Message Title: The Lord Being with our Spirit to Be Our Empowering Grace
grace is the unmerited favor, gift from God, something we are not worthy of. But God does give something out of His love and kindness. this is the definition most Christians think, which is not wrong, but still elementary and shallow. when the apostle Paul wrote "the grace be with your spirit", is this grace just unmerited favor? for grace to be with our spirit, is subjective, inward and experiential. this is related to our living by the grace of God. in order for us to live by grace, the Lord is with our spirit to be our empowering grace. right now,, a person is inside of us, the Lord is with our spirit. we are tripartite beings. we have a human spirit and the Lord is with our spirit. not only that, the Lord also wants to make His home in our heart.
2 Timothy 1: 7 For God has not given us a spirit of cowardice, but of power and of love and of sobermindedness.
here the words "power", "love" and "sobermindedness" refer to our mind, emotion and will. our spirit is the innermost part of our being, so when our spirit needs to come out, it will pass through the soul, which consists of mind, emotion and will. some may have a stubborn will like iron, while others may have a soft will like noodle. no matter what kind of will we have, we still need to allow the Spirit to touch our will, emotion and mind so that they will listen to whatever the Lord says in our spirit. therefore, the only way for us to go on is by the grace of God.
I. The Lord is with our spirit that we may enjoy Him as our empowering grace to stand against the downward current of the church’s decline and carry out God’s economy through His indwelling Spirit and equipping word for the building up of the church as the corporate expression of God
grace is God in Christ as the Spirit, and this grace is the empowering grace, because no one and nothing will be more powerful than God. when we have this Lord with our spirit, we can be empowered by this grace, no matter what kind of person we are or what kind of disposition we have. through this empowering grace, we will be able to stand one with God against all other things. most of the time, the reaction in our natural self is always so fast and immediate. but when we have this empowering grace with our spirit, our reaction can be dealt with the this empowering grace, the issue of which is that one day, we will surprisingly realise that, when things come to us, we will have no reaction from ourselves, because the Lord, who is in our spirit has no reaction.
II. "the last Adam became a life-giving Spirit", "the Lord is the Spirit", "the Lord be with your spirit", and "he who is joined to the Lord is one spirit"
when God created us, He created us with a human spirit, and we were only human beings with the human spirit. now, the Triune God in Christ as the life-giving Spirit has entered into our spirit, enlivened our spirit, and made Himself one with our spirit. this is why Pauld had the prayer in Ephesians chapter 3 that we would be stregthened by His Spirit with power into our inner man, which is our spirit and our real person. though we do know that the Lord is with our spirit, most of time in our daily living, it is so easy for us just to forget where the Lord is, doing everything in our own way. but the Lord is faithful to remind us from time to time that He is in our spirit and that we need to return to our spirit. the Lord is not disappointed that we keep jumping out of our spirit, because He is our merciful High Priest, who can be touched with our weaknesses.
III. Grace is the circulating Triune God working, flowing, communicating, transporting, transmitting, and dispensing all that He is into us for our enjoyment; the entire church life depends on grace as the circulation of the Divine Trinity within us
Luke 1:28 And he came to her and said, Rejoice, you who have been graced! The Lord is with you.
in Luke chapter 1, the first case regarding receiving grace, is the virgin Mary, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, and gave birth to the Lord Jesus. the visitation of God as the Holy Spirit was the Lord's gracing Mary. in this principle, today, for us the New Testament believers, there will be times when the Lord comes to visit us in the midst of our situations, which is our being graced by the Lord. His coming to us is grace to us. He will be one with us in our spirit and becoming us in our living, doing everything in us and for us. at such times, we need to open our being to the Lord, welcoming the Lord to every part of our being that He can be grace to us. the more we are open, the more the Visitor can make His home in us and gain more ground in us. our Lord is the generous God, who gives superbounding grace, who gives the Spirit without measure. in our living, when we find that we are short of something, this shortage is the opportunity for us to be supplied with more of Christ as grace to meet our timely need for our growth in Christ. in the same principle, when we find that we cannot to do anything, even cannot move, this is the time for us to trust in the Lord and enjoy the supply of God as grace.
We need to realize the following basic things and put them into practice so that we may be daily and continually empowered in the grace of God:
1. we need to be lovers of God
2. we need to fan our God-given spirit into flame - a spirit of power, love and sobermindedness, by allowing the Spirit to operate in us.
3. we need to care for the testimony of our conscience by conducting ourselves in the grace of God
4. we need to guard the good deposit of the healthy word of God's economy
5. we need to inhale the God-breathed Scripture by means of all prayers so that we can be men of God with the breath of God
6. we need to continue in and be immersed in the healthy teaching of God's economy for God's interest
7. we need to continually exercise our spirit to enjoy the riches of God as the sufficient grace so that we may live Him as our godliness for the building up of the church as His testimony
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