Saturday 31 March 2012

The dew from the womb of the dawn for Christ's satisfaction.

Psalm 110:3 " Your people will offer themselves willingly
In the day of Your warfare,
In the splendor of their consecration.
Your young men will be to You
Like the dew from the womb of the dawn."
Psalm 110:7 " He will drink from the brook by the way;
Therefore He will lift up His head."

I enjoyed this point the past week in the morning revival:
In order to cooperate with Christ's heavenly ministry in the day of His warfare, we need to rise up early in the morning to contact the Lord so that we may enter into the womb of the dawn to be conceived as the dew for Christ's watering.

Our time with the Lord in the morning isn't mainly for our satisfaction; it is for His satisfaction. When we rise early in the morning to spend time with the Lord we enter into the womb of the dawn. Here in the dawn something fresh of Christ is conceived in our being, making us the dew to water Christ for His satisfaction. Our personal time with the Lord is to make Him happy, to refresh Him by being the dew of the womb of the dawn for His satisfaction. Dawn refers to the first appearance of daylight in the morning. For us to be the dew of the womb of the dawn for the Lord's satisfaction we should be available to Him early in the morning.
Rising early in the morning is important because this is the best time to meet with the Lord. Brother Nee wrote in 'Early Rising'; "A sister once put it well when she said, 'How much a person loves the Lord can be judged primarily by the way he chooses between his bed and the Lord. Do you love your bed or the Lord more? If you love your bed more, you sleep a little longer. If you love the Lord more, you rise up earlier.'" 
There is a number of examples of people in the Bible that rose early in the morning; Abraham - Gen. 19:27;21:14; 22:3, Jacob - Gen. 28:18, David - 1 Sam 17:20, Mary - Luke 24:22; Mark 16:9; John 20:1, The Apostles - Acts 5:21 etc. Rising early has a great impact on our spiritual life, those that have learned to rise early know the significance of it. When we rise early in the morning we may ask; what should we do in this time? We fellowship with God, we praise Him, we read the Bible, and we pray. Not necessarily in that order or any specific order for that matter. 
Early in the morning is when we should be gathering the manna (Exo.16:14-21). Manna, signifying Christ, must be gathered before the sun rises, else it will melt. We need to gather the manna early in the morning before our day begins, when we do this we will be nourished and will have a good start to the day. Whether or not a person has gathered manna early in the morning can be seen in his walk during the day. It is so important to our spiritual life. 
When we want to practise rising early there is a few things to which we should pay attention; when you want to rise early, you must have the habit of going to bed early; do not set a too high standard, start at a moderate time for example 6:00 or when the sun is just about to rise, if the standard is too high you could get discouraged, take physical and environmental limitations into account, set a time, and then keep it; You will face difficulty in the beginning, it is always hard to form a new habit, but gradually your mind and body will begin to adjust. It is always important to take this matter to the Lord in prayer, He is so available to us, if we struggle with early rising we can tell Him; "Lord I struggle with early rising, but I know this is when I should gather the manna, Lord work in me concerning this matter." As a brother once said "be yourself until the Lord changes you."
So back to the beginning, this habit of rising early in the morning is to spend time with the Lord  mainly for His satisfaction. When He is satisfied we are satisfied. Those who offer themselves in the splendor of consecration are the dew of the morning to water Christ, and the overcomers are the brook in Psalm 110 to quench His thirst. When Christ is taking the lead in the warfare as seen in this Psalm, He will need water to drink, and this water is the overcomers. Praise the Lord! This is wonderful! Let us meet Him early in the morning for His satisfaction and enjoyment. In the morning revival it says; "He is our living water, and we are His drink. He is our refreshment, and we are His refreshment." 

Friday 23 March 2012

Christ as food to be our supply

Bread is food, we eat food, when we eat food our body breaks it down, through metabolic processes, into smaller components that can be absorbed and be assimilated into our body. Eating is enjoyable, tasting our food is a good experience. But why do we eat? We eat because the food supplies us so we can live, if we don't eat we won't be able to live, we will die. 
In John 6:35a it says; "Jesus said to them, I am the bread of life;", and in John 6:57 He said "As the Father has sent Me and I live because of the Father, so he who eats Me, he also shall live because of Me." this shows us that Jesus is available for us to eat of Him, the Lord Jesus is telling us that we can eat of Him. To eat Him is to take Him in so He can become a part of us, it is by this process of taking Him in that we live by Him, and He lives in us. By doing this we receive His life, by taking Him into our being we will live because of Him. This is wonderful! Praise the Lord that we can eat and enjoy Him! When we eat Christ we enjoy Him as our life supply and He lives in us. Rom 8:10a says "But if Christ is in you," Christ can dwell in us, He dwells in us as the Spirit, the footnote on this verse is so sweet "In this verse the Spirit is not mentioned, for here the emphasis is that Christ today is the Spirit and that the Spirit of Christ is the very Christ in us. According to the fact, it is Christ; according to the experience, it is the Spirit...As the Redeemer, He has the title Christ; as the Indweller, He has the title the Spirit. There are not two who dwell in us but one Dweller in two aspects." When we eat Christ and He enters into us He dwells in us! Praise the Lord!
So how do we eat Christ? We can call upon the name of the Lord Rom 10:12b "for the same Lord is Lord of all and rich to all who call upon Him;". Calling on the name of the Lord is so precious, when we call upon His name we can touch Him and experience His riches. How precious it is to call Him. Jeremiah called on the name of the Lord, he also explains to us that to call on the name of the Lord is to cry to Him and to experience spiritual breathing. Lam. 3:55-56 "I called upon Your name, O Jehovah, from the lowest pit. You have heard my voice; do not hide Your ear at my breathing, at my cry."  In Isaiah 12:2-6 Isaiah also tells us that our calling upon the Lord is our crying to Him. There is many examples in the old testament of people calling upon His name. In the new testament, in Acts 2:21 Stephen called on the name of the Lord while he was being stoned. In Acts 9:14 it indicates that the people who called on the name of the Lord were the Christians. 1 Cor 1:2b " with all those who call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ in every place, who is theirs and ours." 2 Tim 2:22 " Flee youthful lusts, and pursue righteousness, faith, love, peace with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart." It is normal and healthy for Christians to call on the name of the Lord. Out of experience I can say that the Lord truly is rich to all who call upon Him. 
Another way for us to eat Christ is by pray-reading the word. The word can be so rich to us when we muse over it, we need to spend time in the word, John 1:1 tells us that the Word is God, when we spend time in the word we touch the Living God! How wonderful! 1 Tim 4:6 tells us we can be nourished by the words of the faith. This shows us that God's word is food to nourish us.  The function of the word is to impart God into us as life, when we read the Bible we should take something of God's essence into us just as we take in our food. When we pray-read we are taking in God's word by prayer. Eph 6:17-18 tells us to receive the sword of the Spirit, which Spirit is the word of God, by means of all prayer and petition. We are to take the word of God (which is Christ - John 1:1, 14) by means of all prayer and petition. This is pray reading. Pray-reading the word is to pray the word that we read.
Both calling on the name of the Lord and pray-reading is for us to take Christ in and to enjoy Him as our supply. We should practice to call and to pray-read corporately (2Tim 2:22). The nourishment obtained from the Lord by calling on Him and pray-reading is for the whole Body not just for one member. You will profit by calling and pray-reading alone, but you will see and experience the difference when you come together with other members of the Body. 

O Lord! Praise You we can eat and enjoy You. You are the true food that we need, we want to be nourished by You continually. Lord Jesus! You truly are rich to all who call upon Your name, Lord we love Your name and Your word!

Monday 19 March 2012

Light!

John 1:4-5: "In Him was life, and the life was the light of men.
And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not                        overcome it."
John 8:12: "Again therefore Jesus spoke to them, saying, I am the light of the world; he who follows me shall by no means walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life."
1 John 1:5: "And this is the message which we have heard from Him and announce to you, that God is light and in Him is no darkness at all."

Praise the Lord for this word! He is the light, He Himself is the very light that shines in our being. 

Footnote 4 on 1 John 1:5 opens this wonderful word up: "As light is the nature of God in His expression, so darkness is the nature of Satan in his evil works (1 John 3:8). Thank God that He has delivered us out of the satanic darkness into the divine light (Acts 26:18; 1 Pet 2:9). The divine light is the divine life in the Son operating in us. This light shines in the darkness within us, and the darkness cannot overcome it. When we follow this light, we shall by no means walk in darkness, which according to the context is the darkness of sin."Today this really touched me, to know that the Christ who is in me (Rom 8:10) is the light that shines in the darkness. By nature we were dead in sin, but Christ came as the life giving Spirit to fill us with Himself, to shine Himself into us. Our sinful nature cannot survive in the divine light of our Lord.
1 John 1:7 tells us that we can walk in the light, and 1 John 1:5 tells us that God is light, how wonderful! We can walk in God! We can dwell in God, we can dwell in Light! The Lord is in us as light that shines in us, light that removes the darkness from within our being, and He is the light in which we can walk, light in which we can live.

Lord Jesus! Praise You, You are the light, praise You we can walk in You as the light. We desperately need to experience You in this way, as the indwelling light in our being that we can dwell in. Praise You, You are a mysterious and wonderful God!

Thursday 15 March 2012

To Dwell in Christ

This being my first post ever, I think I'll start it off on a good note by sharing my enjoyment from the morning revival. 

John 15:4 "Abide in Me and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me." 
I always assumed that to abide has the same meaning as to remain, but this week I learned that the Greek word translated 'abide' doesn't only mean to remain but also to dwell.  When we dwell in a home, we live in that home, we have our life in that home and experience that home. According to this we can say to abide in Christ is to dwell in Christ. To dwell in Christ is to take Him as our everything, to have our life and living in Him, to experience Him in the fullest way. How wonderful this is! We can dwell in Christ and He can dwell in us [John15:4]. A mingling of man and God. How marvellous that the Triune God dwells in man to be man's supply, and man can dwell in God to experience Him to the fullest extend. A paragraph out of the morning revival explains this in a sweet way "The first issue of our abiding in Christ is that Christ and God abide in us to dispense Their riches to us, supplying and transfusing their riches into us. If we abide in Christ, He also will abide in us, enabling us to enjoy all the riches of His life." I like this word "transfuse". Transfuse means to pour out of one vessel into another, to cause to be instilled or imparted, to diffuse through, permeate. When Christ and God dwells in us we are being filled, saturated, permeated, with Their riches! This is wonderful! 
Lord Jesus! Saturate and Permeate us with nothing else but You.