WEEK 1 — DAY 6
Morning Nourishment
Lev. 14:17 "And from the rest of the oil that is in the palm of his hand the priest shall put some on the lobe of the right ear of the one who is to be cleansed and some on the thumb of his right hand and some on the big toe of his right foot, upon the blood of the trespass
offering."
Matt. 16:24 "...If anyone wants to come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me."
In Leviticus 14:6-10, 14-18...we are told that a leper is to be
cleansed firstly by the blood. The blood is the base. Then upon the base
of the blood, the oil, the ointment, is applied. The blood and the
ointment are applied to the lobe of the leper’s right ear, to the thumb
of his right hand, and to the big toe of his right foot. The ear
signifies our hearing, the hand signifies our working, and the foot
signifies our walking. Our hearing is a big problem. We are troubled
because we listen to many negative things. Because this is sinful, our
ear, our hearing, needs the blood. In a sense, it is good for us to be
“deaf” to many things. Our working and walking also need the cleansing
of the blood.
Because we are wrong in our hearing, working, and walking, we are
lepers. Because we are lepers, we need to first be cleansed by Christ’s
redeeming blood. Then upon the blood we need the anointing oil. The
anointing oil with the blood consummates our cleansing. Consummately,
our cleansing is by the divine fellowship of the Spirit based upon the
cleansing blood of Christ. (The Triune God to Be Life to the Tripartite
Man, p. 159)
Today's Reading
The divine fellowship is the dispensing of the Triune God into us,the
tripartite men, making us and God one. Actually, this oneness is the
fellowship. The Greek word for fellowship, koinonia, means joint
participation, and this joint participation issues in oneness. When a
husband participates in his wife and his wife participates in him, they
are one. Actually, fellowship is just oneness. When God is
fellowshipping with us, and when we are fellowshipping with God, that
makes God and us one. In the
whole universe, there is a big oneness, and this big oneness is the
divine fellowship. We, the tripartite men, are one with the Triune God.
In John 17 the Lord prayed, “That they may be one, even as We are one”
(v. 22b). The Lord’s desire is to make us all one like the Father, the
Son, and the Spirit are one. The church’s oneness is a part of the
divine oneness of the Divine Trinity. Eventually, the church and the
Divine Trinity are one in fellowship.
Because there is an obstacle within you toward another brother, your
fellowship with him is not that thorough. We may avoid contact with
certain saints because of the obstacles within us to the divine
fellowship. Our fellowship is not thorough and obstacles remain within
us because we do not have the cross in our experience.
The cross brings Christ to us. I have been crucified with Christ, and I
no longer live but Christ lives in me. This is the cross. Christ lives
in me as patience. He lives in me as all the human virtues, which are
considered by others as ethics. We need Christ, but without the
experience of the cross, we cannot experience Christ. Hymns, #631 says,
“If no death, no life.” This means, “If no cross, no Christ.”
Furthermore, “If no Christ, no Spirit, and if no Spirit, no fellowship.”
This is why the cross is needed....[In Matthew 16:24] the Lord used the
words his cross. There is a particular portion of the cross for each
one of us to cross each one of us out.
The cross is mainly for dealing with ourselves. The Lord said that if
we desire to follow Him, we must deny ourselves and take up our cross.
Actually, to bear the cross is to deny the self, to put the self to
death, to apply the cross of Christ to the self all the time. If we have
a strong self and are offended by everything and by everyone, we cannot
have real fellowship. In order for us to have the horizontal
fellowship, we need to deny ourselves. To deny ourselves means to be
senseless about ourselves. Then we can never be offended. We need the
experience of the cross to deepen our experience of the divine
fellowship. (The Triune God to Be Life to the Tripartite Man, pp.
159-161, 163)
Further Reading: The Triune God to Be Life to the Tripartite Man, ch. 19
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