Vital Factors for the Recovery of the Church Life
Message Six
The Factor of Closely Following the Completed Vision
of the Age through the Ministry of the Age
OPENING WORD OF THE PROPHESYING MEETING
Reading the verses in each day.
Reading the main points in the outlines.
Pray-reading the verses:
Gal. 2:20 I am crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me…
Matt. 16:24-25 Then Jesus said to His disciples, If anyone wants to come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me. For whoever wants to save his soul-life shall lose it; but whoever loses his soul-life for My sake shall find it.
Word of Appetizer
Why it says that we must deal with our natural disposition for our growth in life and our usefulness in service?
The thing that most damages our usefulness in the Christian life and church life is our living according to our natural disposition; it is the real enemy of our growth in the divine life and the major factor that spoils our usefulness in the hand of the Lord. We must learn to take care of the “burl” in our makeup, our natural disposition; if we deal with this “burl,” we will grow quickly without any hindrances to our growth in life, and we will also become more useful to the Lord.
Spiritual Burden
We should not be limited by our natural disposition in the Lord’s work; instead, we should learn to live a life of opposing ourselves, our disposition; whatever we have and whatever comes out of us cannot be brought into the Lord’s service.
The Spirit deals with our outer man, our self, our natural disposition, by the killing element of the cross in the compound Spirit, by the discipline of the Spirit, by the shining of Christ as the Spirit, and by the church life, fruit-bearing, and lamb-feeding.
Concluding Word of the Prophesying Meeting
The Revelation of the Truth
We must deal with our natural disposition for our growth in life and our usefulness in service.
We should not be limited by our natural disposition in the Lord’s work; instead, we should learn to live a life of opposing ourselves, our disposition; whatever we have and whatever comes out of us cannot be brought into the Lord’s service.
God’s dealing with Jacob is a full picture of the Holy Spirit’s discipline and His transforming work in the New Testament believers to deal with their natural disposition so that Christ may be formed in them, fully grown in them, unto maturity; this is God’s blessing us and making us a blessing to others that they may be supplied with the divine dispensing of the Divine Trinity.
The Experience of Life
Christ as the compound Spirit is our medication to heal us, enliven us, and kill all the negative things within us.
The Holy Spirit of God moves within us to enlighten, inspire, lead, and saturate us with the divine life; He also works in our environment to arrange every detail, person, matter, and thing in our situation to tear down all aspects of our natural being in order that He might conform us to the image of Christ as the firstborn Son of God.
The Lord grants us much light to expose us and to humble us; only this kind of shining will remove our pride.
Practice and Application
As Christians, we have to live Christ by continually exercising our spirit to reject our self and live by another life, the crucified and resurrected Christ, signified by the tree of life.
To deal with our natural disposition, we must love God by contacting God to be infused with Him as grace, and we must love people by contacting them to infuse them with God as grace.
PROPHESYING TOPICS—TWELVE TOPICS PER WEEK
Day 1
T1: Within we have our disposition, and without we have our character. (Matt. 16:26; Luke 9:25)
(Please illustrate the difference between disposition and character.)
T2: The disposition is always explicitly expressed in our character (Matt. 16:23-25)
(Please illustrate with examples that character is composed of about thirty percent nature and of about seventy percent habits.)
Day 2
T1: To oppose ourselves is to oppose our disposition (Rom. 6:6)
(Please illustrate that the thing that most damages our usefulness is our living according to our disposition.)
T2: The real enemy of our growth in the divine life is our disposition (Gal. 2:20)
(Please illustrate that in the service the ones who are the most useful are the ones who always reject and deny what they are.)
Day 3
T1: We should not be limited by our natural disposition in the Lord’s work (2 Cor. 3:5-6)
(Please illustrate the four aspects that a person is useful to the Lord.)
T2: Breaking through the constraints of our disposition, the effectiveness of our work will be doubled (2 Cor. 1:9)
(Please illustrate that we should adjust to all environments, reject the disposition that requires a particular environment before you can work.)
Day 4
T1: If the outer man is not broken, the impression we give to others will not be an impression of the spirit (2 Kings 4:8-9; 2 Cor. 2:15)
(According to the impression that Elisha gave to the Shunammite woman, so what is the impression that we should give to others?)
T2: The most difficult dealing before the Lord is related to our disposition (Matt. 19:25-26)
(Taking Peter as an example, by man’s hand there is no way to remove the factor of the disposition, but in the Lord’s hand there is a way.)
Day 5
T1: The natural life is the enemy of God and of Christ (2 Cor. 4:7, 10)
(Please illustrate with examples that God uses all kinds of persons, matters, and things to tear down all aspects of our natural being.)
T2: Everything has been measured to us is by our God (Psa. 39:9)
(Please illustrate that it is not any person who is dealing with us, it is God who is dealing with us.)
Day 6
T1: The most outstanding characteristic in the entire life of Jacob is his natural endeavoring and scheming (Gen. 25:26)
(Please illustrate that the afflictions, sufferings, and troubles that beset Jacob were for the breaking of his natural constitution.)
T2: For a person to be filled with God’s element, he must pass through the process of breaking (Gen. 32:28; Rom. 8:28)
(Please illustrate with experiences that God’s breaking is not a matter of being cruel to us but of being gracious to us.)
