Loving the Lord and Loving One Another
for the Organic Building Up of the Church
as the Body of Christ
Message Seven
Being Perfect as the Heavenly Father Is Perfect
by Being Perfected in His Love
OPENING WORD OF THE PROPHESYING MEETING
Reading the verses in each day.
Reading the main points in the outlines.
Pray-reading the verses:
Matt. 5:44-45, 48 But I say to you, Love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may become sons of your Father who is in the heavens, …You therefore shall be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect.
1 John 2:5 But whoever keeps His word, truly in this one the love of God has been perfected.…
4:12 …if we love one another, God abides in us, and His love is perfected in us.
Word of Appetizer
Matthew 5:48 says, “You therefore shall be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect”. What does “perfect” mean here?
For the kingdom people to be perfect as their heavenly Father is perfect means that they are perfect in His love (Matt. 5:44-45); love is the nature of God’s essence; we receive the divine life by believing, and we continually enjoy the divine nature, which is the substance of the divine life; the more we enjoy the divine nature, the more we have His virtue, and the more we are brought into His glory. To be perfect is to have God added to us as the element and factor of perfection; practically, it means that we do not rely on the strength of the flesh but trust in God as the all-sufficient Mighty One for our life and our work.
Spiritual Burden
We need to be perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect by being perfected in His love. “Whoever keeps His word, truly in this one the love of God has been perfected”. When we keep the divine word, the divine love is perfected through the divine life, which is God Himself and by which we live.
The genuine Christian perfection taught in the New Testament is according to God’s New Testament economy that God wanted to become a man that many men may become the God-men for the producing of the Body of Christ to consummate the New Jerusalem as God’s ultimate goal.
Concluding Word of the Prophesying Meeting
The Revelation of the Truth
At the end of Matthew 5, to conclude an exceedingly high section of the constitution of the kingdom of the heavens, the Lord Jesus said, “You therefore shall be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect”.
We need to be perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect by being perfected in His love.
The genuine Christian perfection taught in the New Testament is according to God’s New Testament economy that God wanted to become a man that many men may become the God-men for the producing of the Body of Christ to consummate the New Jerusalem as God’s ultimate goal.
The Experience of Life
“You therefore shall be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matt. 5:48). We become God’s regenerated children by the coming of the Spirit of God into our spirit to regenerate us and to make our spirit the dwelling place of God; if we walk according to our regenerated human spirit indwelt by and mingled with the divine Spirit, we are living by God’s life to fulfill the righteous requirement of the law.
We believers have received the divine life with the divine nature, which is God Himself for us to enjoy; when we enjoy this divine nature to the uttermost, love will be the consummation; then we become a being of love. The divine love sanctifies us, separates and saturates us, to make us a people who are fully holy, utterly golden; we become pieces of “gold” put together to be a golden lampstand, bearing the testimony of the “golden” Jesus.
Practice and Application
We need to be perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect by being perfected in His love. “Whoever keeps His word, truly in this one the love of God has been perfected”. when we keep the divine word, the divine love is perfected through the divine life, which is God Himself and by which we live.
“If we love one another, God abides in us, and His love is perfected in us.” This love is perfected and completed in its manifestation when we express it in our living by habitually loving one another with it.
PROPHESYING TOPICS—TWELVE TOPICS PER WEEK
Day 1
T1 We should be perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect (Matt. 5:48)
(How can we be perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect?)
T2 We are not trying to imitate God. Rather we are the Father’s children growing in the Father’s life (Matt. 5:44-45)
(Please illustrate the reason that we should be perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect.)
Day 2
T1 We, the believers in Christ, have become partakers of His divine nature (2 Pet. 1:3-4)
(Please illustrate that the more we enjoy the divine nature, the more we have His virtue, and the more we are brought into His glory.)
T2 Having received the divine life at the time of our regeneration, we must go on to enjoy what God is in His nature (2 Pet. 1:4)
(Please illustrate whatever God is, is in His nature. When we partake of the divine nature, we partake of the divine riches.)
Day 3
T1 El Shaddai means the “all-sufficient Mighty One” (Gen. 17:1)
(Please illustrate with experiences that God as his all-sufficient source of supply can supply everything we need for our living.)
T2 To be perfected means to have God added to us (Gen. 17:1; 2 Cor. 12:9)
(Please illustrate with experiences that none of us can be perfected without God. )
Day 4
T1 God’s love is perfected in us (1 John 2:5; 4:12)
(Please illustrate that the love of God is perfected already in God Himself, but now this love needs to be perfected in us.)
T2 He who fears has not been perfected in love (Luke 12:46-47; 1 John 4:18)
(Please illustrate the perfected love casts out fear and causes us to have no fear of being punished by the Lord at His coming back.)
Day 5
T1 The Christian perfection is by God the Father as the source, God the Son as the element, and the dispensing fellowship of God the Spirit (2 Cor. 13:11)
(Please illustrate that by which six steps the Spirit, will finish His transforming work to make us completed pearls.)
T2 The genuine Christian perfection is for the building up of the Body of Christ (Eph. 4:12)
(Please illustrate we preach the gospel not for soul winning but for Christ’s member winning.)
Day 6
T1 Three main constituents of the divine nature (2 Pet. 1:4, 7)
(Please illustrate that when we enjoy the divine nature, we mainly enjoy God as Spirit, love, and light.)
T2 God is distinct and separate from all the material things in the universe (2 Pet. 3:11)
(Please illustrate with experiences that you are holy, which means that you are different from all the others.)
