Outline
Ⅰ
The believers are symbolized by the wheat of life, which will be gathered into the Lord's barn—Matt. 3:11-12; 13:24-30, 38-42:
A
The believers as the wheat have the divine life within them; life is God Himself enjoyed by man—Psa. 36:7-9; John 1:4; 10:10; 14:6; 6:63.
B
If we want Christ's life to be unhindered in us, we must experience the breaking of the cross, the killing death of Christ in the all-inclusive Spirit, so that the following obstacles within us can be dealt with and removed:
１
Being a Christian means taking care of the living Christ in us and not taking anything other than Christ as our aim; the obstacle to this is in not knowing the pathway of life and not taking Christ as our life—Matt. 7:13-14; Phil. 3:8-14; Col. 3:4; Rom. 8:28-29.
２
The second obstacle is hypocrisy; a person's spirituality is not determined by outward appearance but by how he takes care of Christ—Matt. 6:1-6; 15:7-8; John 5:44; 12:42-43; cf. Josh. 7:21.
Morning Nourishment
Matt. 3:11-12 I baptize you in water unto repentance, but He who is coming after me is stronger than I…He Himself will baptize you in the Holy Spirit and fire, whose winnowing fan is in His hand. And He will thoroughly cleanse His threshing floor and will gather His wheat into the barn, but the chaff He will burn up with unquenchable fire.The New Testament uses the wheat of life to symbolize the believers [cf. Matt. 3:12]…Those symbolized by wheat have life within; they are the living children of God. The Lord Jesus will baptize them in the Holy Spirit (v. 11) and gather them into His barn in heaven by rapture…We need to be born of water and of the Spirit (John 3:5)…In this way we are regenerated to become children of God, the believers symbolized by the wheat of life, which will be gathered into the Lord’s barn. (The Conclusion of the New Testament, pp. 1151-1152)
Today’s Reading
We need to see the obstacles that God’s life encounters in us.The first problem that God’s life encounters in man is the problem of ignorance. After any person is saved and becomes a Christian, he still has his thoughts and concepts…All our human concepts are in darkness, and they prevent us from knowing life and Christ.
As soon as we are baptized, we typically think that we should be zealous and preach the gospel. However, when we pray and fellowship with God in the morning, the living Christ in us may touch us in a different way according to His constant operation and move in us. Then things truly begin to happen in us. For example, as He operates in us, we will see that some things we may have done in the past are inappropriate, such as…blaming our husbands and complaining about others. We will even have a sense that we should apologize. Therefore, we need to lose our face and go to those whom we have offended and say, “I am truly sorry about how I treated you in the past. I also offended God. Now I ask you to please forgive me.” This is what Christ is doing in us.
If we genuinely know the Lord, when we pray to Him in the morning, He will move in us and give us a sense of our need to apologize to our wife. After praying, we should humble ourselves and apologize for our past wrongdoings to our wife. After apologizing, we need to say to the Lord, “O Lord, thank You. I have obeyed Your moving in me. I have no choice; I do not want to have my own concept. You are my only choice and my only concept.” If we would all do this, the living Christ would have more ground and opportunity to speak to us and to give us even more feelings. The result of this continual operation would spread to our dealings with others, or it may touch our wrong actions toward others. At such moments we need to care only for Christ, not for our face or self-esteem. We need to go to people and apologize for our past wrongdoings. In this way Christ will surely have more ground in us.
The second problem that life encounters in us is hypocrisy. There was a sister in the church in Nanking who spoke slowly and walked softly; everything she did was soft and gentle. Consequently, all the responsible brothers in the church in Nanking thought that she was very spiritual. However, strictly speaking, this was a false spirituality. We need to see that being slow is not necessarily of life and being quick is not necessarily of life.
Life is God Himself, life is Christ, and life is the Holy Spirit. Anything that is not of God, Christ, or the Holy Spirit is not life. Hence, regardless of how much a person can meet—and even go beyond—the standard of morality, this is still not necessarily life.
The expression of life involves the rejection of our natural disposition and preference and simply allowing Christ to operate in us and break us. Then our actions through the inner operation of Christ will be of life. If we always do things according to our disposition and natural being, the outcome will always be hypocrisy. (CWWL, 1953, vol. 1, “Knowing Life and the Church,” pp. 131-135, 137-138)
Further Reading: The Conclusion of the New Testament, msg. 107