WEEK 4 — DAY 5
Morning Nourishment
Rom. 12:5 “So we who are many are one Body in Christ, and individually members one of
another.”
10 “Love one another warmly in brotherly love; take the lead in showing honor one to another.”
15:7 “Therefore receive one another, as Christ also received you to the glory of God.”
Romans 12:9-21 is a section on living a life of the highest virtues for the Body life. We must realize that in ourselves we could never practice these virtues. We can have such a living for the Body life only by reigning in life.If we check our church life, we will find that we are short in nearly every point....When others are rejoicing, we may be jealous, and when others are weeping, we may despise them. To rejoice with those who rejoice and to weep with those who weep are impossible except when we are under the ruling of the divine life. Our natural life cannot make it; but by living a life under the ruling of the divine life, we are able to live the Body life with these virtues. To see the Body life built up as a practical reality, we must reign in life, and to reign in life in practice is to be under the ruling of the divine life. (Crystallization-study of the Complete Salvation of God in Romans, pp. 36-37)
Today’s Reading
God’s will is to have the Body life. Romans 13 presents some additional aspects of the life of one who is living in the Body life....We cannot have this kind of living in ourselves. Only by living under the ruling of the divine life can we be this kind of people. We must be subject to all authorities, realizing that they have been established under the sovereign arrangement of God.
Furthermore, we must owe nothing to anyone except to love one another,loving our neighbor as ourselves. Finally, we must live a watchful life “in the day” (v. 13). One effect of our reigning in life is that we are awakened, made alert, made watchful, and not lulled to sleep by this age. We must be those who make no provision for the flesh to fulfill its lusts, but rather are awake as in the day, putting on the Lord Jesus Christ as our second garment (Psa.45:13-14) to live Him as our subjective righteousness and to magnify Him.
God’s complete salvation is for us to reign in life by the abundance of grace (God Himself as our all-sufficient supply for our organic salvation) and of the gift of righteousness (God’s judicial redemption applied to us in a practical way). When we are all reigning in life, living under the ruling of the divine life, the issue is the real and practical Body life.
Our receiving of the believers under the reigning in life is first according to God’s receiving and then according to Christ’s receiving (Rom. 15:1-13).We should receive one another in the same way that Christ receives us. The strong ones need to bear the weaknesses of the weak, not pleasing themselves but pleasing the brothers and sisters for their building up, even as Christ did not please Himself but bore God’s reproach (vv. 1-4). We should be of the same mind toward one another according to Christ Jesus so that with one accord we may glorify God in receiving one another as Christ also received us to the glory of God (vv. 5-7). (Crystallization-study of the Complete Salvation of God in Romans, pp. 37, 42-43)
The church is not a police station to arrest people or a law court to judge people, but a home to raise up the believers. Parents know that the worse their children are, the more they need their raising up....The church is a loving home to raise up the children. The church is also a hospital to heal and to recover the sick ones. Finally, the church is a school to teach and edify the unlearned ones who do not have much understanding. Because the church is a home, a hospital, and a school, the co-workers and elders should be one with the Lord to raise up, to heal, to cover, and to teach others in love....Love covers and builds up, so love is the most excellent way for us to be anything and to do anything for the building up of the Body of Christ. (The Vital Groups, p. 75)
Further Reading: Crystallization-study of the Complete Salvation of God in Romans, msgs. 5-6; The Vital Groups, msg. 8; The Experience of God’s Organic Salvation Equaling Reigning in Christ’s Life, msg. 5
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