General Subject：Loving the Lord and Loving One Another for the Organic Building Up of the Church as the Body of Christ
Message One Loving the Lord and Loving One Another— the Most Excellent Way for Us to Be Anything and Do Anything for the Organic Building Up of the Church as the Body of Christ
Outline
II. The Lord's recovery is a recovery of loving the Lord Jesus with the first love, the best love, and of loving one another for the building up of the organic Body of Christ, which is the building up of the New Jerusalem as the goal of God's eternal economy—Eph. 4:15-16; Rev. 2:4-5:
Eph. 4:15 But holding to truth in love, we may grow up into Him in all things, who is the Head, Christ,
Eph. 4:16 Out from whom all the Body, being joined together and being knit together through every joint of the rich supply and through the operation in the measure of each one part, causes the growth of the Body unto the building up of itself in love.
Rev. 2:4 But I have one thing against you, that you have left your first love.
Rev. 2:5 Remember therefore where you have fallen from and repent and do the first works; but if not, I am coming to you and will remove your lampstand out of its place, unless you repent.
A. The Christ whom we love is the church-loving Christ; when we love Him, we will love the church as He does—Eph. 5:25.
Eph. 5:25 Husbands, love your wives even as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her
B. The degradation of the church begins with our leaving the first love toward the Lord; to love the Lord with the first love, the best love, is to give the Lord the preeminence, the first place, in all things, being constrained by His love to regard and take Him as everything in our life—Rev. 2:4-5; Col. 1:18b; 2 Cor. 5:14-15; Mark 12:30; Psa. 73:25-26.
Rev. 2:4 But I have one thing against you, that you have left your first love.
Rev. 2:5 Remember therefore where you have fallen from and repent and do the first works; but if not, I am coming to you and will remove your lampstand out of its place, unless you repent.
Col. 1:18 And He is the Head of the Body, the church; He is the beginning, the Firstborn from the dead, that He Himself might have the first place in all things;
2 Cor. 5:14 For the love of Christ constrains us because we have judged this, that One died for all, therefore all died;
2 Cor. 5:15 And He died for all that those who live may no longer live to themselves but to Him who died for them and has been raised.
Mark 12:30 And you shall love the Lord your God from your whole heart and from your whole soul and from your whole mind and from your whole strength."
Psa. 73:25 Whom do I have in heaven but You? / And besides You there is nothing I desire on earth.
Psa. 73:26 My flesh and my heart fail, / But God is the rock of my heart and my portion forever.
C. The very life that we received when we believed in the Lord Jesus is a person, and the only way to apply and enjoy this person is by loving Him with the first love; since the Lord Jesus as our life is a person, we need a new contact with Him to enjoy His present presence at this very moment and day by day—John 11:25; 14:5-6; 1 Tim. 1:14; John 14:21, 23; 2 Cor. 5:14-15; Rev. 2:4-7; Col. 1:18b; Rom. 6:4; 7:6; Hymns, #559.
John 11:25 Jesus said to her, I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes into Me, even if he should die, shall live;
John 14:5 Thomas said to Him, Lord, we do not know where You are going; how can we know the way?
John 14:6 Jesus said to him, I am the way and the reality and the life; no one comes to the Father except through Me.
1 Tim. 1:14 And the grace of our Lord superabounded with faith and love in Christ Jesus.
John 14:21 He who has My commandments and keeps them, he is the one who loves Me; and he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and will manifest Myself to him.
John 14:23 Jesus answered and said to him, If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word, and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make an abode with him.
2 Cor. 5:14 For the love of Christ constrains us because we have judged this, that One died for all, therefore all died;
2 Cor. 5:15 And He died for all that those who live may no longer live to themselves but to Him who died for them and has been raised.
Rev. 2:4 But I have one thing against you, that you have left your first love.
Rev. 2:5 Remember therefore where you have fallen from and repent and do the first works; but if not, I am coming to you and will remove your lampstand out of its place, unless you repent.
Rev. 2:6 But this you have, that you hate the works of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate.
Rev. 2:7 He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes, to him I will give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the Paradise of God.
Col. 1:18 And He is the Head of the Body, the church; He is the beginning, the Firstborn from the dead, that He Himself might have the first place in all things;
Rom. 6:4 We have been buried therefore with Him through baptism into His death, in order that just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so also we might walk in newness of life.
Rom. 7:6 But now we have been discharged from the law, having died to that in which we were held, so that we serve in newness of spirit and not in oldness of letter.
Hymn 559—Savior, I by faith am touching Thee
1 Savior, I by faith am touching Thee, the source of every good;
Virtue now, by faith am claiming, Through the cleansing of Thy blood.
(chorus) Touching Thee, new life is glowing By Thy Spirit's burning flame;
Cleansing, purging, Spirit filling, Glory to Thy Holy Name!
2 Touching Thee in faith, I take Thee In Thy riches full and free;
All I am I open to Thee, All Thou art Thou giv'st to me.
3 Touching now Thine outstretched scepter, O most mighty King of kings;
Of Thy fulness now receiving, High I mount on eagle wings.
4 Grace and virtue, strength and wisdom, All my need, by Thee supplied;
Keep me touching, keep me claiming, Keep me ever at Thy side.
D. We must be persons who are flooded with and carried away by the love of Christ; the divine love should be like the rushing tide of great waters toward us, impelling us to live to Him and love Him to the uttermost beyond our own control—2 Cor. 5:14.
2 Cor. 5:14 For the love of Christ constrains us because we have judged this, that One died for all, therefore all died;
E. In order to love the Lord to the uttermost, we need to be those who desire and seek to dwell in the house of God all the days of our life to behold His beauty (loveliness, pleasantness, delightfulness) and to inquire of God in His temple; to inquire of God is to check with God about everything in our daily life—Psa. 27:4.
Psa. 27:4 One thing I have asked from Jehovah; / That do I seek: / To dwell in the house of Jehovah / All the days of my life, / To behold the beauty of Jehovah, / And to inquire in His temple.
Morning Nourishment
Eph. 5:25 Husbands, love your wives even as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her.
2 Cor. 5:14-15 For the love of Christ constrains us because we have judged this, that One died for all, therefore all died; and He died for all that those who live may no longer live to themselves but to Him who died for them and has been raised.
Christ is a church-loving Christ. Galatians 2:20 says that Christ loved me and gave Himself up for me. Although Christians pay attention to this verse, they may not also pay attention to Ephesians 5:25, where we are told that Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for the church. We all need to enjoy Christ and to experience Him as the church-loving Christ. Because we also love the church, we are one with Him for the spread of His recovery throughout the world and back to Jerusalem. Oh, how Christ loves the church! He is in us as the church-loving Christ. His love for the church makes us willing to give our all for the recovery of the church life. (Life-study of Ephesians, pp. 662-663, 666)
Today’s Reading
The Lord charges us to overcome all kinds of religion, and in these seven epistles [Rev. 2—3] He also charges us to overcome some other matters. The first thing we are charged to overcome is the leaving,...the losing, of the first love (2:4-5a).
To have the first love is to give the preeminence, the first place, to the Lord Jesus in everything, even in all the small things. When the brothers buy a tie, they need to give Christ the preeminence. When the sisters go shopping, they need to give Christ the first place. When the Saturday edition of the newspaper comes out, some sisters like to read it to find all the sales in the department stores. To have this practice means that they do not give the Lord the preeminence. They do not let the Lord have the first place in their shopping. If we need something, we should go to the store to get that thing and nothing else. The sisters need to overcome the temptation of the department stores. (CWWL, 1991-1992, vol. 4, “The Overcomers,” pp. 201, 211)
In 2 Corinthians 5:14 Paul says that “the love of Christ constrains us.” Because the love of Christ constrained him, Paul was a person who lived to the Lord (v. 15)...We must be persons carried away by the love of Christ. In 2 Corinthians 5:14-15 Paul tells us that the dying love of Christ is like the rushing of great waters toward us, impelling us to live to Him beyond our own control. To be constrained is similar to being carried away by a tide of water. The love of Christ is as strong as a tide of water which overcomes us and carries us away. We need to be flooded by the love of Christ. We need to be constrained by His love so that we have no choice. We should be able to say, “I have no other way to go. I have to love the Lord because His love has constrained me. What can I do?” When the flood waters come, we do not have a choice as to whether we will receive them or not. The flood waters give us no choice. We all have to be constrained by the love of Christ in such a way.
The young saints among us need to realize that although they love the Lord today, they are still at the crossroads of their Christian experience. There are many directions for them to choose, to take. They may have many choices, but once they are flooded by the love of Christ, they lose all the choices. You should not live anymore by what you are or by what you can do. You have to live by the eternal life, which is Christ Himself, and you have to be so ambitious to please Him. You also have to be flooded and carried away by the constraining love of Christ and learn how to recognize things, how to discern things, not by outward appearance but by the inward measure of Christ in the spirit. Then you will be the ambassador of Christ representing His authority and interest on this earth. (CWWL, 1967, vol. 2, “An Autobiography of a Person in the Spirit,” pp. 173-175)
Further Reading: Life-study of Ephesians, msg. 79; CWWL, 1991-1992, vol. 4, “The Overcomers,” chs. 2-3
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