WEEK 1 — DAY 3
Morning Nourishment
Acts 2:42
"And they continued steadfastly in the teaching and the fellowship of
the apostles, in the breaking of bread and the prayers."
1
John 1:4-5 And these things we write that our joy may be made full. 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."
Fellowship [in 1 John 1:3] indicates a putting away of private interests
and a joining with others for a certain common purpose. Hence, to have
fellowship with the apostles, to be in the fellowship of the apostles,
and to have fellowship with the Triune God in the apostles’ fellowship
is to put aside our private interests and join with the apostles and the
Triune God for the carrying out of God’s purpose....Our participation
in the apostles’ enjoyment of the Triune God is our joining with them
and with the Triune God for His divine purpose, which is common to God,
the apostles, and all the believers. (1 John 1:3, footnote 3)
Today's Reading
The divine fellowship is the reality of living in the Body of Christ.
The Lord has been frustrated throughout the centuries because of the
lack of fellowship. In Revelation 22:20 the Lord Jesus said, “I come
quickly,” but it has been nearly two thousand years, and the Lord is
still not back. The reason is that the believers are individualistic, independent, opinionated, and divisive.
The one thing which should rule us is the divine fellowship. We are
restricted in this fellowship. By being restricted in this fellowship,
the Body of Christ is kept in oneness, and the work of the ministry
continues to go on. When we are out of fellowship, everything is
finished. The thing which makes everything alive is fellowship. If
we learn to fellowship, we will receive many benefits, especially in the
Lord’s work. (The Triune God to Be Life to the Tripartite Man, pp.
147-148)
The fellowship of life is simply the flow
of the divine life....The proper way to experience Christ as life is to
have this flow within us....The way to know whether we are in the
fellowship, living by Christ, and experiencing Christ is simply to check
whether there is a flow within....If we do not have the flow or if the
flow is ebbing, we must cry out to the Lord and open to Him.
When you have the flow of life, you will have joy....Christians, as a
rule, must be joyful persons; they must be persons who are full of joy
at all times. Sometimes we are so full of joy that we feel we will burst
unless we shout “Hallelujah!” “Praise the Lord!” or
“Amen!”...Because we are so full of the current, flowing, and bubbling
of the divine life within us, instead of being quiet, we must shout and
speak. You will find that the more you express what is flowing within,
the more the fellowship of life will flow within you.
If
we take care of the flowing and shining of life within us, we will have
need of nothing else. Of course, we will still need to pray, read the
Scriptures, attend the meetings, and fellowship with the saints. But we
have to realize that all these proper Christian activities are actually
the result of the flowing and the shining. At the same time, all these
practices are the instruments, the means, by which we experience more
flowing and shining. The basic thing we must realize is that the secret
of living by Christ, living in Christ, and taking Christ as our life is
to always take care of the inward flowing and the inward shining. If you
do not have the inward flowing and shining, you must go to the Lord to
deal with Him and be dealt with by Him, for that is a strong indication
that something is wrong within. If all the saints among us would take
care of this matter day by day, what living, shining, and flowing
Christians we would be! Then whenever we come to the meetings, everyone would
come with something flowing and shining within their being. The
enjoyment of the fellowship of life and the light of life must be our
day-by-day and moment-by-moment experience. (Experiencing Christ as the
Inner Life, pp. 18-19, 22-23)
Further Reading: Experiencing Christ as the Inner Life, ch. 2; The Triune God to Be Life to the Tripartite Man, ch. 16
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