«　WEEK 6　DAY 3　»

　　John 15:4-5 Abide in Me and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me. I am the vine; you are the branches. He who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit; for apart from Me you can do nothing.

　　No matter what our service may be, we should be clear that our service is a means to supply life to others. Whether or not we are adequate in our service, our focus is on supplying life, not on accomplishing something. The church is different from a society… In the church the point is not whether we do a good job but whether life is supplied. If the church were only for taking care of matters, not supplying life, the church would lose its nature and would be a society. The saints must uphold this point.

　　I am not saying that we can be sloppy in our service… We must serve in fear and trembling before the Lord lest our service be haphazard. However, we cannot be content with doing a service. We must serve in such a way that others may receive the supply of life. We need to… look to the Lord so that our service becomes an outlet for His life. We want to be delivered from mistakes, but the focus of such deliverance is not on doing a successful job but on the flowing out of life. (CWWL, 1954, vol. 3, “The Service for Building Up the House of God,” p. 92)

　　The life that we supply to others is in the Spirit. This means that the Spirit is the dwelling place of the life of God. In Romans 8:2 the Spirit is referred to as the “Spirit of life.” Since the life of God is in the Spirit, the Spirit is the Spirit of life. In addition, as children of God, we have His life in our spirit.

　　The life of God is not in human thoughts, views, or opinions. The life of God is in the Spirit and dwells in the regenerated human spirit. The divine life is in the two spirits, the Spirit mingled with our human spirit. Initially, the divine life was only in the Spirit, but now the divine life dwells also in our spirit. It is difficult for expositors to determine whether the spirit in Romans 8 refers specifically to the Spirit of God or to our human spirit, for the two spirits are mingled together. In chapter 8 the Spirit and the human spirit have become one spirit. Both the divine Spirit and the human spirit are similar in nature, for they are both spirit. The Spirit is mingled with our human spirit, and the life of God is located, abides, and grows in our mingled spirit. Hence, if we are to supply the saints with life, we must release our spirit, for the divine life is in our mingled spirit. If our spirit cannot be released, the divine life has no way to be released. (CWWL, 1954, vol. 3, “The Service for Building Up the House of God,” pp. 92-93)

　　In John 15 the Lord said that He is the vine and we are the branches. Apart from the vine the branches can do nothing. The branches on the vine… are there to bear fruit. Bearing fruit is to minister life, that is, to release the supply of the vine’s life. This is our function with respect to the Lord. Today the Lord does not need people to be His material, nor does He need human talent. He only needs people to abide in Him, to be filled with Him, and to release the supply of His life. This is truly like the branches of the vine being filled with the sap of the vine and releasing the supply of the vine’s life. The branches of the vine do not know how to do anything but abide in the vine and allow its life to be ministered and to flow out through them. This is the service of the church, which is not a great work or large enterprise with a huge accomplishment but the ministering and flowing out of the life of Christ. It requires us to be joined to Christ, to abide in Christ, and to give Him the ground in us to fill us so that His life, His nature, His likes, and His inclination can become our life, our nature, our likes, and our inclination. In other words, His all becomes our all. (CWWL, 1950-1951, vol. 3, “The Spirit and Service in Spirit,” p. 393)

　　Further Reading: CWWL, 1994-1997, vol. 1, “Crystallization-study of the Epistle to the Romans,” ch. 18; Life-study of Ephesians, msgs. 45, 76, 89-90