BEING A VESSEL UNTO HONOR, A FULLY EQUIPPED MAN OF GOD, BY BEING EMPOWERED IN THE GRACE WHICH IS IN CHRIST JESUS TO FULLY ACCOMPLISH OUR MINISTRY IN THE UNIQUE MINISTRY OF GOD'S ECONOMY
Message Five
Being a Fully Equipped Man of God by Inhaling and Exhaling the Word of God as the Breath of God
Scripture Reading: 2 Tim. 3:14-17
I. God's ultimate intention is to gain a corporate God-man for His corporate manifestation; God does not desire a good man but a God-man, a man of God with the breath of God—John 1:1, 14; 1 Tim. 3:15-16; 2 Tim. 3:16-17:
A. "Jehovah God formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul"—Gen. 2:7:
1. The breath of life breathed into man's body became the spirit of man, the human spirit—Prov. 20:27; Job 32:8.
2. The breath of life breathed into man's body was not the eternal life of God nor the Spirit of God, but because the human spirit came out of God's breath of life, it is very close to the Spirit of God—cf. Gen. 2:7-9.
3. Thus, there can be a transmission between God the Spirit and man's spirit, and the human spirit is able to contact God and be one with God—Rom. 8:16; 1 Cor. 6:17.
B. "He breathed into them and said to them, Receive the Holy Pneuma"—John 20:22 (lit.):
1. The Holy Pneuma is the Holy Spirit, or Holy Breath.
2. In the Gospel of John there are three wonderful words: Word, flesh, and breath; the Word is God, the flesh is man, and the breath is the Spirit—1:1, 14; 20:22.
3. The Word became flesh to accomplish judicial redemption and then resurrected to become the Holy Breath indwelling us and supplying us for our organic salvation—1:14, 29; 1 Cor. 15:45b; Rom. 5:10; 10:12-13; cf. Lam. 3:55-56.
C. "All Scripture is God-breathed"—2 Tim. 3:16a:
1. The Scripture, the word of God, is the breathing out of God.
2. God's speaking is God's breathing out; hence, His word is spirit, or breath— John 6:63.
D. This all reveals that being a fully equipped man of God with the breath of God requires the exercise of our spirit, the continual receiving of the Spirit, and the breathing in of God's word—1 Tim. 4:7; Gal. 3:2; Eph. 6:17-18a.
II. The God-breathed Scripture is profitable for teaching, conviction, correction, and instruction in righteousness, that the man of God maybe complete, fully equipped for every good work—2 Tim. 3:14-17:
A. The Bible is God's breath, this breath is the Spirit, and the Spirit gives life — John 6:63:
1. Our reading of the Bible should be our inhaling of God to receive life, and our teaching of the Bible should be our exhaling of God to impart life—Acts 6:4.
2. A fully equipped man of God reads the Bible by means of all prayer and petition in the spirit to inhale God and ministers the word as the Spirit to exhale God into others—Eph. 6:17-18a; Acts 6:10; 2 Cor. 3:6.
B. On God's side, the Bible is God's breathing; on our side, the Bible is for us to receive the breath of God as our profit in four matters: teaching, conviction, correction, and instruction in righteousness:
1. Teaching equals revelation; to teach is to roll away the veil so that others may see something of the Triune God and His economy—Eph. 1:17; 3:9.
2. Conviction comes from the revelation that we have seen; whenever we see something of God, we realize our mistakes, wrongdoings, shortcomings, and sins, and the result is that we are convicted and reproved; the more we see God, know God, and love God, the more we abhor ourselves and deny ourselves— cf. Isa. 6:1-8; Job 42:5-6; Matt. 16:24.
3. Correction follows conviction and is a matter of setting right what is wrong, turning someone to the right way, and restoring a person to an upright state — cf. 7:13-14; James 5:19-20.
4. Instruction in righteousness is to be divinely instructed to enjoy Christ as our lived-out righteousness and to be divinely disciplined in being right with God and with man—Phil. 3:9.
C. The issue of God's breathing out of Himself through the Scripture for teaching, conviction, correction, and instruction in righteousness is that the man of God becomes complete, fully equipped for every good work—2 Tim. 3:17:
1. A man of God is a God-man, one who partakes of God's life and nature (John 1:12-13; 2 Pet. 1:4), thus, being one with God in His life and nature (1 Cor. 6:17) and thereby expressing Him.
2. God's breathing produces God-men; we need to continually inhale the Triune God by reading the Scripture with prayer to receive revelation, conviction, correction, and instruction in righteousness.
III. To receive the word of God as the breath of God in order to be constituted with God is also to receive the word of God as the sword of the Spirit in order to slay God's adversary—Eph. 6:17-18a:
A. Satan is not only the enemy outside of us but also the adversary inside of us; to deal with this inward adversary, we need to experience the killing power of the word, praying over the constant word of the Bible so that it becomes the instant word of the Spirit—John 6:63; Eph. 5:26; Rev. 2:7.
B. The sword,the Spirit, and the word are one; when the constant word in the Bible becomes the instant word (the applied word spoken at the moment by the Spirit in any situation), that word is the Spirit as the sword that kills the adversary— Heb. 4:12.
C. The more we take the word of God by means of all prayer in spirit, the more the negative elements in our being are slain; eventually, the self, the worst foe of all, the enemy of the Body, will be put to death—cf. Rev. 1:16; 2:16.
D. Whenever we are troubled by something negative within us, we should take the word of God by means of all prayer in spirit; when the negative things in us are killed through pray-reading, the Lord is victorious.
E. We are preserved in the church life and in the ministry by receiving the word as the Spirit to be the killings word, which is a spiritual antibiotic to kill the "germs" within us so that we can live a healthy Body life, a healthy church life.
F. The overcomers keep the Lord's word by always coming to the Lord to contact Him as the living word in the written word so that He can become the applied word as the dispensing Spirit in them—3:8; John 1:1; 5:39-40; 6:63.
G. The overcomers are fully constituted with the Spirit as the word of God to be the bride of Christ and the new man, the corporate man of God with the breath of God as the killings word for the destruction of the enemies of God and the manifestation of the sons of God—Rev. 2:7; 22:17a; 19:13-15; 2 Thes. 2:8.