«　WEEK 1　DAY 4　»

　　1 Tim. 1:4 Nor to give heed to myths and unending genealogies, which produce questionings rather than God’s economy, which is in faith.

　　Heb. 11:6 But without faith it is impossible to be well pleasing to Him, for he who comes forward to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.

　　God’s economy is in faith. It is not by our doing but by our faith in God’s grace. It is not by our doing in ourselves but by our believing in Christ, the embodiment of the Triune God… Faith does not originate from us. Faith originates from what we see. When we see God’s economy, this generates and initiates a believing within us. God’s economy is God’s will to dispense Himself into you and me to produce an organism, the Body of Christ, for His good pleasure… We need to see that in the whole universe God’s good pleasure is to impart Himself, to dispense Himself, into us so that we may become parts of His organism, the organic Body of Christ. (CWWL, 1988, vol. 1, “Living in and with the Divine Trinity,” p. 285)

　　Faith is to stop yourself from doing anything… Faith joins you with God to make God the only One who is. I am not, so I should not be the one who loves my wife. It should be Christ loving my wife… I should not be the one to go shopping. He should be the One. When you pick up something on sale in the department store, you have to check, “He is, or I am?”

　　Faith is to stop you from doing anything but to make God everything to you. This equals Paul’s word in Galatians 2:20: “I am crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me.” Who lives? It is no longer I. I do not exist. I was terminated. I was crucified. I am finished. It is no more I, but it is Christ who lives in me. Christ lives. Christ is. Christ exists. I do not exist. This is the very essence of the short phrase believe that He is [Heb. 11:6]. To believe that God is implies that you are not. He must be the only One, the unique One, in everything, and we must be nothing in everything.

　　This is faith—believing that I should be out and believing that He should be in. I must deny myself in everything and trust in Him in everything. To deny yourself and to trust in Him is faith. This is to believe that God is. (CWWL, 1994-1997, vol. 1, “Crystallization-study of the Epistle to the Romans,” pp. 278, 280-281)

　　Faith is the first item in the basic structure of the Christian life, a holy life for the church life. Those who backslide… experience some loss of faith. They may not lose their faith absolutely, but they may lose it at least in part. They may no longer have a view of the objective faith, of the contents of God’s New Testament economy. While such ones were in the church life, they did have a view. They saw Christ, they saw the church, and they saw God’s economy. They saw God’s recovery and how the Triune God is dispensing Himself into us. However, they have gradually come to lose sight of these matters. Whenever someone loses sight of the contents of God’s economy, the subjective faith, the believing action within him, also diminishes. The ability within us to believe is always a product, a result, an issue, of having a proper view of God’s economy.

　　In the meetings of the church and of the ministry, it is as if we are all watching a heavenly television to see more of God’s economy… We spontaneously believe in what we see. Therefore, we come away from meetings full of the ability to believe. The meetings of the church and the ministry enlarge our capacity to believe. Faith is a matter of seeing a view of the contents of God’s New Testament economy. Once we have the view, we shall believe in what we see. This faith is the foundation of our Christian life. (Life-study of 1 Thessalonians, pp. 122-123, 127)

　　Further Reading: CWWL, 1988, vol. 1, “Living in and with the Divine Trinity,” ch. 2; CWWL, 1990, vol. 2, “Messages to Trainees in Fall 1990,” ch. 19