Scripture Reading: Rev. 2:1-7; Eph. 6:24; 2 Tim. 1:15; 2 Cor. 11:2-3; John 14:21, 23; 21:15-17

DAY 1 Outline　MorningRevival

DAY 2 Outline　MorningRevival

DAY 3 & DAY 4 Outline　MorningRevival

DAY 5 Outline　MorningRevival

DAY 6 Outline　MorningRevival

«　WEEK 3　DAY 1　»

　　Rev. 2:7 …To him who overcomes, to him I will give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the Paradise of God.

　　2 Cor. 11:2-3 For I am jealous over you with a jealousy of God; for I betrothed you to one husband to present you as a pure virgin to Christ. But I fear lest somehow, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, your thoughts would be corrupted from the simplicity and the purity toward Christ.

　　In the Bible the tree of life always signifies Christ as the embodiment of all the riches of God (Col. 2:9) for our food (Gen. 2:9; 3:22, 24; Rev. 22:2, 14, 19). In Revelation 2:7 it signifies the crucified (implied in the tree as a piece of wood—1 Pet. 2:24) and resurrected (implied in the life of God—John 11:25) Christ, who today is in the church, the consummation of which will be the New Jerusalem, in which the crucified and resurrected Christ will be the tree of life for the nourishment of all God’s redeemed people for eternity (Rev. 22:2, 14). (Rev. 2:7, footnote 6)

　　Paul told the Corinthians that he was jealous over them with a jealousy of God. He went on to say that he had betrothed them to one husband in order to present [them as] a pure virgin to Christ… Paul’s word in 2 Corinthians 11:2…touches our heart in a deep way and stirs up our love for the Lord Jesus. Very often the life-study messages touch our hearts in the same way. After reading a few pages of a message, the tender feeling within you for the Lord Jesus is stirred up, and you realize afresh how dear and precious He is… Spontaneously you say, “O Lord Jesus, dear Bridegroom, I love You. Lord, thank You for Your word, for Your ministry, and for Your recovery.”… The genuine ministry stirs up our love for the Lord Jesus as our Bridegroom.

　　We should say, “Our dear Lord Jesus is our unique Husband, and I am part of His virgin… I care only for the ministry that ministers Christ to me. He is the pleasant and dear One whom I love.”

　　The goal of the Lord’s recovery… is to recover Christ Himself as the unique Husband for us to love. We should belong only to Him. As long as we have been brought as a pure virgin to this Husband and love Him, appreciate Him, and belong to Him, we shall be preserved. This will keep us, sanctify us, saturate us, and transform us…We are for Him, and we should be attracted to Him, loving Him, appreciating Him, and treasuring Him.

　　In 11:3…the apostle Paul indicates that the teachings of the Judaizers can be compared to the deceitful word spoken by the serpent to Eve in Genesis 3… From reading Genesis 3 we know that the serpent distracted Eve from the enjoyment of the tree of life. The way he turned her away from the enjoyment of the tree of life was to point her to another tree, to the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, which issues in death.

　　God’s goal is life. This life, signified by the tree of life, is God Himself in Christ as the Spirit. The way of the enemy, Satan, the serpent, is to distract people from this life. He seeks to turn them to knowledge, good, and evil, the issue of which is death. Death is separation from the enjoyment of God. Satan seeks to separate us from the enjoyment of God as our life. For centuries the subtle serpent has been using teachings to keep God’s chosen people from enjoying Him as their life. For the most part, these teachings are related to knowledge, good, and evil. But such teachings result in separation from God. Any kind of teaching that causes your enjoyment of the Lord to cease is something of death, no matter how good that teaching seems to be. As long as someone’s teaching or preaching deprives us of the enjoyment of the Lord as our life supply, that teaching is of the serpent. However, the genuine ministry of the Lord always strengthens us in the enjoyment of Him as our life supply. (Life-study of 2 Corinthians, pp. 462-465, 468, 470).

　　Further Reading: CWWL, 1986, vol. 1, “Elders’ Training, Book 7: One Accord for the Lord’s Move,” ch. 8; CWWL, 1972, vol. 1, “Eating the Lord,” chs. 1-2

«　WEEK 3　DAY 2　»

　　Eph. 5:25 Husbands, love your wives even as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her.

　　6:24 Grace be with all those who love our Lord Jesus Christ in incorruptibility.

　　In Ephesians the phrase in love, which is rich in feeling, is used repeatedly… Later, the church in Ephesus was rebuked by the Lord because she had lost her first love toward Him (Rev. 2:4)…The church, which is the Body of Christ, is also the bride of Christ, Christ’s wife. With the Body, the emphasis is on taking Christ as life; with the wife, the emphasis is on loving Christ… The church in Ephesus, the recipient of this Epistle, failed in the matter of loving the Lord. Such a failure became the source of and main reason for the failure of the church throughout the ages (Rev. 2—3). (Eph. 6:24, footnote 2)

　　The phrase in love occurs six times [in Ephesians]… The first instance of in love is in 1:4: “Even as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world to be holy and without blemish before Him in love.”… In love could also be joined with the first phrase of verse 5: predestinating us unto sonship. Thus, in love in verse 4 could modify God’s choosing of us, our being holy and without blemish before God, or God’s predestinating of us.

　　The next instance of in love is in 3:17… In order for the believers to be rooted for growth in life and grounded for building up, they must be in a condition of love. This love is not ours; it is the divine love. The Lord is waiting for us to give Him the opportunity to deeply root and ground us…We need to love Him according to His good pleasure. We should repent and pray, “Lord, help me to love You not according to my preferences but according to You, Your heart’s desire, and Your plan.”

　　In Ephesians 4 the phrase in love is used three times. Verse 2 says, “With all lowliness and meekness, with long-suffering, bearing one another in love.”…Our natural humanity does not have the ability to bear others, especially troublesome ones… If we are in the divine love, loving the Lord with this love, we will not care for others’ criticism but will quickly let it go. The next verse in Ephesians that uses the phrase in love is 4:15: “Holding to truth in love, we may grow up into Him in all things, who is the Head, Christ.” To hold to truth is to hold whatever is real, whatever is true. According to Ephesians, the true, real things are Christ and His Body. Thus, to hold to truth is to hold to Christ and the church…We must love the Lord and the church, His Body, with the divine love. Verse 16 says, “Out from whom all the Body, being joined together and being knit together through every joint of the rich supply and through the operation in the measure of each one part, causes the growth of the Body unto the building up of itself in love.”

　　Ephesians 5:2 says, “Walk in love, even as Christ also loved us and gave Himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling savor.”… We need to walk—to live, act, and have our being—in the divine love, and it is the divine love with which we should love others. Paul concludes this Epistle with a blessing: “Grace be with all those who love our Lord Jesus Christ in incorruptibility” (6:24). We need to love the Lord not in a wild way or in any selfish desire or natural good intention but in incorruptibility. In this kind of love we can be made holy and without blemish, be rooted and grounded, bear one another for the oneness of the Body, and hold to truth—to Christ as the Head and the church as the Body—so that we could be joined, knit, and built up together in the Body as an organism for the expression of Christ. We also need to walk and have our being in the divine love. If we love the Lord in these things, we love Him in incorruptibility. (CWWL, 1988, vol. 1, pp. 551, 554-556)

　　Further Reading: CWWL, 1988, vol. 1, pp. 551-556, 573-580; CWWL, 1963, vol. 3, “Basic Principles of the Experience of Life,” ch. 6

«　WEEK 3　DAY 3　»

　　Rev. 2:4 But I have one thing against you, that you have left your first love.

　　Mark 12:30 And you shall love the Lord your God from your whole heart and from your whole soul and from your whole mind and from your whole strength.

　　I must testify that I love the Lord. I received the Lord sixty-seven years ago in 1925. After all these years, I feel that the Lord is still so intimate to me and that I am so close to Him… I care for this dear One, this living One. Whenever I mention His name, I am happy. When we wake up in the morning, the first thing we should do is say, “O Lord Jesus. O Lord Jesus.” It is better to add, “I love You.” We should say, “O Lord Jesus, I love You. O Lord Jesus, I love You.” How intimate, how sweet, and how affectionate this is! Quite often I would not do some things, not merely because they are not right or because I fear God but because I love Him. I would say, “Lord Jesus, I love You, so I cannot do this.”

　　We need to overcome the loss of the first love. The church in Ephesus was a good church. It was an orderly church and a formal church (Rev. 2:2-3). Surely, we would like such a church, but such an orderly church had left the first love (v. 4). The Greek word for first is the same as that translated “best” in Luke 15:22. Our first love toward the Lord must be the best love for Him. When the prodigal son in Luke 15 came back home, the father told the servants to bring the best robe. Best here means the first. (CWWL, 1991-1992, vol. 4, “The Overcomers,” p. 202)

　　The first love is the love that is God Himself. In the Bible we are told that God is love (1 John 4:8, 16). In the whole universe, only God is love. The Lord charges the husbands to love their wives. But it is impossible for the husbands to love their wives in themselves because we are not love. There is only one person who is love—God. God is not only the best but also the first. In the whole universe, God is first… God is the beginning [cf. Gen. 1:1]. God is the first. Colossians tells us that our Christ must have the first place (1:18b). He must have the preeminence. Christ must be the first… To recover the first love is to consider the Lord Jesus as the first in everything. If we make Christ everything in our life, that means we have overcome the loss of the first love.

　　Christ should be first not only in big things but also in small things…We should give Christ the preeminence in the way that we dress and the way that we style our hair. When we give Christ the preeminence in everything, this is to recover the loss of the first love. The first love must be to have God, Christ, the Lord, our Master, as the first One in everything. At times when I am getting dressed, I talk to the Lord by saying, “Lord, do You like this shirt? Do You like this pair of shoes?” Such a talk is very intimate with the Lord as the first love. To recover the first love is to give Him the preeminence in great things as well as in small things. The husbands should give Christ the preeminence in the way that they talk to their wives. We need to ask the Lord to forgive us for all the things in which we do not give Him the preeminence.

　　In all things we should give the preeminence to Christ. If we do this, our Christian life will be different, and our feeling will be different. Throughout the day we will be happy in the Lord. When we are joyful in and with the Lord, everything is pleasant. On the other hand, when we are not joyful in the Lord and with the Lord, everything is unpleasant. The enjoyment of the Lord as grace is with those who love Him (Eph. 6:24). Thus, the first thing that we have to overcome is the leaving of the first love. The leaving of the first love is the source of and main reason for the failure of the church throughout the ages. (CWWL, 1991-1992, vol. 4, “The Overcomers,” pp. 202-204)

　　Further Reading: CWWL, 1991-1992, vol. 4, “The Overcomers,” chs. 2-3; CWWL, 1979, vol. 1, “Life Messages, Volume 2,” chs. 68-69

«　WEEK 3　DAY 4　»

　　Rev. 2:5 Remember therefore where you have fallen from and repent and do the first works; but if not, I am coming to you and will remove your lampstand out of its place, unless you repent.

　　7…To him who overcomes, to him I will give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the Paradise of God.

　　Eating the tree of life, that is, enjoying Christ as our life supply, should be the primary matter in the church life. The content of the church life depends on the enjoyment of Christ. The more we enjoy Him, the richer the content will be. But to enjoy Christ requires us to love Him with the first love. If we leave our first love toward the Lord, we will miss the enjoyment of Christ and lose the testimony of Jesus; consequently, the lampstand will be removed from us. These three things—loving the Lord, enjoying the Lord, and being the testimony of the Lord—go together. (Rev. 2:7, footnote 6)

　　In such a good, orderly, and formal church like the church in Ephesus, we need to first overcome the loss of the first love. The second thing that we need is to maintain the eating of Christ as the tree of life.

　　If we give the preeminence to Christ in everything and enjoy Him as the tree of life every day, we will be marvelous, overcoming Christians. When we enjoy Christ as the tree of life, we have the Paradise of God [cf. Rev. 2:7]… Today our paradise is the church life.

　　If you do not give the preeminence to the Lord or enjoy the Lord, even for a month, the church life may become an unpleasant place to you… But when you overcome the loss of the first love and maintain your eating of Christ, your enjoying of the Lord, right away the church life becomes paradise to you. Thus, our sensation and our attitude toward the church depend upon our situation. If we give the Lord the preeminence in everything and enjoy Him as the tree of life throughout the day, right away the church, regardless of its condition, becomes paradise to us. This is why the Lord says that we have to eat the tree of life in the Paradise of God.

　　We need to overcome the leaving of the first love, to maintain the eating of Christ as the tree of life, and to shine forth the divine light as the lampstand (Rev. 2:5b). Love is related to life, and life is related to light. Love, life, and light are a trinity. If you make Christ the first in everything, you have love. If you have this love, you have life, and you will enjoy the Lord. If you have life, this life becomes light to you. The light of the lampstand, the church, shines forth corporately versus individualistically in the dark night of the church age.

　　If we are enjoying Christ as our love, life, and light, we will keep the testimony of Jesus as the shining of the lampstand in our locality (12:17b). We will testify of Christ’s person as God and as man and of Christ’s human living, crucifixion, resurrection, ascension, descension, and second appearing. The shining of the light is a testimony. In every aspect of our daily life, we should be shining forth Christ.

　　We need to remember these four words that begin with the letter l—love, life, light, and lampstand… We must give the Lord Jesus the preeminence in every way and in everything to recover the first love. Then we will enjoy Him as the tree of life, and this life right away becomes the light of life (John 8:12). Then we will be shining in our daily life and corporately as the lampstand. Otherwise, the lampstand will be removed from us individually and from the church corporately. If today we take Christ as the first in everything, we will have love, we will enjoy Him as life, we will shine forth with Him as light, and we will become the shining lampstand as the testimony of Jesus. (CWWL, 1991-1992, vol. 4, “The Overcomers,” pp. 204-206)

　　Further Reading: Life-study of Revelation, msg. 10; Life-study of Exodus, msgs. 92-93, 95; CWWL, 1972, vol. 1, “The Lord’s Recovery of Eating,” ch. 1

«　WEEK 3　DAY 5　»

　　S. S. 1:2-4 Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth! For your love is better than wine. Your anointing oils have a pleasant fragrance; your name is like ointment poured forth; therefore the virgins love you. Draw me; we will run after you…

　　2 Cor. 5:14 For the love of Christ constrains us because we have judged this, that One died for all, therefore all died.

　　Life is a person, and there is no other way to apply and enjoy this person but by love. We need to love Him. Some of the saints in past centuries used to pray, “Lord, show me Your love that I may love You.” We need to pray the same prayer. Once we see the love of Jesus, we will be so constrained, so captured, and so attracted. We will spontaneously love Him. Then by loving Him, we will enjoy Him. This is life, and since this life is a person, there is no other way for us to experience Him but by love. Only by loving Jesus can we enjoy Him.

　　If we are going to deal with this person, we must have a hot and loving heart, a heart so full of affection that we would contact Him all the time…The Song of Songs illustrates how the Lord Jesus is altogether lovely. This book shows how the Lord is so attractive and how we are those who love Him…We can say a thousand times, “Lord Jesus, You are altogether lovely! O Lord Jesus, You are altogether lovely!” (CWWL, 1972, vol. 1, “Life and Building as Portrayed in the Song of Songs,” pp. 234-235)

　　Give yourself to love the Lord. No other way is so prevailing, and no other way is so safe, so rich, and so full of enjoyment. Just love Him. Do not care for anything else. Teachings, doctrines, gifts, and power do not mean much. We must continually tell the Lord, “Lord, keep me in Your love! Attract me with Yourself! Keep me all the time in Your loving presence!” If we will pray in this way, we will see what love we will have toward the Lord and what kind of life we will live. We will simply live by the Lord Himself. As long as we love Him from the deepest part of our being, everything will be all right. If we need wisdom, He will be the wisdom to us. If we need power, He will be the power. If we need the proper and adequate knowledge, He will even be that to us. Whatever we need, He is. Do not try to get anything else; just look to Him that He would reveal His love to you. Song of Songs 1:4 says, “Draw me; we will run after you.” We must ask the Lord to draw us, and then others will run after Him with us. To take Him as our life, we must love Him in such a way.

　　In Revelation 2 the degradation of the church began with the loss of the first love toward the Lord Jesus. The church in Ephesus had many good works and was even strong in faith, but the Lord rebuked her by saying, “I have one thing against you, that you have left your first love” (v. 4). They had lost the fresh and best love toward the Lord. This started the degradation of the churches. When we lose our love for the Lord, we start to backslide. We must go to the Lord and make a deal with Him: “Lord, be merciful to me! I do not need anything or anyone else but Your loving self. Simply show me Yourself! Draw me that we may run after You. O Lord, show me Your love that I might be constrained by Your love! I do not want to do anything for You, Lord. I just want to love You. I just want to take You as my person. I want Your personality as my personality, Your will as my will, Your desires as my desires. I want Your everything as my everything.”

　　Thus, we see that it is not simply a matter of believing but also a matter of loving. We must learn to love the Lord Jesus. If we have such a burning love toward the Lord Jesus, we will enjoy all that He is…Go to the Lord and ask Him to draw you that you may run after Him. You must realize that the zoe life is such a loving, wonderful person and that love is the way to deal with Him. (CWWL, 1972, vol. 1, “Life and Building as Portrayed in the Song of Songs,” pp. 237-238)

　　Further Reading: CWWL, 1972, vol. 3, “The Greatest Prophecy in the Bible and Its Fulfillment,” ch. 8

«　WEEK 3　DAY 6　»

　　John 14:21 He who has My commandments and keeps them, he is the one who loves Me; and he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and will manifest Myself to him.

　　23 Jesus answered and said to him, If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word, and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make an abode with him.

　　We need to be a lover of the Lord Jesus all day long. This is why the most significant aspect of the miniature of the church life in John 12 is the love that poured the ointment upon the Lord. We all must love Him. His presence is always related to our love toward Him. The more we love Him, the more we enjoy His presence. What is His presence? It is simply the enjoyment of Himself… The more we love Him, the more we shall have His presence. The more we are in His presence, the more we shall enjoy all that He is to us. We need only to love Him… I have been loving Him for fifty years, and today I feel that He is more lovable than ever. No one is as lovely as He is. Song of Songs says that He is altogether lovely (5:16, KJV). The Lord’s recovery is a recovery of loving the Lord Jesus. If we do not love Him, we are finished with His recovery. (Life-study of John, pp. 382-383)

　　Verses 21 and 23 of John 14 show the Son manifesting Himself to His lover and the Father coming with Him to make an abode with the Son’s lover. After the abiding of the Spirit in us, the Son will manifest Himself to His lovers. It is possible to be a believer of Jesus Christ but not be a lover of Him. When we believe in Him, the three of the Divine Trinity come to abide in us. But after we believe in Him and know that He is abiding in us, we need to love Him…We may be the believers of Christ, but how many among us are the lovers of Jesus? The Father as the object is in Jesus as the embodiment, this embodiment is in the Spirit as His realization, and this realization is the very Spirit who is now abiding in all of us. But we need to ask whether or not we enjoy the manifestation of the Lord Jesus to us daily and even hourly.

　　In the morning we may have had a time with the Lord to enjoy His manifestation, but later we might become unhappy with our spouse and lose the Lord’s manifestation to us. This, however, does not mean that we have lost the abiding of the Spirit within us. Some Christians feel that when they love the manifestation of Jesus, they have lost their salvation, but this is not true, because the Spirit always abides in the believers… Our salvation… is not an “elevator salvation” but a “stairway,” from which we can never be removed. Although we are on this stairway, we want to enjoy the blessing of the top part of the stairway. We want to be on the “top floor,” not in the “basement.” This is why we need to love the Lord Jesus and say, “Lord Jesus, I love You.” As we love Him, we are brought up to the top floor. Then we see everything in the heavens. If we do not love Him, we are at the bottom of the stairway where we can see very little. But this does not mean that we have lost our salvation. We are still on the stairway of His salvation.

　　When we love Him, not only does His Spirit abide in us but also He Himself will manifest Himself to us. This means that we have the presence of the One whom we love in our fellowship with Him. If we love Jesus, Jesus loves us, and the Father loves us also. When the Son manifests Himself to us, the Father comes with Him to make an abode with us, to stay with us. We need to be brought more and more into the manifestation of the Son to us, with the Father and the Son making an abode with us. We need to go up the stairway of the Lord’s salvation by loving Him. Then He will manifest Himself to us, and the Father and the Son will make Their abode with us for our enjoyment. (CWWL, 1988, vol. 1, “Living in and with the Divine Trinity,” pp. 304-305)

　　Further Reading: Life-study of John, msg. 32; CWWL, 1988, vol. 1, “Living in and with the Divine Trinity,” ch. 4