The All-Inclusive, Extensive Christ Replacing Culture For the One New Man
Message Two
Living the All-inclusive, Extensive Christ instead of Our Culture
OPENING WORD OF THE PROPHESYING MEETING
Reading the verses in each day.
Reading the main points in the outlines.
Pray-reading the verses:
Phil. 1:20-21 According to my earnest expectation and hope that in nothing I will be put to shame, but with all boldness, as always, even now Christ will be magnified in my body, whether through life or through death. For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.
Col. 2:7 Having been rooted and being built up in Him, and being established in the faith even as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.
Word of Appetizer
The central thought of the Bible is that God desires us to live Christ for the church as the Body of Christ, the one new man; what is to live Christ?
The Christian life is the life in which the believers of Christ live Christ and magnify Him;to live Christ is to live a person, Christ Himself. If we have light concerning how Christ is replaced in our daily living, we will confess to the Lord that instead of living Him we live many other things, that we live more by culture than by Christ. The reason we do not live Christ is that we are not constituted with Christ; what we are constituted with is what we live.
Spiritual Burden
Because our culture hinders us from experiencing Christ, enjoying Christ, and living Christ, we are heavily burdened by the Lord that all the saints in the Lord’s recovery may learn in a practical way to take Christ as their life and person to replace their culture.
It is crucial that we see a vision of the all-inclusiveness and extensiveness of Christ; we should not endeavor to drop our culture without such a vision of Christ;when we live Christ, we are spontaneously delivered from culture, and automatically the Christ by whom we live replaces our culture; this is the revelation in the book of Colossians.
CONCLUDING WORD OF THE PROPHESYING MEETING
The Revelation of the Truth
The central thought of the Bible is that God desires us to live Christ for the church as the Body of Christ, the one new man.
Concerning the matter of the all-inclusive, extensive Christ versus culture, we need to see that according to the full revelation in the Bible, God’s intention is to work Himself in Christ into His chosen, redeemed, and regenerated people.
In saying that Christ is versus culture, we are not saying that we should drop our culture and live without any culture whatsoever.
Since we have received Christ, we should not allow culture to become a substitute for Him.
It is crucial that we see a vision of the all-inclusiveness and extensiveness of Christ; we should not endeavor to drop our culture without such a vision of Christ.
The Experience of Life
John 6:57 …So he who eats Me, he also shall live because of Me.
The reason we do not live Christ is that we are not constituted with Christ; what we are constituted with is what we live;spontaneously, the culture within us keeps us from the real experience of Christ.
God’s intention is that we become saturated, permeated, filled, and clothed with Christ so that we may live Christ.
Practice and Application
This Christ should be everything in our daily living, and we should live Him, not giving any ground in our living to culture.
Instead of trying to drop our culture, we should simply live Christ, and Christ will replace our culture with Himself.
In order to live Christ, we must practice being one spirit with Him, and in order to practice being one spirit with Him, we must exercise our spirit to pray unceasingly.
PROPHESYING TOPICS—
TWELVE TOPICS PER WEEK
Day 1
T1: God desires us to live Christ for the building up of the Body of Christ (Phil. 1:21).
(Please explain that the main point of our Christian life is to live Christ.)
T2: To live Christ is to live a person (Phil. 1:21).
(Please explain that to live Christ is to let Christ Himself live from within us.)
Day 2
T1: God’s intention in His economy is to work this all-inclusive One into us (Eph. 3:17).
(Please explain according to the revelation in the book of Colossians that Christ is the all-inclusive and extensive one.)
T2: In His economy, God wants nothing except Christ (Gal. 4:19).
(Please explain according to your own experiences that if we would give Christ the ground to live in us, we should cease from all our efforts.)
Day 3
T1: Instead of trying to drop our culture, we should simply live Christ (Col. 3:10-11).
(Please explain that we don’t attempt to drop our culture negatively but to live Christ positively.)
T2: God uses culture to preserve people until they receive Christ (Gal. 3:24).
(Please explain that as children are growing up, they need not only culture, but also the law.)
Day 4
T1: We should not endeavor to drop our culture without a vision of Christ (Col. 2:8-9).
(Please explain that since we have received Christ, we should not allow culture to become a substitute for Him.)
T2: Subconsciously, we are frustrated by culture from the experience of Christ (Col. 2:8-9).
(Please explain according to your own experiences that culture is a great frustration to the experience of Christ.)
Day 5
T1: The point is not that we drop our culture; it is that we take Christ as our life and as our person (Col. 1:15; 3:4).
(Please explain by giving examples the difference between living according to culture and living according to Christ.)
T2: Christ must become everything to us in our daily living (Col. 2:2, 10; 3:4).
(Please explain according to your own experiences that we should not give ground in our being to anything other than Christ.)
Day 6
T1: Seeing the vision of Christ living in us (Col. 1:27).
(Please explain that although there is no need for us to deliberately try to drop our culture, we should stop appreciating it.)
T2: When we live Christ, Christ will replace our culture with Himself (Col. 1:27; 2:7).
(Please explain that Christ is my culture, my goal, and the meaning and purpose of my human life.)
