The Ministry of the Word, Vol. 23, No. 12

Download or read book The Ministry of the Word, Vol. 23, No. 12 written by Various Authors and published by Living Stream Ministry. This book was released on 2019-12-01 with total page 171 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This issue of The Ministry of the Word contains the nine messages given during the international training for elders and responsible ones held in Bangalore, India, on October 3 through 5, 2019. The general subject of this series of messages is “The One New Man Fulfilling God’s Purpose in Creating Man.” The eternal purpose of God is to have a corporate man to express Him and represent Him. For this purpose God created man in His image and according to His likeness so that through His economy man may receive His life and nature and thereby become His expression. God’s intention in giving man dominion is for him to exercise God’s authority over the earth in order that the kingdom of God may come to the earth. However, the first man, Adam, became damaged and degraded; therefore, he failed to fulfill God’s purpose in creating man. Christ, as the second man and the last Adam, became a prototype and pattern of the expression, living, conduct, and work of the new man who fulfills God’s intention. In His human­ity Christ expressed the bountiful God in His rich attributes through His aromatic virtues. Christ’s God-man living constituted Him to be a prototype so that He may be reproduced in us and live again in us, the church as the Body of Christ and the new man. The church, the Body of Christ, is the one new man to accomplish God’s eternal purpose. On the cross Christ created the new man in Himself by abolishing in His flesh the law of the commandments in ordinances—forms or ways of living and worship, which create enmity and division. As the Body of Christ, the church needs Christ as its life; as the one new man, the church needs Christ as its person. The cross abolished the ordinances in order to give place to the Spirit. The more we are in the mingling of the divine Spirit with our human spirit, the more we will be set free from ordinances in order to bring forth the one new man. The goal of the Lord’s recovery is to bring forth the corporate one new man. The creation of the new man was completed on the cross, but the renewal of the new man is still going on today. For the practical exis­tence and reality of the one new man, we need to put off the old man and put on the new man by being renewed in the spirit of our mind and by taking Christ as our person. The renewing of our mind and of our entire being is carried out by the renewing Spirit being mingled with our regenerated spirit as one mingled spirit to spread into our mind. When we live our life by taking Christ as our person, especially in making decisions, our living will be the living of the new man. Moreover, for the bringing forth of the one new man, we must grow and mature in life by growing up into Christ in all things. The reality and practicality of the new man require our persevering in particular prayer, such as the prayers modeled by Paul in Ephesians 3:14-17 and the Lord Jesus in John 17, which is our response to Christ’s activities in His heavenly ministry. Furthermore, we must labor and struggle according to the operation of God to dispense Christ into others in order to present every man full-grown in Christ until we all arrive at the oneness of the faith, a full-grown man, and the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. The dispens­ing of Christ is a service carried out by all believers as faithful stewards of the mysteries of God, which is Christ and the church. A steward is a dispenser, one who dispenses the divine life supply to God’s children. The stewardship of grace is the dispensing of the riches of Christ into our being so that we may grow and become the church. All the local churches in the different countries are the one new man; thus, they need to practice the church life in the consciousness of the new man. If we take Christ as our life and as our person in the new man and with the new man, spontane­ously we all will speak the same thing and do the same one work for the unique Body, the universal one new man. In this way the new man will grow and mature, and we will arrive at a full-grown man. This will be the ultimate church life—a universal new man taking Christ as his person and living out Christ; this will conclude this age, usher in the kingdom, and bring the Lord back. The Announcements section at the end of this issue contains a list of upcoming conferences and trainings hosted by Living Stream Ministry and a website link for information related to similar events in Europe.