Scripture Reading: Mark 1:15; John 3:3, 5-6; 1:12-13; 2 Pet. 1:4; 1

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 4　DAY 1　»

　　John 3:3 …Truly, truly, I say to you, Unless one is born anew, he cannot see the kingdom of God.

　　5 Jesus answered, Truly, truly, I say to you, Unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.

　　The first item in the New Testament preaching was the kingdom. The first preacher in the New Testament was John the Baptist, and the first word out of his mouth was, “Repent, for the kingdom” (Matt. 3:1-2). It is not merely a matter of being sinful, of going to hell, or of having peace and joy. It is not merely a matter of repenting so that we may have salvation. We must repent for the kingdom.

　　The word repent means to change your mind, to have a change in your way of thinking. It means to change your way of reasoning, to change your concepts, ideas, philosophy, and even your theology. We all need to repent. Repent from your old concepts. Repent from philosophy and systematic theology. Repent from the old Bible knowledge, from the old expositions and interpretations of the Scriptures. We need to change our point of view.

　　Why must we repent for the kingdom? Because, regardless of the concepts we cling to, we are not for the kingdom. You may be for education or for religion. You may be for Christianity or for so-called churches. You may be for gospel preaching or for the mission field. You may be for doing good. You may be zealous for the spiritual gifts, or you may be seeking the power of God…You must repent. Repent from what you are. Repent from where you are. Repent from what you are doing and what you are thinking. Repent from all your concepts…We all must repent for the kingdom. The New Testament is for the kingdom…If you are not in the kingdom, if you are not living for the kingdom, you need to repent. (CWWL, 1972, vol. 2, “The Kingdom,” p. 5)

　　Let us consider John 3:3 and 5. Did the Lord Jesus say, “Unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot see heaven or enter into heaven”? No!… I was told that if I wanted to go to heaven, I needed another life. I needed to be born again…Strictly speaking, regeneration is not for entering heaven; regeneration is for us to enter into the kingdom.

　　If we want to enter into a certain kind of kingdom, we need a certain kind of life. If we do not have the animal life, we can never enter the animal kingdom…Likewise, if we do not have the divine life, the life of God, we can never enter into the kingdom of God. If we are to enter into the kingdom of God, we must have the life of God. Therefore, regeneration is for us to enter into another kingdom, the kingdom of God. This is much more real than a mere dispensation. This is the kingdom of God, which we enter by being born again.

　　We may say that the kingdom is the Lord Jesus, but it must be the Lord Jesus as the Spirit, not in the flesh. The kingdom is the Lord Jesus as the Spirit. He said to the Pharisees, “If I, by the Spirit of God, cast out the demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you” (Matt. 12:28). This verse tells us that the kingdom is simply the reality of the Spirit of God…The Lord Jesus said that because He cast out demons by the power of the Spirit of God, this indicated that the kingdom of God was there. The kingdom is the spiritual realization of the Lord Jesus. When we realize Him spiritually, we have the kingdom.

　　The Spirit of God is the reality of the Lord Jesus. The Spirit is His person, and His person is His reality. Just as the reality of a man is his person, so the reality of the Lord Jesus is His person, and His person is the Spirit. He had the Spirit with Him, and the Spirit was His person. This person, the Spirit, was the reality of the Lord Jesus. At that time, His reality was fully exercised by casting out demons. Thus, that was the kingdom of God. Now we can see that the kingdom is not merely a dispensation or sphere. The kingdom is the realization of the reality of the Lord Jesus. (CWWL, 1972, vol. 2, “The Kingdom,” pp. 8-9, 15-16)

　　Further Reading: CWWL, 1972, vol. 2, “The Kingdom,” chs. 1—3

«　WEEK 4　DAY 2　»

　　Rom. 1:3-4 Concerning His Son, who came out of the seed of David according to the flesh, who was designated the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness out of the resurrection of the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord.

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

　　Christ is a descendant of David, yet He has been designated to be the Son of God [Rom. 1:3-4]. This is the mystery of God becoming man to make man God in life and in nature but not in the Godhead. The two, God and man, are thus built together, constituted into each other. In Christ God has been constituted into man, man has been constituted into God, and God and man have been mingled together to be one entity, which is called the God-man. (Life-study of 1 & 2 Samuel, p. 207)

　　We need to be clear about the life of Christ, the first God-man, on the earth. He was both God and man, having the divine life and the human life… Christ lived a life of humanity, not by His human life but by His divine life.

　　He died to live. He was dying every day during His whole life of thirty-three and a half years. He died to Himself that He might live to the Father (John 5:19, 30; 8:28). I like this phrase dying to live. Christ died to Himself in order to live out the divine attributes as His human virtues. Christ was under the cross all the time on the earth, expressing not Himself but the Father…The disciples saw the Lord Jesus, but when they saw Him, they saw the Father [14:9]. Christ lived a life under the cross all the time until He was practically crucified on the cross to accomplish His all-inclusive death for God’s eternal redemption of His chosen people.

　　Christ made Himself, the first God-man, a prototype for the mass reproduction of many brothers, the many God-men (Rom. 8:29)…God and man will become one entity, and that one entity is the mingling of divinity with humanity. This mingling will consummate in the New Jerusalem, which is the conclusion of the entire Bible.

　　First Peter 2:21 says that Christ as the first God-man was a model for us. We need to live a life that is a copy, a reproduction, of the life of Christ. In Matthew 16:24 the Lord said, “If anyone wants to come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me.” This is to live a life of bearing the cross in the steps of Christ (1 Pet. 2:21b).

　　You have to put to death by the Spirit in His resurrection whatever your body does [Rom. 8:13]. This is to be conformed to the death of Christ by the power of His resurrection. No one in his natural life can put everything that his body does to death. But we, the God-men, who are the reproduction of the prototype, can. We can know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death.

　　Such a life of dying to ourselves and living to God is for Christ, the first God-man, to be formed in His many brothers, the many God-men, for the building up of His organic Body that the eternal economy of God might be carried out…We need to die to live so that the many God-men can become the building material for the building up of the Body of Christ to carry out God’s eternal economy.

　　Thus, a number (not all) of His brothers, the many God-men, through His death and in His resurrection may be constituted to be His overcomers to close this age and to bring in His kingdom age. This is the real meaning of our being a Christian. It is a life of dying every day…I hope we all would be brought into the reality of Philippians 3:10: “To know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death.” (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,” pp. 54-56)

　　Further Reading: CWWL, 1972, vol. 2, “The Kingdom,” ch. 8

«　WEEK 4　DAY 3　»

　　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…

　　Phil. 3:10 To know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death.

　　We are the believers in Christ, who are transferred out of Adam into Christ, regenerated to be the new creation, united with Christ in the divine life, and joined to Christ as one spirit. Also, we are the disciples of Christ. We all need to be discipled to be God-men.

　　Christ called Peter with the intention of discipling him from being a Jew to being a God-man. The One who called Peter, Jesus Christ, was a God-man. He was a Jew, but He did not live a Jewish life. He lived the divine life by denying His Jewish life. Living the divine life made Him divine. Denying the Jewish life made Him mystical. Thus, He was a man in the divine, mystical realm. Peter was in the Jewish, natural realm, but Christ called him with the intention of discipling him for three and a half years to show him what kind of man he should be.

　　We should not be Jewish men, Chinese men, or American men, but God-men…The Lord Jesus…charged Peter to follow Him so that Peter could observe what He did, how He lived, and how He spoke. Apparently, Jesus was a Jew, but actually, He lived the divine life by denying the Jewish life. This was the way He discipled His followers. (CWWL, 1994-1997, vol. 5, “The Vital Groups,” p. 85)

　　[The disciples] saw a God-man living the divine life by denying the natural life through being crucified and resurrected. On the evening of the day of Christ’s resurrection, the disciples were meeting in sorrow and fear. Suddenly, Jesus came and stood in their midst and said, “Peace be to you” (John 20:19). Then He breathed into them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit” (v. 22). At that time He entered into the disciples. Before that time Peter frequently spoke in a foolish way. But after the Lord breathed Himself into Peter and poured out His Spirit upon him to empower him, Peter gave a marvelous message on the day of Pentecost.

　　In the four Gospels we see Jesus living the life of a God-man, and in Acts we see the disciples also living such a life. Because they had been discipled by the Lord, He told them that they would be His witnesses. They were also the members of Christ, the parts of Christ, to spread God, multiply Christ, and increase Christ…God’s spreading, Christ’s multiplication, and Christ’s increase are by our speaking the word of God to dispense Christ as life for the producing and building up of the Body of Christ. (CWWL, 1994-1997, vol. 5, “The Vital Groups,” pp. 85-86)

　　We must learn to come to the Word of God as those who are approaching God, not to receive proverbs and teachings but to receive nourishment and enlightenment, so that we may know that, according to God, we should always be conformed to the death of Christ by the power of His resurrection (Phil. 3:10), which is the consummated Spirit, who is the reality of the resurrection of Christ.

　　We need to turn the Bible from a book that teaches us to cultivate the self and to build up the natural man to a book that is full of life, spirit, spiritual nourishment, and spiritual enlightenment. This will tear down our self, break our natural man, and supply us with the consummated Spirit of the Triune God. Then we will live a life not by our natural man, by our old man, and by our self but by the Lord Jesus, who is our life and person living in our spirit. We need to learn to exercise our spirit every day in our daily life…We need to turn ourselves from the mind to the spirit by praying in our spirit. If we come to the Bible in this way, we will be touching the Word by the new man, and it will become to us a book of Spirit and life. (Life-study of Proverbs, p. 29)

　　Further Reading: CWWL, 1972, vol. 2, “The Kingdom,” ch. 9

«　WEEK 4　DAY 4　»

　　Rom. 14:17 For the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.

　　Matt. 6:33 But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.

　　In dealing with ourselves we must be righteous; with others we must have peace; before God we must have joy [Rom. 14:17]. If we are lacking any one of these three things, it means that we are wrong. It indicates that we are not living in the reality of the kingdom of the heavens. Many years ago I thought that all Christians were wonderful, but now I realize that many Christians are very selfish. They are not under the control of the heavens. They are not strict in dealing with themselves so that they may be righteous, they do not have the full peace with others, and they do not have joy before God and with God. If you are under the control of the heavens, you will deal with yourself according to righteousness, you will keep peace with others, and you will be joyful before and with God. This is the heavenly ruling, the heavenly government, and it is the reality of the kingdom of the heavens. (CWWL, 1972, vol. 2, “The Kingdom,” p. 462)

　　The Lord Jesus told us to pray, “Your kingdom come” (Matt. 6:10). But the kingdom will not come in the way many Christians think. In a sense, the kingdom has come already. In another sense, however, the kingdom is coming… From the day He sowed Himself into the human earth, the Christ kingdom began to come. The growth process will continue until the time of the full harvest, at which time there will be the full manifestation of the Christ kingdom.

　　What is the kingdom? The kingdom is simply Christ sown into us, growing in us, maturing in us, and reaching the time of harvest. The kingdom is not merely a dispensation or a sphere. It is the totality of Christ being life to us in all His activities.

　　The animal kingdom is the totality of all animal life with all its activities. Birds are flying, monkeys are climbing, and turtles are swimming in the water…Likewise, the kingdom of Christ is the totality of Christ being life to us with all His activities. We all have Christ within us as life, and we have many activities in Christ. This is the kingdom of Christ. Recently, I was watching, observing, and enjoying so many activities of the members in the meeting. You may say that was a church meeting. I agree, but that was also the kingdom of Christ with His life and activities.

　　God was incarnated as a man. God’s desire is to come into man. When we call on the name of the Lord Jesus, He comes into us as life. From that point on, God grows within us. God’s growth in us means that He is spreading within us. The more God grows, the more He spreads, and the more ground He occupies within us. The more ground He occupies, the more He reigns. The kingdom is God’s divine reign in us through the inward growth of life. The kingdom of God is God being life to us, spreading in us, occupying the ground in us, and reigning over our whole being.

　　Satan takes the human body as his dwelling place, but the Lord Jesus takes the human spirit as His dwelling place. God in His sovereignty has preserved the human spirit for Himself. Although the human spirit has been influenced by the evil body and the corrupt mentality to the point that it has been deadened, we can find no hint in the Bible that Satan has ever entered into the human spirit. When we repent and believe in the Lord Jesus, He immediately comes into our spirit. The enemy tries his best to hide this matter of the human spirit from Christians. The Bible tells us clearly that the Lord Jesus Christ is with our spirit (2 Tim. 4:22). From our spirit He is growing and spreading within us, taking possession of more ground in our being. By occupying more ground within us, He actually reigns within us. This is the inward reigning of the Lord Jesus. (CWWL, 1972, vol. 2, “The Kingdom,” pp. 25-26, 67-69)

　　Further Reading: CWWL, 1972, vol. 2, “The Kingdom,” chs. 47—48

«　WEEK 4　DAY 5　»

　　John 1:12-13 But as many as received Him, to them He gave the authority to become children of God, to those who believe into His name, who were begotten not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

　　The revelation of the kingdom of God in John is based upon two verses in John 3.. Verse 3 speaks of seeing the kingdom, and verse 5 speaks of entering into the kingdom. To see the kingdom we need to be born anew. To enter into the kingdom we need to be born of water and the Spirit. Water signifies the death of Christ, into which we all have been baptized, and the Spirit signifies resurrection. (CWWL, 1994-1997, vol. 4, “Crystallization-study of the Gospel of John,” p. 438)

　　The case in John 3 concerns life in regeneration. It speaks of Nicodemus, a real seeker who came to the Lord in the night (v. 2). He came with much knowledge and many concepts because he was a teacher among the Jewish people. He considered Christ a teacher who had come from God. He might have thought that he needed better teachings to improve himself, but the Lord’s answer unveiled to him that he needed to be born anew.

　　If we are not born anew, we do not have the capacity to see the kingdom of God. To be born anew is to be born of water, signifying the death of Christ, and of the Spirit, signifying Christ’s resurrection. We need to die with Christ and be resurrected to be a new person of another, new species, new kind.

　　The kingdom of God is the reign of God. This divine reign is a realm, not only of the divine dominion but also of the divine species, in which are all the divine things. The vegetable kingdom is a realm of the vegetable species, and the animal kingdom is a realm of the animal species. In the same way, the kingdom of God is a realm of the divine species.

　　God became flesh to enter into the human species, and man becomes God in His life and nature, but not in His divine Godhead, to enter into His divine species. In John 3 the kingdom of God refers more to the species of God than to the reign of God.

　　To enter into the divine realm, the realm of the divine species, we need to be born of God to have the divine nature and life.

　　That man was created in the image of God and according to His likeness indicates that man was created in God’s kind, in God’s species. Genesis 1 says that each of the living things was created according to its kind. But God created man, not according to man’s kind but in God’s image and according to God’s likeness to be God’s kind.

　　The believers, who are born of God by regeneration to be His children in His life and nature but not in His Godhead (John 1:12-13), are more in God’s kind than Adam was. Adam had only the outward appearance of God without the inward reality, the divine life. We have the reality of the divine life within us, and we are being transformed and conformed to the Lord’s image in our entire being. It is logical to say that all the children of God are in the divine realm of the divine species.

　　Thus, in regeneration God begets gods. Man begets man. Goats beget goats. If goats do not beget goats, what do they beget? If God does not beget gods, what does He beget? If the children of God are not in God’s kind, in God’s species, in what kind are they? If they are not gods, what are they? We all who are born of God are gods. But for utterance, due to the theological misunderstanding, it is better to say that we are God-men in the divine species, that is, in the kingdom of God.

　　These God-men, who are children born of God, not only constitute the house of God (1 Tim. 3:15; 1 Pet. 4:17; John 14:2) but also are the constituents with which the Body of Christ is built up, and the Body of Christ will consummate the New Jerusalem as the eternal kingdom of God and of Christ (1 Cor. 6:9; Eph. 5:5; 2 Pet. 1:11; Rev. 11:15). (CWWL, 1994-1997, vol. 4, “Crystallization-study of the Gospel of John,” pp. 438-440)

　　Further Reading: CWWL, 1994-1997, vol. 4, “Crystallization-study of the Gospel of John,” ch. 12

«　WEEK 4　DAY 6　»

　　Mark 4:26-29 …So is the kingdom of God: as if a man cast seed on the earth,…and the seed sprouts and lengthens…The earth bears fruit by itself: first a blade, then an ear, then full grain in the ear. But when the fruit is ripe, immediately he sends forth the sickle, because the harvest has come.

　　In Mark 4:26-29 the Lord Jesus said that the kingdom is like a man who sows seed into the earth. The seed grows, the blade appears, the ear appears, and finally it is harvested. The kingdom is a seed that is sown into the earth and that grows until it reaches maturity, at which time it is harvested. The seed is the Lord Jesus as the shining One. We all are the soil into which the Lord Jesus as the seed has been sown. The seed grows and eventually will produce the harvest, the full manifestation of the kingdom. Thus, the kingdom is the Lord Jesus as the seed of life who has been sown into us and who grows in us until He reaches maturity at the time of harvest…The growth of the seed within us is the process of the kingdom. On the one hand, we are in the kingdom, but on the other hand, we are in the process of the kingdom… Today we have the seed of the kingdom growing within us. This growth of the kingdom will bring us to the harvest, and that harvest will be the full manifestation of the kingdom. (CWWL, 1972, vol. 2, “The Kingdom,” p. 19)