the Chrisitan Life - 1

Message Title: The Intrinsic Significance of the Christian Life

what is the Christian life? we need to see and experience a lot, so that we can share with others what is the Christian life. 

I. the Christian life is a life of living Christ; our living should be Christ, and the way to live Christ is to love Christ

2 Corinthians 5:14 For the love of Christ constrains us because we have judged this, that One died for all, therefore all died;

we can live Christ by loving Christ to the uttermost; if we do not love Christ, we cannot live Him, and loving Him is the best way to concentrate our entire being on Him. we need to be constrained by the love of Christ so that we will live Christ. because we love the Lord, we will give Him the first place in all things. pracitically speaking, what does it mean by "give Him the first place in all things"? 

Psalm 27:4 One thing I have asked from Jehovah; / That do I seek: / To dwell in the house of Jehovah / All the days of my life, / To behold the beauty of Jehovah, / And to inquire in His temple.

what does it mean to "inquire in His temple"? to inquire in His temple means to check with Him everything in our daily life. when we do this, we give the Lord the first place. we check Him about what we shall wear, where we shall go, what we should do. while we are doing this, the Lord is everything to us, and doing everything in us, through us, and for us, for the building up of the Body to consummate the New Jerusalem. 

John 14:21 He who has My commandments and keeps them, he is the one who loves Me; and he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and will manifest Myself to him.

to live the Christian life is to love Jesus the Son of God so that we will be loved by the Father and the Son and enjoy the Son's manifestation to us and Their visitation to us for Them to make a mutual abode with us. 

when we love the Lord, turn our heart to Him, exercise our spirit of love to say, "Lord Jesus,, I love You.", the Lord loves us, and the Father also loves us. the Lord lives in us all the time, but we also want to enjoy His manifestation all the time. when the Lord manifests Himself to us, He makes Himself clear to our understanding and to our sight. He makes Himself very very real to us. 

II. To live the Christian life is to do all things in the person of Christ, in the face of Christ

2 Corinthians 2:10 But whom you forgive anything, I also forgive; for also what I have forgiven, if I have forgiven anything, it is for your sake in the person of Christ;

Paul is a pattern as one who lived and acted in the presence of Christ, according to the index of His whole person, expressed in His eyes. 

2 Corinthians 3:16 But whenever their heart turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away.

our turned away heart is the veil. but, whenever our heart turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away from our heart, and we can behold the Lord of glory with an unveiled face; an unveiled face is an unveiled heart to behold the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. in the Lord'eyes, our face is our psychological heart. the heart is our real inward face. when we turn our heart to the Lord, we are beholding the Lord face to face, and our eyes of heart are beholding the index of the Lord's eyes. 

2 Corinthians 4:6 Because the God who said, Out of darkness light shall shine, is the One who shined in our hearts to illuminate the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

2 Corinthians 4:7 But we have this treasure in earthen vessels that the excellency of the power may be of God and not out of us.

the glory of God is in the face of Christ, and His face, His person, is the indwelling treasure in our spirit. we are earthen vessels who are worthless and fragile, but within our spirit we contain a priceless treasure, the face, the person, of Christ Himself; in the whole universe, there is nothing so precious as to behold the face of Jesus. it is only when we are living in His presence, looking at the index of His being, that we will sense that He is such a treasure to us; if we have some problem, we just need to tell Him; He is right within us, and He is with us face to face. the more we see the Lord, the more we abhor and deny ourselvs, and the more we love the Lord. 

III. To live the Christian life is to walk worthily of the calling with which we were called 

Ephesians 4:1 I beseech you therefore, I, the prisoner in the Lord, to walk worthily of the calling with which you were called,

1. we need to be dilligent to keep the oneness of the Spirit as the reality of the Body of Christ, with the transformed human virtues strengthened by and with the divine attributes. we cannot have the church life if we do not have the transformed human virtues strengthened by and with the divine attributes. in the Spirit of the glorified Jesus, there is the transformed humanity of Jesus. 

2. we need to grow up into Christ the Head in all things. we grow up into the Head, and then we function out of the Head. 

3. we need to learn Christ as the reality that is in Jesus. the reality that is in Jesus refers to the actual condition of the life of Jesus as recorded in the four Gospels; Jesus lived a life in which He did everything in God, with God, and for God; God was in His living, and He was one with God. As we love the Lord, contact Him, and pray to Him, we automatically live Him according to the mold, the form, the pattern, described in the Gospels; in this way we are shaped, conformed, to the image of this mold.

4. we need to live in love and light. as we partake of God's divine nature, of which is love and life, we will be living in love and light. we all need to spend an adequate amount of personal time with the Lord to privately fellowship with Him in our spirit so that we can be filled with His loving essence for Him to shepherd others through us and so that we can be filled with His shining element for others to see Him in us. 

5. we need to live by being filled in spirit to overflow with Christ. 

IV. To live the Christian life is for us to accept the discipline of the Holy Spirit

Jeremiah 48:11 Moab has been at ease from his youth; / And he is settled on his lees / And has not been emptied from vessel to vessel; / Nor has he gone into exile. / Therefore his taste remains in him, / And his scent is not changed.

God wants to take away our taste and change our scent by our accepting the discpline of the Holy Spirit, which is God's emptying us from vessel to vessel for the removal of the lees, the dregs, of our natural outer man until we have the pure taste of Christ and exude the pure fragrance of Christ. this is what the Lord is doing day by day, turning us into different circumstances and environments, so we will not have the same taste and fragrance. 

John 12:3 Then Mary took a pound of ointment, of very valuable pure nard, and anointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped His feet with her hair; and the house was filled with the fragrance of the ointment.

the alabaster flask signifies our outer man, which needs to be broken so that the inner man can break forth; the Lord works in us and on us in so many different ways for the purpose of breaking the earthen vessel, the alabaster flask, the outer shell. the discpline of the Holy Spirit destroys our natural disposition and habits and brings in the constitution of the Holy Spirit in maturity and sweetness. God orders everything in our environment to tear down what we are naturally so that He may form in us a new disposition, new character, and new attributes. 

we need to realise that everytying through which we pass has only one purpose, that God's life would be released through us and expressed in us. Our outer man needs to be broken to such an extent that the inner man can be released and expressed. this is precious.