Taking Christ as our person and living Him in and for the church life
Message Four
The Heart and Spirit of a Leading One
Opening Word of the Prophesying Meeting
Reading the verses in each day.
Reading the main points in the outlines.
Pray-reading the verses:
I will also give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you; and I will take away the heart of stone out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh.And I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and My ordinances you shall keep and do—Ezek 36:26-27
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. —Matt 5:8
Word of Appetizer
As a leading one,What kind of sprite and heart he must have?
As a leading one, a person must have an enlarged heart; Solomon was competent to oversee God’s people because he had wisdom and a large heart; an expression of foolishness, comes from having a narrow heart; The ability to forgive others when they have offended you is a matter of largeness of heart.
A leading one must be a spiritual man with an exercised spirit; he must be dominated, governed, directed, led, and controlled by his spirit; a strong spirit is the main requirement for the leadership among God’s people.
Spiritual Burden
We need to be strengthened into our regenerated spirit so that Christ may make His home in our hearts.
The Lord’s recovery depends upon our renewed, purified heart and our renewed, strengthened spirit; when our heart is fully possessed by Christ and our spirit is thoroughly saturated with the Spirit, God will have a way, and the recovery will be prevailing.
Concluding Word of the Prophesying Meeting
The Revelation of the Truth
God’s promise to His chosen ones was that He would give them a new heart and a new spirit and that He would put His Spirit within them.
As a leading one, a person must have an enlarged heart.
The Lord Jesus followed John the Baptist by teaching that we need to be born of the Spirit in our spirit.
We need to be pure in heart and poor in spirit.
We need to be strengthened into our regenerated spirit so that Christ may make His home in our hearts.
We need to be in our spirit to see the visions in this book.
The Experience of Life
When the Lord saves us or revives us, He renews our heart, making our stony heart a heart of flesh, a heart that is soft and loving toward Him; furthermore, He enlivens and renews our spirit with His divine life.
As a result, we love the Lord and desire Him with our renewed heart, and we can contact Him, receive Him, and contain Him by exercising our renewed spirit.
Practice and Application
We need a pure heart in order to see God, and we need a spirit that is emptied in order to receive the kingdom of the heavens; we need to pray, “O Lord, thank You for always being with me, yet I am still short of You; I want to be emptied in my spirit so that You can have more room in me; O Lord, I open to You and ask You to gain more ground within my spirit.”
Using Key Verses to Have a Bird’s-Eye View over the Whole Outline
Key Verses (1)
I will also give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you; and I will take away the heart of stone out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh.And I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and My ordinances you shall keep and do—Ezek 36:26-27
And saying, Repent, for the kingdom of the heavens has drawn near—Matt 3:2
II. God’s promise to His chosen ones was that He would give them a new heart and a new spirit and that He would put His Spirit within them.
II.The New Testament begins by speaking of our heart and our spirit.
- We all need a new start to maintain the newness of our heart and our spirit.
- Our heart is our loving organ, and our spirit is our receiving organ; while we are in a fallen or backslidden state, our heart toward the Lord is stony and hard, and our spirit is deadened.
- When the Lord saves us or revives us, He renews our heart, making our stony heart a heart of flesh, a heart that is soft and loving toward Him; furthermore, He enlivens and renews our spirit with His divine life.
- John the Baptist first preached the gospel in the New Testament by declaring, “Repent, for the kingdom of the heavens has drawn near”.
- A softened heart is a transformed heart, a new heart; we believers need to repent again and again; every time we repent, our heart will be more transformed and renewed.
Key Verses (2)
I run the way of Your commandments, / For You enlarge my heart—Psa 119:32
Our mouth is opened to you, Corinthians; our heart is enlarged—2 Cor 6:11
Jesus answered，truly truly，I see to you, Unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter onto the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit—John 3:5-6
III. As a leading one, a person must have an enlarged heart
IV. The Lord Jesus followed John the Baptist by teaching that we need to be born of the Spirit in our spirit
- A leading one must be large in heart; Solomon was competent to oversee God’s people because he had wisdom and a large heart, which are two aspects of one thing.
- There are difficulties in many local churches today because the elders do not have a large heart; pride; an expression of foolishness, comes from having a narrow heart. Pride is an attribute of our fallen nature by birth: Self-boasting, self-exaltation, self-glorification, and lusting after vainglory are all ugly and base expressions of pride.
- The ability to forgive others when they have offended you is a matter of largeness of heart; if we have an argument with a brother, it is mostly because of the narrowness of our heart.
- We need to repent in order to have a new heart, and we need to believe into the Lord Jesus so that our spirit will be reborn to become a new spirit.
- A leading one must be a spiritual man with an exercised spirit; he must be dominated, governed, directed, led, and controlled by his spirit; a strong spirit is the main requirement for the leadership among God’s people.
Key Verses (3)
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God—Matt 5:8
Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of the heavens—Matt 5:3
That He would …to be strengthened with power through His Spirit into the inner man, That Christ may make His home in your hearts through faith,… —Eph 3:17
V. We need to be pure in heart (Matt. 5:8) and poor in spirit
VI. We need to be strengthened into our regenerated spirit so that Christ may make His home in our hearts
VII. We need to be in our spirit in order to see the visions in the book of Revelation
- We need a pure heart in order to see God, and we need a spirit that is emptied in order to receive the kingdom of the heavens.
- When we are strengthened through the Spirit into our spirit and when Christ makes His home in our heart, God is able to do superabundantly above all that we ask or think concerning the church life.
If we pray for thirty days that the Lord would strengthen us into our spirit and take over our heart, we will have a clear view and will be assured concerning the whole situation of the universe, including the church, the world, Babylon the Great, and the New Jerusalem.
Prophesying Topics—Twelve Topics per Week
D1
T1. We need a new start to maintain the newness of our heart and our spirit.(Ezek. 36:26-27; 2 Cor. 4:16 )
(Why did God promise to His chosen ones that He would give them a new heart and a new spirit ?)
T2. A thoroughly repentant heart will become a new heart.(Matt.3:2)
(Please use your experience to illustrate that every time we repent, our heart will be more transformed and renewed.)
D2
T1. A leading one must be large in heart.(Psa. 119:32; 2Cor.6:11-13)
(Please explain that to the Corinthians the apostles Paul have an enlarged heart and also an opened mouth. )
T2. Solomon’s heart was larger than the sea.(1 Kings 4:29)
(Please explain that Solomon was competent to oversee God’s people because of two things: wisdom and a large heart.)
D3
T1. Pride is an attribute of our fallen nature by birth.(James 4:6.)
(Please explain that pride, an expression of foolishness, comes from having a narrow heart.)
T2. Learn to enlarge the heart.(Matt.6:14-15)
(Please explain that as the one with a large heart, what kind of person he would be.)
D4
T1. A proper man has a good heart and a proper spirit.(John3:5-6)
(Please explain that a good heart is a repenting, renewed, softened heart, and a proper spirit is a spirit that is born again. )
T2. A leading one must be a spiritual man with an exercised spirit.(1 Tim. 4:7)
(Please explain that a strong spirit is the main requirement for the leadership among God’s people.)
D5
T1. We need to be pure in heart and poor in spirit(Matt. 5:8;3)
( What’s the meaning of being be pure in heart and poor in spirit?)
T2. Being strengthened into our regenerated spirit so that Christ may make His home in our hearts.(Eph. 3:16-17)
(Please explain that as soon as believers are helped to be right in their heart and spirit, they begin to seek after the church.)
D6
T1. Being strengthened into our spirit and Christ making His home in our heart are for the church.(Eph. 3:20-21)
(Please explain that if all the saints pray daily for this, the glorious church life will spread and be prevailing throughout the United States and the whole world.)
T2. In our spirit in order to see the visions in the book of Revelation.(Rev. 1:10-12; 4:2; 17:3; 21:10)
(Please explain that the apostle John was in his spirit when he saw these four major visions.)
