THE DIVINE DISPENSING OF THE DIVINE TRINITY FOR THE DIVINE ECONOMY
Message Six
Being a Vessel Open to the Lord and Living Ordinary Days in the Divine Dispensing of the Divine Trinity
Scripture Reading: Gen. 2:7; Rom. 9:21-23; 2 Cor. 4:7; 2 Tim. 2:20-21
I. The first step of God's procedure in fulfilling His purpose was to create man as a vessel to contain Himself as life—Gen. 2:7:
A. God chose us so that we may be vessels of honor filled with the Triune God—Rom. 9:21-23; 2 Cor. 13:14:
1. God created man as a vessel to contain Him, and out of the many vessels, He chose us to contain Him, the God of honor, that we might be vessels of honor—4:7.
2. Honorable vessels are constituted of both the divine nature (gold) and the redeemed and regenerated human nature (silver)—2 Tim. 2:20-21.
3. God makes known His glory upon us, the vessels, that we may become vessels of glory—Rom. 9:23; 2 Cor. 3:18; 4:6-7:
a. All of this is out of His mercy and according to His mercy; it cannot be obtained by our efforts.
b. For this reason we must worship Him and thank Him for His mercy—Rom. 9:15-16, 18.
B. The summary of Paul's fourteen Epistles can be expressed in two words: open vessel:
1. The New Testament shows us that God wants believers as vessels loving Him and keeping themselves open to Him—2 Cor. 3:16:
a. If in the depths of our being we are not open to the Lord, He cannot dispense Himself into us and make His home in our heart—Eph. 3:17.
b. An open vessel is doing nothing but keeping itself open to be filled by the divine dispensing of the Divine Trinity—2 Cor. 13:14.
2. A genuine Christian life is one that loves the Lord and keeps itself open to the Lord and stops its doing—Mark 12:30; 1 John 4:16-21:
a. Then the Lord comes in and does everything; the vessel simply contains the Lord and enjoys the Lord's filling and doing.
b. We simply need to love the Lord and keep ourselves open to Him, giving Him every opportunity to do everything He wants to do—Eph. 3:17.
c. This is the proper and genuine Christian life—Gal. 2:20.
3. We should pray, "Lord, by Your grace I would not have any part of my being closed to You; I choose to keep myself entirely and thoroughly open to You":
a. This proper prayer, deeper prayer, genuine prayer, is to love the Lord and be open to Him— Eph. 3:17-19.
b. If we have this kind of prayer, we will be living, open vessels, and the Lord will have the way to fill us with Himself—vv.14-18.
c. When the Lord fills us, He does everything for us—v. 19.
II. As believers in Christ, we need to learn to be satisfied with a life of ordinary days in the regular and normal experiences in the divine dispensing of the Divine Trinity—Rom. 8:2, 6, 10-11; Eph. 3:16-17a:
A. We need to receive the divine dispensing little by little, day by day, receiving this dispensing again and again in a slow, steady way—2 Cor. 13:14; Matt. 6:11; Psa. 68:19:
1. Very few spiritual things are accomplished in us once for all; rather, as with our physical life, most spiritual things must be repeated again and again—John 6:57b; 4:14; 1 Cor. 10:3-4.
2. Whatever God gives to us is not given all at once so that it becomes unbearable; instead, the divine supply is given bit by bit.
B. The processed and consummated Triune God is within us not in a spectacular way but in an ordinary way; for this reason we need to live a steady and normal Christian life; the less special and the more normal we are, the better—Col. 1:27; 3:4; Eph. 3:16-17a.
C. All the things of life that the Triune God gives to us through the divine dispensing are quiet and calm, and our life as believers should also be quiet and calm; day by day we need to live in this way, simply living an ordinary life of receiving the divine dispensing—Rom. 8:6; 1 Thes. 5:23; 2 Thes. 3:16.
D. Our destiny is to live an ordinary life in the divine dispensing of the Divine Trinity, for our Father has destined that we live in an ordinary way under His continual dispensing—Matt. 6:11, 32-34; 24:40-41.
E. As believers, we experience the divine dispensing of the Divine Trinity by faith; God wants us to do everything by depending on Him, by taking Him as life, and by allowing Him to dispense Himself into us—Eph. 3:17a; Heb. 11:1.
F. In this way we will become normal spiritually, and our spirituality will be regular and normal without anything spectacular—Rom. 8:4, 6; Gal. 5:22-23.
III. A life of ordinary days in the divine dispensing is according to the miraculous normality of the divine economy—1 Tim. 1:4; Eph. 3:9:
A. The experiences of Christ, of the Spirit, of the Triune God, and of the divine life with the divine nature are altogether normal—vv. 16-17a.
B. All the spiritual and divine things provided by God for our experience and enjoyment are normal; nevertheless, these normal things are miraculous, and for this reason we may speak of the miraculous normality of the divine economy—1 Tim. 1:4; Eph. 3:9.
C. Regeneration is the greatest miracle, yet it takes place in a normal way; thus, regeneration is a normality that is miraculous, a miraculous normality in our Christian life—John 3:3, 5-6, 8; 1 Pet. 1:23.
D. Calling on the name of the Lord is a normality, yet it is miraculous that when we call, we receive the totality of the processed and consummated Triune God—Rom. 10:12; Jer. 33:3.