EXCERPTS FROM THE MINISTRY

We all have been taught to have good behavior and to love one another. As a result, we try to behave ourselves and to love others. But it does not matter whether we can love others or not, for God will never recognize our love. Abraham succeeded in bringing forth Ishmael, but God rejected him. God seemed to say, "No, Abraham, that is not what I want. I want something that has been wrought into you and worked out from you. You brought forth Ishmael without My visitation. I was in heaven and you were on earth bringing forth Ishmael. Because he was unrelated to Me and to My visitation, I will never recognize him. One day, I shall visit Sarah and My visitation will bring forth Isaac. I will recognize only him." If we love others in ourselves, God will never recognize that love, because it does not come from His visitation. God wants to visit us, get into us, live for us, and even love others for us. He will only recognize that kind of love. Your love is an Ishmael; the love by God's visitation is an Isaac. Whether you are humble or proud, crooked or straight, means nothing. God does not recognize anything which comes out of you apart from His visitation. Whatever is not of grace is not recognized, not counted, by God. We all must say, "O Lord, I will not do anything without Your visitation. Lord, if You will not visit me and work something through me and out of me, I will do nothing. I will neither hate nor love, be proud nor be humble. I want to be blank. Lord, without Your visitation, I am nothing." God's visitation is the practical grace. When I love others and am humble by God's visitation, not by my self-effort, that is the enjoyment of grace.

As we have seen, God's intention is to work Himself into a corporate man that He might have a corporate expression. This is the basic concept of the divine revelation in the Bible. This is God's eternal purpose. God called Abraham with the purpose of working Himself into him, but Abraham had a strong self. This natural self was the strongest frustration to God's purpose. The same is true with us today. God's purpose is to work Himself into us to be our life and even to be our living, but our natural self frustrates this. Therefore, God must cut us and deal with us that He may get into us to be everything to us. God does not need us to love others and to be humble that society might be improved. If God wants a better society, He only needs to say, "Better society," and it will come into being. He calls things not being as being (Rom. 4:17) and does not need our help. God wants to work Himself into us to be our humility and our everything. He wants us to say, "Lord, I am nothing and will not do anything. I just open up to You that You might come in, make Your home in me, live in me, and do everything for me. Lord, You live and I'll enjoy Your living. Whenever You do something in me, I'll say, 'Praise You, Lord. This is wonderful! I am not the doer; I am an enjoyer, appreciating all You are doing for me.'"

God's intention today is to deal with Abraham that Isaac may come. His intention is to deal with our natural being that we may have the full experience of Himself in Christ wrought into us as our enjoyment. I have been experiencing married life for close to fifty years, experiencing much enjoyment and much suffering. Before I was married, I truly loved the Lord, and I often told Him how much I loved Him. After I was married, I went to the Lord and assured Him, saying, "Lord because I love You, I want to be the best husband." Eventually, I failed. I went to the Lord and confessed all my failures. After experiencing the anointing, I was happy and I made up my mind to try again to be the best husband. But I failed once more, and this experience of ups and downs was repeated again and again. Later, I even gave a message in which I said, "The Christian life has many nights and mornings. Never be disappointed over your failures. Just wait for several hours and you will be in the morning." For years and years I went through days and nights, nights and days. One day, I received the revelation and said, "Stupid man, who told you to do so? Christ is here waiting to be your grace. You must say, 'Lord, I am nothing and I can do nothing. Even if I could do something, it would never be recognized by You. Come, Lord, and do Your job and be the best husband for me. This is Your job, not mine. You charge me, and I return the charge to You and ask You to fulfill it. Lord, You be the best husband and I will praise You for it.'" Whenever I prayed like this, the Lord always did the best job. This is grace.

Grace is God working Himself into our being as our enjoyment. The very God today is not only God the Father, but also God the Son and God the Spirit. Moreover, God the Spirit is the Spirit of grace (Heb. 10:29), and this grace is the grace of life (l Pet. 3:7), which is "the varied grace" (1 Pet. 4:10), the "all grace" (1 Pet. 5:10), and the "sufficient grace" (2 Cor. 12:9). The Triune God is such a grace, and this grace is now with our spirit (Gal. 6:18). Grace is the divine Person of the Triune God as the Spirit indwelling our spirit. It is the Spirit of grace indwelling our spirit to be our enjoyment that we may enjoy God as our life and our everything, even as our living. This is why every one of Paul's Epistles ends with the words, "Grace be with you." For example, 2 Corinthians 13:14 says, "The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all." Grace is not outside of us; it is in us. Whatever we call it, the Spirit of grace or the grace of life, it is something living and divine in our spirit. We do have such a divine reality, the Triune God Himself, in our spirit as our grace and enjoyment. When He loves others through us, this love is our enjoyment. When He lives Himself out through us, this living is also our enjoyment. Day and night we may enjoy His living through us.

Why then do we suffer? Because the self, the ego, the natural man, is still here and must be dealt with. Praise Him that no dealing is in vain. Every dealing from God is a breaking of our natural man that we may enjoy more of Him as our grace. Thus, we have Abraham and Isaac; we have the suffering of the loss and the enjoyment of the gain. This gain is not the gain of outward things; it is the gain of the indwelling One, that is, the Spirit of grace and the grace of life. Again I say, whatever God gives as a gift outside of us is, at the most, a blessing. When this gift is wrought into our being, becoming the life element within us, it is grace. The blessing must become the grace. In the Old Testament, God gave many things to His people as blessings, but all those things were merely outward blessings. Before Christ came, none of those blessings had been wrought into God's people. Christ came not only to die on the cross for us, but, after His death, to become the life-giving Spirit to enter into our being. Thus, in the New Testament, we have the terms "in Christ" and "Christ in you." Now He is in us and we are in Him. Whatever God gives us in Christ has been wrought into our being and has become grace, our enjoyment. Now we are not merely under His blessing; we are in His grace and His grace is in us. What are you enjoying today—blessing or grace? The New Testament never says, "Blessing be with you." Rather, it says repeatedly, "Grace be with you."