On January 4 we will read Message Three, which is titled, “The Living God and the Work of Faith.”
In this message Brother Witness Lee reviews the first 10 verses of 1 Thessalonians (1 Thes. 1:1-10). The sections of this message are:
I. THE CHURCH IN THE TRIUNE GOD
II. THE STRUCTURE OF A HOLY LIFE
III. MORE PROFOUND TERMS
IV. GOD LIVING IN US
V. OBJECTIVE AND SUBJECTIVE FAITH
VI. BROUGHT INTO THE ORGANIC UNION
VII. FAITH WORKING
VIII. SPIRITUAL UNDERSTANDING AND DIVINE REVELATION
If you do not have a copy of this message, you can read it online at ministrybooks.org.
The comments that everyone has posted so far have been very encouraging. Please keep reading and sharing your enjoyment. Praise Him!
I was impressed that by reading these life studies we are able to do a more prevailing work for the increase and spread of the church life: The strong and broad view of the word presented in these messages affords us increased sight, which results in increased (subjective and objective) living faith, producing an organic union from which issues a certain kind of work. We can present this scene, this view that we have seen to others (as the gospel) such that faith can be produced in them too!
Saints is it not wonderful that we can serve a living God?!!! Wow! It is amazing that we can experience living God in such SUBJECIVE way in our daily life for the church life! :)) Hallelujah!
I am touched also that in order to have more faith, stronger, broader, and greater faith, we need more view. So I feel even more encourage to spend more time with the Lord in His Word and ministry 🙂
“Then we shall have greater sight, which produces a greater faith.” to enjoy ORGANIC UNION WITH OUR DEAR LORD.
Yesterday in one of the districts in London we were praying for our reading of this LS. After reading of this chapter I feel encourage to pray even more… Oh Lord Lord save me from natural understanding… Lord how much I need your revalation to receive proper spiritual understanding. Lord I want to use this time to only enjoy but be more constitued in You.
Extend of our faith depends on our sight,the scope of our sight depend on the measure of our view.We need the word of GOD.
May we all be strengthened into our inner-man to continue to pursue His word, which will give us a broader view,a greater sight and a greater faith, which result in an organic union with Christ.Praise the Lord!
My natural understanding of Faith was belief in the unseen things, but Praise the Lord that Faith is based on our view and sight of the living God! Lord thank you that we can be organically joined to You!
“In 1 Corinthians Paul says that the church is in Corinth. He also speaks of the churches in Macedonia. Both in 1 and 2 Thessalonians the location of the church is not a city! it is God! Furthermore, the church is in the Triune God. This is indicated by the fact that Paul says ‘in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ’.”
Halelujah!!! We are not in a city! We are in the Triune God!!!
Yes, I enjoyed the very same thing…the location of the church is God! Isn’t that just awesome?
What I enjoyed from today’s life study;
“In 2 Thessalonians 2:14 Paul goes on to say, ‘To which also He called you through our gospel unto the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.’ The expression ‘the obtaining of the glory’ is also unique, used in the New Testament only here. Through the gospel God called us unto the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
“We should not understand the Bible in a natural way. Rather, we must understand it according to God’s revelation.”
” …to serve a living God means to serve the God who is living in you right now.” 🙂
“But now, after the cross and the resurrection, the God whom we serve is no longer merely in the heavens, for He is now living in us. This is revealed clearly in Paul’s Epistles (Rom. 8:10; Col. 1:27). We even have a song which says that our God is living and that He is living within us. When Paul says that we serve a living God, he means the God who is living within us and who is one with us.”
“But the God whom we serve is living, and He inwardly adjusts us and corrects us.” Hasn’t this been our experience saints.
“..the extent of our faith depends on our sight, and the scope of our sight depends on the measure of our view. This is why we need to know more of the Holy Word and hear more messages. Both the Word and messages help to give us a broader view. Then we shall have greater sight, which produces a greater faith.” WOW, let’s get into more messages, listen to more messages, eat more messages!
“Lord, I don’t want to understand anything in the Bible, especially any terms in 1 Thessalonians, in a natural way. Lord, keep me always in the spirit, and show me the real significance of the profound terms in this book.”
I enjoyed this portion very much, because it encourages us in preaching the gospel to the unbelievers, or any family member that may have some faith already but whose faith needs to increase. This is what brother Lee said;
“Faith is related both to a view and to sight. First there is a view, a scene, before us, and then we have the sight to see this view. Spontaneously, we have faith. This means that when we have the view and the sight, we automatically have faith.”
“Suppose you are preaching the gospel to a group of unbelievers. What you speak to them is not only in word, but also in power, in the Holy Spirit, and in much assurance. You tell them the story of the gospel, relating how God loves them and how He sent His Son to be a man and to die on the cross for them. As you are speaking, you are not merely telling a story—you are presenting a view, a scene. Those to whom you are speaking begin to see this view. They realize something about being a sinner and see that there is a God, Jesus Christ, and the cross. This view portrayed in the preaching of the gospel is God’s revelation. As soon as unbelievers see this revelation, spontaneously faith is produced in them, and they believe. They believe in what they see. This is faith”
“In order to have more faith, stronger, broader, and greater faith, we need more view. A broader faith depends on a broader view. An increased view gives us increased sight, and increased sight results in increased faith. Thus, the extent of our faith depends on our sight, and the scope of our sight depends on the measure of our view. This is why we need to know more of the Holy Word and hear more messages.”
So saints, we should not be discouraged to present the Christ we enjoy to our co-workers, or family members, or people who meet during our day. When we preach to them the Christ we have enjoyed, their sight will increase. Therefore their faith will increase! We should not be afraid of the rejection in the past or if they will reject us this one time, NO, just speak, enlarge thier view of Christ! Magnify the diminutive Christ they have! As we do this, it will produce faith in them!
Grace to you.
thank you for your sharing. When I was reading today’s portion I was considering HOW CAN I apply this in care for new belivers… so received help from you when you wrote ” When we preach to them the Christ we have enjoyed, their sight will increase. Therefore their faith will increase! We should not be afraid of the rejection in the past or if they will reject us this one time, NO, just speak, enlarge thier view of Christ! Magnify the diminutive Christ they have! As we do this, it will produce faith in them!” Amen! Praise the Lord for the Body! 🙂
I enjoyed that we not only serve the true God, but we serve a living God!
This living God is testified not mainly by us experiencing Him objectively, or by outward things, but He is testified through our experiencing His inward correcting and adjusting. This inward reality makes Him so real to us!
I also enjoyed that there is a need for us to see the “terms” in the Bible not according to our natural way of understanding, but through the divine revelation.
“Lord, I don’t want to understand anything in the Bible, especially any terms in 1 Thessalonians, in a natural way. Lord, keep me always in the spirit, and show me the real significance of the profound terms in this book.”
Lord Jesus, save us from being natural even in our thinking and keep us always in our spirit. Amen.
LeShanah Tovah Tikatev Vetihatem Hatzlacha Rabbah!
I am a camera-man of God. My pray is that daily I can take pictures of the divine revelation into my spiritual photographic film!!!
Praise the Lord! The living God is not a God living outside of us but a living God inside of us! We know that He is living because He speaks to us through His living word, but futhermore, we know that He is living because He is a person inside our beings who adjusts and corrects our daily living! Hallelujah! We can know God in such a subjective way. This is the way to serve the living God, saints! We serve Him by allowing Him to live through us!
Hallelujah! Our God is living in us! He is no longer in the heavens but our God is in us and with us all the time. He is in our spirit adjusting and correcting us. Day by day and moment by moment, Lord make this our subjective experience!
The name JESUS indicates incarnation, and the title Christ, resurrection.
We should pray (I enjoyed it): “Lord, dont want to understand anything in the Bible, especially any terms in 1 Thessalonians, in a natural way. Lord, keep me always in the spirit, and show me the real significance of the profound terms in this book”.
Praise the Lord for such a opportunity to enjoy the Bible with all the saints, but not according to our natural way but according to the divine revelation.
I was so exposed to see that I read the Word of God and I think I understand it, but I don’t have an exercised heart, spirit, and mind to see the divine revelation in the Word. I take the Word of the Lord for granted. I can even declare, Praise the Lord, I have turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God! – but what does it really mean that God is living and true? Is God living to me? Is my God living to others through me? Am I in God and is God living in me? Is He real, living, and true to me and through me?
O, Lord… how much we need a spiritual understanding of the divine facts – we need to be enlightened by the Lord every time we read the Bible, so that in the organic union with the Lord the divine facts in the Word would be transmitted into us! We need to have a spiritual understanding of the Word of God (in contrast with the natural understanding of what the Bible says) and the divine revelation in the Word (in contrast with our self-made light according to our natural mind when we read the Bible).
I serve the living God, by letting God live in me, correct me , adjust me, in my daily living!
“In order to have more faith, stronger, broader, and greater faith, we need more view. A broader faith depends on a broader view. An increased view gives us increased sight, and increased sight results in increased faith. Thus, the extent of our faith depends on our sight, and the scope of our sight depends on the measure of our view. This is why we need to know more of the Holy Word and hear (and read) more messages. Both the Word and messages help to give us a broader view. Then we shall have greater sight, which produces a greater faith.”
We need a stronger, broader and greater faith, a subjective faith, one that enables us to live the church life intrinsically. This faith brings God into us and brings us into God and thereby increases the organic union and builds highways to Zion in our hearts. Praise the Lord for His word and the New Testament ministry!
“We should not understand the Bible in a natural way. Rather, we must understand it according to God’s revelation.”
Oh Lord Jesus, cover our reading of the Bible. May we read it not in our mind but in our spirit!
“The extent of our faith depends on our sight, and the scope of our sight depends on the measure of our view. This is why we need to know more of the Holy Word and hear more messages. Both the Word and messages help to give us a broader view. Then we shall have greater sight, which produces a greater faith.”
Lord Jesus, increase our seeing! Feed us, nourish us, and shine your light upon us more and more each day!
The one point I noted from this message is the matter of natural understanding of the Word versus spiritual understanding of the Word. Although we may read terms like those in 1 Thessalonians, do we really understand what they mean? Or do we understand them in a natural way? I was touched by the need for us to have a spiritual understanding of these terms! We need a spirit of wisdom and revelation, not just a sharp mind, to understand the Word of God. May the Lord reveal to us all the riches in 1 Thessalonians!
Praise the Lord! Our God is living! However, He is not just a God living outside of us, rather He is one living IN us! Lord, do give us a clear view concerning who You are! Do remind us that You are IN us.
As we come to the word we need to turn from our natural understanding to our spirit. We need to pray to the Lord to grant us a spirit of wisdom and revelation.
On the one hand we need to keep the terms in our mind and then allow the Lord to enlighten and shine upon us in our spirit that we could receive the divine revelation.
May we all learn to come to the Word of God not in a natural way but in a spiritual way to receive the divine revelation.
“If you keep these terms in mind, eventually light will come and, gradually, you will have the proper spiritual understanding. Otherwise, you may understand the entire first chapter of 1 Thessalonians in a natural way, in a way that is absolutely not according to the divine revelation. Only when we have the proper spiritual understanding can we receive the divine revelation. The divine revelation in 1 Thessalonians 1 goes along with the spiritual understanding of Paul’s writing.” (LS of 1 Thes, msg 3)
Amen Lord, give us “the proper spiritual understanding [so that] we can receive the divine revelation.”!
Barely fit this one in before bed! Three down, 21 to go.
Oh Lord, may we be those who would spend time in Your word to gain a deep spiritual understanding. Save us from our natural concepts!
Amen enjoyed todays message on understanding the profound terms.When we have proper spiritual understanding of God’s Word then we will have divine revelation and not a natural understanding…PTL:)
May we serve the living God living in us right now! 🙂
“To serve a living God means to serve the God who is living in you right now.”
“the living God is the God who is now living in us. We are not serving a God who is merely in the heavens. The God we serve is the One who lives in us. Therefore, to serve a living God means to serve the God who is living in you right now.”
“In order to have more faith, stronger, broader, and greater faith, we need more view. A broader faith depends on a broader view. An increased view gives us increased sight, and increased sight results in increased faith. Thus, the extent of our faith depends on our sight, and the scope of our sight depends on the measure of our view. This is why we need to know more of the Holy Word and hear more messages. Both the Word and messages help to give us a broader view. Then we shall have greater sight, which produces a greater faith.” May this month of getting into the LS of Thessalonians generate in us a greater faith!
“If we have a natural understanding of this book, we shall be hindered in our reading of it. Therefore, we need to pray, “Lord, I don’t want to understand anything in the Bible, especially any terms in 1 Thessalonians, in a natural way. Lord, keep me always in the spirit, and show me the real significance of the profound terms in this book.””
To serve a living God means to serve the God who is living in you right now! The God whom we serve is no longer merely in the heavens, for He is now living in us.
Faith is related to a view and to sight. When we have the view and the sight, we automatically have faith. We need to know more of the Holy Word and hear more messages to increase our view which will give us an increased sight and issue in an increased faith.
Hallelujah my God is a living God!!!!
The extent of our faith depends on our sight, and the scope of our sight depends on the measure of our view. Increased view = increased faith. This is why we need to eat His Word through our Bible reading and help from life-study messages. Genuine faith is never in vain, it is living and it produces an organic union between us and God. This is the work of faith spoken in 1 Ts 1:3
When we read the Bible, we need to have God’s view of even the terminology used!
“Our God is living” does not merely mean that He will send someone to help us in dire need; it means that God is living in us and is one with us! He may not help us in dire need but He is still one with us.
Lord, I don’t want to understand anything in the Bible, especially any terms in 1 Thessalonians, in the natural way. Lord, keep me always in the spirit, and show me the real significance of the profound terms in this book. You are living God who is living in me right now. Grant me the proper view, an increased sight, and stronger, broader, and greater faith that produces an organic union out of which any work may come forth.
Praise the Lord we serve the true and living God!! How do we know He is living? Because of the fact that He is living and active in us. He never lets us go. He is so experiencial and real! Amen 🙂
Hi saints watch this video http://m.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DbyaFN2YzR0U%26sns%3Dfb&t=hymn12 It’s students singing … We( students from all ex soviet countries and also students from Taiwan gathered in Ramenskoe, Russia in summer 2005 for one week to read LifeStudy of 1 & 2 Thessalonians and enjoy the Lord …awesome blending never forget that.
Maxim, Thank you for sharing this link. It is so sweet to see the dear Russian saints! We are one Body in Christ. ~Натан, Санкт-Петербург (1998-1999)
Even though these epistles are to new believers, we must exercise to understand them in a spiritual way and not in a natural way. Br. Lee emphasizes, “Only when we have the proper spiritual understanding can we receive the divine revelation.” The first chapter begins by telling us that the church is in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. This is a great matter. The church is not merely an organized group of people; it is an entity in the processed Triune God! The preposition “in” points this out to us. We are in God and God is in us. To serve the living God is not merely to serve Him objectively; it means to serve the God who is living in you! Paul said He served God in his spirit (Rom. 1:9). The God whom we serve is living in us! This should be our testimony and it is intimately related to our work of faith.
Praise the Lord saints! Our God is living by living in us!
I was touched that we should not understand this book in an natural way. We need to be on the alert for that. Sometimes subconsciently I brought my nature ways into the profound terms. The read meaning of the work of faith that brother Lee presented was not what I thought before. I never saw this divine view until I read this msg.
Praise the Lord for this proper understanding!
Hallelujah, the location of the church is not a city—it is God!
More Profound Terms:
In 2 Thessalonians 2:13, salvation is in sanctification of the Spirit. Such an expression is used only once in the entire New Testament.
Then again in 2 Thessalonians 2:14 is this unique expression of “the obtaining of the glory”, used in the New Testament only here. Through the gospel God called us unto the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Finally in 2 Thessalonians 2:16 Paul speaks of eternal encouragement and good hope in grace. These terms are also used only once in the New Testament.
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God Living in Us:
Brother Lee asks, “When Paul speaks of the living God, does he mean that God will send someone to help you when you are in trouble? If this is your concept, this indicates that you have a natural understanding of this matter. In many instances the living God did not keep Paul away from trouble and hardship.” Saints, is this contrary to what we would testify?? Does it not seem that God was not very living to Paul in his experience? Again brother Lee says, “I mention this testimony in order to point out that we need to learn what Paul means when he speaks of serving a living and true God. We should not understand the Bible in a natural way. Rather, we must understand it according to God’s revelation.”
Saints, concerning God’s revelation, brother Lee mentions, “We should be able to testify that the God we are serving today is living within us. What we need is not a testimony about how God sent someone to help us in trouble. We need subjective testimonies concerning the living God in our daily life. For instance, a sister may testify of how she was tempted to look at her husband in a very unpleasant way. But because the living God in her did not agree, she did not show such an unpleasant expression toward her husband. This proves that her God is living and that He is living within her. An idol does not interfere with anyone who is about to lose his temper. But the God whom we serve is living, and He inwardly adjusts us and corrects us.”
Amen.
To be able to preach the gospel in power, in the Holy Spirit and in much assurance we have to live Christ–having the manner of life that will match His characteristics. We have to be a pattern or model for others. To be proper pattern is to allow others to just see the Lord.
Amen
“…remember that the church is in God the Father & our Lord Jesus Christ. Also remember the work of faith, the labor of love, the endurance of hope and the turning to God from idols to serve a living and true God and to wait for his son from heavens. If you keep these terms in mind, eventually light will come and gradually you will have proper spiritual understanding…”
Lord, save us from understanding 1 & 2 Thessalonians in a natural way!
Amen
In order to have more faith, stronger, broader, and greater faith, we need more view. A broader faith depends on a broader view. An increased view gives us increased sight, and increased sight results in increased faith. Thus, the extent of our faith depends on our sight, and the scope of our sight depends on the measure of our view. This is why we need to know more of the Holy Word and hear more messages. Both the Word and messages help to give us a broader view. Then we shall have greater sight, which produces a greater faith.This kind of faith on the one hand brings God into us, and on the other hand it brings us into God. In other words, such faith always produces an organic union.
Lord Jesus may we be those who appreciate Your word and enter into the ministry. Thank You Lord because You are living in us right now. Amen saints.