DAY 6　»

　　2 Cor. 4:1 Therefore having this ministry as we have been shown mercy, we do not lose heart.

　　Rom. 5:3-4 And not only so, but we also boast in our tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces endurance; and endurance, approvedness; and approvedness, hope.

　　Ministry is the issue of revelation plus suffering. Without revelation, one…has nothing to minister. But though one may have revelation, if he lacks suffering, he still has no ministry….Ministry is something higher and deeper [than teaching]. Gift is superficial and costs little, while ministry is weighty and costly. If you have received revelation from God, He will put you into suffering in order that you may have ministry.

　　From the writings of the apostle Paul, we can see that before he endured suffering, he received revelation. When he received the revelation, he did not immediately go out to pass it on as teaching or knowledge. To do so would not have been ministry; it would have been a sort of teaching or an exercise of gift. But after receiving the revelation, the Lord put him into some suffering. Hence, in all his Epistles we have this sequence: first, the revelation; second, the sufferings; and third, the ministry which came out of the first two. To receive revelation is one thing; to have that revelation wrought into our being is something else. (Watchman Nee—a Seer of the Divine Revelation in the Present Age, p. 193)

　　The measure of life, the amount of reality, and the riches of Christ we are able to minister to others depend entirely upon two elements: how much revelation we have received and how much suffering we have undergone regarding that which has been revealed to us.

　　I was with Watchman Nee for years…. He was a person of the cross. The sufferings he received from all directions were just the working of the cross, and the revelation he received concerning the cross was wrought into him…. I can testify from the depths of my being that what he did was a ministry; what he did was what he was. (Watchman Nee—a Seer of the Divine Revelation in the Present Age, pp. 194-195)

　　Our natural being needs to be sanctified, transformed, and conformed. Therefore, God brings in certain tribulations and sufferings for our good….Tribulation and suffering are for our transformation. We all appreciate peace, grace, and glory, but no one likes tribulation.

　　Tribulation is actually the incarnation of grace with all the riches of Christ…. If we say that we appreciate grace but not tribulation, it is like saying that we love God but not Jesus. However, to reject Jesus is to reject God. Likewise, to reject tribulation is to reject grace….The incarnation of God was His gracious visitation…. If we love His visit, we must love His incarnation. It is the same with grace and tribulation. Tribulation is the incarnation of grace visiting us. Although we love God’s grace, we must also kiss the tribulation, which is the incarnation of grace, the sweet visitation of grace.

　　The experience of tribulation produces endurance (Rom. 5:3). Endurance is more than patience; it is the product of patience plus suffering. None of us was born with endurance; it is produced by the suffering of tribulation. Endurance produces approvedness (v. 4). Approvedness is an approved quality resulting from the endurance of tribulation and testing. Thus, approvedness is a quality or attribute that can be approved. At times, it is difficult for young brothers to have the approval of others. They need the endurance which produces a quality that is easily approved by others. Tribulation issues in endurance, and endurance brings forth the quality of approvedness. (Life-study of Romans, pp. 105-106)

　　Further Reading: Watchman Nee—a Seer of the Divine Revelation in the Present Age, chs. 14-16, 22; Watchman Nee, The Treasure in Earthen Vessels (booklet); Life-study of Romans, msg. 9