MORNING REVIVAL WEEK 4 — DAY 4 ›› Morning Nourishment Matt. 28:19 Go therefore and disciple all the nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Acts 1:8 But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and unto the uttermost part of the earth. The Lord, as the ascended One, is carrying out His universal and eternal propagation. Who can explain why the earth today is filled with Christians? Why are there so many believers in the world?...The whole earth is in the hands of the undefeatable One, and this One is carrying out His propagation. As the ascended Christ is carrying out His propagation, His main work is not fighting. Instead of fighting, the ascended Lord’s work is mainly propagating Himself throughout the earth. In the Lord’s recovery we have people of different colors: black, white, brown, yellow, and red. We all are part of Christ’s propagation. We have been produced by the resurrected Christ in His ascension. (Life-study of Acts, p. 11) Todays Reading Propagation is a matter of production. To propagate, therefore, is to produce. The propagation of the resurrected Christ in His ascension produces the churches. The churches are the produce of the resurrected Christ in His ascension. Hence, the churches are the produce of Christ’s propagation. The first mention of the word church in Acts is in 5:11. Thereafter, this book speaks of the church many times....The churches produced by the resurrected Christ in His ascension are the kingdom of God. Concerning the kingdom, we should not follow the teachings of those who claim that the kingdom of God is not present today....In the book of Acts we see that the churches and the kingdom of God go together. In fact, the churches actually are the kingdom of God. In Acts the kingdom of God is first mentioned in 1:3, and then in a number of other verses. We should be impressed with the subject of the book of Acts, a book that stands as the backbone of the New Testament. Acts unveils Christ in His ascension propagating Himself to produce the churches, which are the kingdom of God on earth today. Following the book of Acts, we have the Epistles. The Epistles, as the continuation of Acts, edify the saints so that the churches may be fully built up as the Body of Christ. The consummation of this edifying and building up will be the New Jerusalem. If we see the place occupied by the book of Acts in the New Testament, we shall realize that this book, the backbone of the New Testament, stands in a crucial position. The subject of Acts is the propagation of the resurrected Christ in His ascension, by the Spirit, through the disciples, for the producing of the churches—the kingdom of God. We have seen something concerning the propagation of the resurrected Christ (2:24; 3:15; 5:30; 13:33). Now we need to see that this propagation is carried out by the Lord from the throne in the heavens. This means that His work of propagation is in ascension. However, much of today’s so-called Christian work is not a work in ascension. We hope that the work in the Lord’s recovery will be in His ascension. The ascension is the nature and the sphere of the Lord’s work on earth. Therefore, the work of the Lord today should have a heavenly nature and should be in a heavenly sphere. It is in His ascension that Christ is propagating Himself. We know that His ascension came after His death and resurrection. Christ’s work in His ascension takes place in the nature of His resurrection. Therefore, this work is not natural; it does not have anything of the natural man. Rather, it is of the divine life in resurrection, and it is carried out in the atmosphere and condition of His ascension. Where are we working today? We all should be able to say that we are working in Christ’s ascension. (Life-study of Acts, pp. 11-13) Further Reading: Life-study of Acts, msgs. 1-2
Posted on: Wed, 21 Jan 2015 07:51:32 +0000