following the Lord Jesus’ pattern to live a life by denying our natural life and live by the divine life

This is our Christian life and our church life – a life in which we daily learn – through many failures and some victories – to deny our natural life and live by the divine life. Once we received the Lord as our Savior and our life, He came into us as Another Life – the Divine Life! Now this life needs to grow, develop, and LIVE in us. The Lord wants to live in us! Paul could say that for him to live was Christ(Phil. 1:21) and it is no longer him who lived but Christ lived in him(Gal. 2:20) – but what about us? What about our daily practical living, in all the things that we do every day and in the way we conduct ourselves: is Christ living in us, or are WE the ones who are living? Paul encourages us to take the Lord as our pattern – to live the same kind of life that He did, as the One who opened the way and He cut the way into glory! What kind of life did the Lord Jesus live? How did He live and behaved, how did He conduct Himself and what did He express?

In all the Gospels we see that even though the Lord Jesus was perfect, having a perfect humanity and being flawless in His human living, He still denied Himself and lived by the Father, unto the Father, and for the Father. The Lord Jesus chose to put aside His perfect sinless humanity and live not by His natural life(as perfect as it was), but by the divine life. In everything He said and did, He expressed the Father, spoke the Father’s words, sought the glory of the Father, lived the Father, and did everything for the Father. He lived by the Father’s life within Him, daily denying Himself… He was not crucified at the end of His human life once for all; rather, He daily lived a crucified life, taking up His cross daily and living by the Father’s life. This is the kind of life our Forerunner lived… – and we follow Him organically by allowing Him to live in us. But there is a question:

What does it mean for us practically to deny our natural life and live by the divine life?

Here are some very good answers some of the saints gave me on facebook when I asked this question:

• Say ‘Yes’ to Jesus, ‘No’ to Satan 🙂
• Practically? Confess. Apply the blood. Seek God in the Word. Call on the Lord. This in the midst of the chaos of life. Don’t look back.
• Pick up the rod and speak to the rock. That is, recognize who it is that is living, stand against that natural feeling, that natural inclination, that innate desire to act, or say, or be and call from deep within, not as a ritual, not as an old habit, but from a desperate need (like a dying man in a desert thirsts for one drop of crystal clear pure liquid H2O), call and ask that the living water would gush up and pour forth. Our living then is no longer our own, but it is the blossom of the divine life.
• Unceasingly pray. Calling on the Lord’s name while doing the mundane things in life, like washing the dishes. Do we wash the dishes by our natural life or by the divine life within us? If we enjoy the Lord while doing these things, we automatically deny our natural man and live by the divine life. But one thing Ron Kangas said which was very enlightening. We can only deny the self, natural man, etc only when know what is the self, natural man, etc. For this we need the Lord’s enlightening. One time I was enlightened by the Lord to realize that I was standing in line at a love feast in my self. I wasn’t doing anything sinful. I wasn’t complaining. Just waiting to pass through the line and get my food. Then the Lord shined and said “You are in your self.” And I responded by saying softly “O Lord Jesus.” Instantly, I realized that my self was crucified and the living water from my spirit was flowing into my being. Praise the Lord for the compound, life-giving Spirit who the pnuematic Christ in our spirit!
• Renewing our mind is crucial! Even though we think in our soulish life so many times each day we really need to deny this and be transformed by the renewing of our mind (Romans 12 v1). If our mind is not renewed we lie vulnerable to the attack of the enemy and allow negative things to enter in which block our contact and fellowship with the Body. So if we’re prone to wonder or wander in our natural life we need to enter into the divine life by turning to our spirit and the assurances of the word: Isaiah 26 v3 and 1 Peter 1 v13. Amen!

AMEN! For me personally, I just say Amen to all the saints, and I want to daily be learning to deny myself by calling on the name of the Lord! Sometimes you feel that RIGHT NOW you need to turn to your spirit to be saved + live by the Lord’s life, but many times you don’t do it…. yet the Lord exposes us, shines on us, and even though we may not turn there and then, we become more desperate before the Lord and we realize how much a failure we are…. How much we live by ourselves and we forget about the Lord! Yet He is faithful to come to us, He is faithful to seek to be one with us and live in us… and He seeks little openings, little times, in which He lives in us and we allow Him to live by simply calling on His name, turning our heart to Him, and fellowshipping with Him. Our life is a continual process of learning to turn to our spirit in all kinds of circumstances, situations, places, things we do, etc. We learn to turn until we’re fully living in our spirit!

Lord, keep us in our spirit today! Teach us how to deny ourselves and live by Your life! Thank You, Lord, for the divine life in us! May it be no longer us who lives but this Wonderful Christ living in us! Make today, Lord, the day when we turn continually and allow You to live in us! Teach us to turn, and keep us turning to our spirit!

we are being prepared to be on the throne by daily moving out of ourselves and into the Triune God!

We are destined to glory, and we will rule and reign with Christ as kings! We see in Genesis 1:26 that we were created in the image and likeness of God to contain God and express God, and we also see in Heb. 2:9-10 that Jesus took the lead to be the Pioneer, the Forerunner, cutting the way and leading many sons into glory! Hallelujah, the Lord took the lead to go to the throne, and now we all follow after Him. God desires to bring us to the throne because of the rebellion of Satan against God and His throne. In Isaiah 14 we see that Satan rebelled against God’s throne, and he intended to exalt his throne to the heavens(and thus intrude upon God’s authority). Actually, all throughout the Bible and also in the days we live in we see that God’s throne is opposed, challenged, and attacked by evil forces and evil people. In the vanity of their mind and in their blindness, the people today even think or say that there’s no God, and in the whole universe there’s a dispute regarding authority. With all the evil things happening and all the evil people “getting away with it” when they do evil, many times people wonder, Who is actually reigning on the earth, is it God or is it Satan that rules?

In what appears to be Satan ruling over the earth, God has an intention to cast Satan down and redeem many of those whom he took captive – and bring them to the throne! God intended that man would have dominion over all things(which includes Satan), but due to man’s fall, man was enslaved to corruption, and the flesh within man forces man to sin, making him a slave of Satan. But God redeemed us and brought us back to Himself; He put His divine life into us and now He gets the full glory when we are being fully brought to the throne, ruling and reigning with Him and for Him! One day God will boast in us and He will declar to the whole universe that His chosen ones, who have been taken captive and ruined for a while by Satan, are now on the throne over everything! Hallelujah, what an intention, and what a glorious purpose God has for us!

We are now in the process of being transformed to become qualified to be on the throne. In our present condition we are not qualified, but God is working on us and in us to qualify us for kingship. We just need to learn to cooperate with His inner operation, allowing Him to work Himself into us and at the same time eliminate anything that hinders His transforming work. On the one hand we live in the world, on the other hand we’re constituted with the world – we’re full of ambition, self-exaltation, self-love, and all kinds of concepts. These things and many other evil things dwell in us, in our flesh – we need to see how to “get rid of them“, or “extract them“. Today I enjoyed a very simple utterance – we need to move out of ourselves and into the Triune God! When we move out of ourselves and into the Triune God(into the “Us”, the Triune God, John 17:21), our ambition is swallowed up, the self is being denied, and there are no more concepts! In the Triune God there’s no room for ambition, for the self, or for any opinions! The Lord Jesus prepared such a place for us – that we may move out of ourselves and into the Triune God by being sanctified in the truth, one in His life, and eventually sharing in His glory! And here’s a practical way how to do it,

If we continually touch the Word and allow the Spirit to touch us day by day, we shall be sanctified; that is, we shall move out of ourselves, our lodging place, and into the Triune God, our new lodging place. By making this move, worldliness, ambition, self-exaltation, and opinions are left behind(quote from the Truth Messages).

Lord, amen, keep us open to You today – we want to really move out of ourselves and into the Triune God! May our life be a life in oneness with You, even living in You and as You! No longer us, Lord, but Christ living in us, by us, and with us! [enjoyment from Heb. 2:9-10, John 17:15, and the Life-study of Ezekiel]

we need to be born of God with the divine life in order for us to be part of the kingdom of God

It is not by our doing, our striving, or our behavior that we become part of the kingdom of God, and neither is it by our being affiliated to any of the “churches” that are out there. The only way we can become part of the kingdom of God or even see the kingdom of God is by being born into the kingdom of God! Unless we are born again, born of the Spirit, we cannot see or enter into the kingdom of God! It is only the life of God, the divine life, that qualifies us to be in the kingdom of God. Not even knowing a lot about the kingdom of God or knowing about God – no Bible knowledge apart from being regenerated can transfer us and place us into the kingdom of God! Just as you become a human being part of the mankind by being born as a man and thus are part of the kingdom of man, so you become a God-man by being begotten of God and thus being a part of the kingdom of God! Hallelujah, it is only the divine life that can qualify us to enter into the divine realm! Here’s what John 3:3 and 5 say,

v. 3 … Truly, truly, I say to you, Unless one is born anew, he cannot see the kingdom of God…
v. 5 … Unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God…

Actually, even if we were not sinful – even if Adam would have NOT partaken of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil – we still need the divine life to come into us in order for us to be part of the kingdom of God! The human life – as high and perfect and clean as it would be – is not adequate for us to be in the kingdom of God! This is why we need to treasure our regeneration: when we believe into the Lord Jesus(John 3:16) we receive the divine life of God and enter into the kingdom of God! Just as a MAN begets a MAN, a cat begets a cat, etc – so God begets someone His own kind: God begets “gods”! When we are born of God, we become a God-man! We as believers are no longer ONLY human, but also divine; we no longer belong only to the human species, but we are also part of the divine species – we are God-kind! Now we have the divine life within growing, developing, and transforming us until we become the same as our Prototype / our Forerunner Jesus Christ. We have the reality of the divine life within us and at the same time this divine life transforms us and conforms us to the Lord’s image in our entire being.

As the ones living in the kingdom of God, we are now learning to live no longer by the human life / our self, but we deny ourselves, our natural man, our natural life, and live by another life – the divine life within! The more we live by the divine life in us by allowing this divine life to live in us freely, the more we are living in reality in the kingdom of God! The reality of the kingdom of God as a realm of life is our living by the divine life today! This living of the divine life and by the divine life is the expression and the practicality of the divine life – this is the kingdom of God in reality! It is here, in this kingdom, in our living by the divine life, that God can be freely expressed, He can reign, and He can accomplish His will and His purpose. Today in the church life we are those who enjoy the divine life and live by the divine life more and more, until we are “swallowed up in life” and we become persons of life! We are children of God in the divine and mystical realm of the divine species, living and moving – doing everything and having our being – by the divine life, in our mingled spirit! [inspired by the morning revival on the Crystallization-study of Isaiah(1)]

O, Lord, Amen, we want to be in the reality of the kingdom today! Save us from being just men – we want to be God-men living by the divine life within! Thank You Lord for showing us the kingdom of God and for making us part of Your kingdom! Lord, we need You to grow in us more today and even be expressed in us and through us!