Still Watchman Nee,
Divine revelation is fundamental to our knowledge
So it should be our first step in knowledge of God through revelation to ask - not a revelation of ourselves but of the Lord Jesus Christ on the cross accomplished work. Hudson Taylor, founder of China Inland Mission, began his normal Christian life as follows: You might remember, as long a life in Christ "level and tried to take the sap from the vine to claim for themselves. He was aware that the life of Christ through him had passed hinfließen and others, but he knew that this was not the case. He saw clearly that he had to be invented in Christ. "I knew," he wrote in 1869 in a letter from Chinkiang to his sister, that everything would be fine if I only stay in Christ could, but I could not. "
The more he tried to get in, the more he discovered how he fell out a way back, until one day, started the light to shine, he received revelation and saw something. He describes this experience as follows: "Here lies the secret that I feel! Do not ask me how I saw the juice from the vine in my get, but remember that Jesus is the vine together with its root, the trunk, the branches, the branches, leaves, flowers and fruit, that it's all really. "
He then quotes the words of a Friends who were a help and continues:
, I do not myself to make it the vine. Jesus tells me that I am a vine. I am a part of it and need only to believe and to act accordingly. I know this for a long time from the Bible, but only now I do it as a living reality. "
It was as if an ever existing truth suddenly become very personal for him would be true again. He writes to his sister:
, I do not know if it will succeed me quite naturally to me you To make because there is nothing new or strange or wonderful - and yet everything is new! In a word, I was blind, now I see '. I died with Christ and buried - yes, well risen and gone to heaven! ... Sun God sees me and tells me to see myself Sun He knows best ... Oh, what joy to know this truth! I only pray that the eyes of your understanding be enlightened, that you may know and experience what riches are given to us free in Christ. "*
Oh, it's great to see that we are in Christ! Imagine the confusion once before that someone attacks, attempting to seeing into a space in which it is already! Consider again how absurd it would be to ask for intake! If we recognize that we are already in space, we strive not about to get inside yet.
we had more revelation, we would ask fewer and more praise. We pray so much for ourselves, because we have no eyes to what God has already done.
I remember an event in Shanghai. I spoke then with a brother who dealt a lot with his spiritual state. He said, for example: , So many Christians live a beautiful, holy life. I am ashamed of myself I call myself a Christian, but when I compare myself to others, I sometimes doubt the fact that I am truly a Christian. I want to be a Christian who knows the crucified life, who knows the resurrection of life, but I do not know and do not know how I get there is. "It was time for this conversation yet another brother there, and both tried, we about two hours to show the brother that he could achieve anything outside of Christ, but without success. Our friend said.,, The best I can do is pray, "-" If God has already given you but all you have to then ask for? "We asked. "He has still not given me everything," replied the man, because I still lose my patience and constantly failing.
So I must still pray more. "-" Good, "we said, be - you come as well, whatever you ask" - "Unfortunately, I must confess that I have no time to get, "he replied. We tried to explain to him that just as he had done nothing for his vindication, he did not have to do for his sanctification.
Just then came a third brother, whom the Lord had used many times in, and turned himself into the conversation. A thermos bottle on the table, and he took them and asked: "What is it." -, A thermos bottle "-" Well, imagine, imagine that praying this thermos can, and that it begins something like this to pray, 'Lord, I would have loved a thermos bottle. Please make me a thermos bottle. Lord to give me grace to be a thermos. I earnestly beg you for it! " What would you say? "-" I believe that not even a thermos bottle would be so stupid to ask that, "replied our friend. !, It would be nonsense to pray so, for it is already a thermos bottle, "Our third brother then said," You're doing exactly the same. God has included almost two thousand years ago in Christ.
When he died, you died with him when he was alive again, and you were alive. You do not now say, 'I want to die, I want to receive the resurrection life'. The Lord will look at you and just say, 'You're already dead! You have already received new life! " All your prayers are just as absurd as the prayer of the thermos. You need the Lord to do anything more to ask. Your eyes must be opened yet, so you may know that he already has done. "
This is it. We do not need to die to be strict, we do not need to wait for that we die because we are already dead, we need to do is recognize what the Lord has done already and praise him for it. Now this man went on a light. With tears in his eyes he said, "Lord, I praise thee that thou hast already included in Christ. All that's his is mine! "He received a revelation and could take this fact in the faith.
When we later met this brother, we have seen great change in him.
The cross is our problem at the root
I want to lead you once again just how fundamentally the work of the Lord was on the cross. I think I can not stress enough that fact. We need to get a visual for it.
Just imagine, for example, the government of your country wants to address the problem of alcohol by drastic measures. So she decides to ban all alcoholic beverages. How can such a Decision to be implemented in practice? Would it be enough to search every business and every home across the country and all wine bottles, beer bottles or the like, which one gets hold, to destroy? Of course not. In this way, one could indeed liberate the country from every drop of alcohol, but behind these bottles are the factories that manufacture the alcohol.
Eliminated would be only the bottles, the factories, but untouched, would go on the alcohol production, and the problem would be solved. No, the factories that make the alcohol, the breweries and distilleries throughout the country would have to be closed when the The alcohol problem should be solved effectively and permanently.
We are the factory, and our actions are the products.
The blood of the Lord Jesus has removed the products, namely, our sins. The question of our evil deeds is now resolved, but God should have stopped there? What about the problem of our being? The sins we commit, have already been eliminated, but as we shall overcome? Do you believe that the Lord all our sins washed off and it now allows us to demolish the sin-producing factory? Do you believe that the Lord, after giving us our products has taken away, leaves us with the removal of the entire production alone? This question is answered almost by itself of course was the Lord's not only half of the work and left us the other half. No, he removed the products and also the factory that produced them.
The finished work of Christ went to the root of the problem and cleared it out of his way. God did not stop half-way. He made sure that the power of sin has been broken completely.
, since we know this, that our old man crucified along with him been, that the body of sin would become invalid, so that we no longer serve sin as slaves " (Rom. 6:6) is. But you know it really? , or do you not know ...?" (Romans 6:3). May the Lord have mercy on us and open our eyes!
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