The Practical Way To Live In The Mingling Of God With Man

The Collected Works of Witness Lee, 1994–1997, volume 4, contains messages given by Brother Witness Lee from March 7 through December 21, 1996. During the entire period of 1994 until his death in 1997, Brother Lee ministered in Anaheim, California. The contents of this volume are divided into fourteen sections, as follows: 1. A message given on March 7, 1996. This message is included in this volume under the title The Difference between the Lord’s Recovery and the Denominations. 2. Twenty-five messages given on March 7 through December 8, 1996. These messages are included in this volume under the title Various Meetings in Anaheim. Five of the messages were brief and were combined with other messages. 3. Six messages given on April 9 through 11, 1996. These messages were previously published in a book entitled The Divine and Mystical Realm and are included in this volume under the same title. 4. Five messages given on April 9 through 11, 1996. These messages are included in this volume under the title Pre-meeting Fellowship on the Divine and Mystical Realm. 5. Four messages given on April 28 through June 29, 1996. These messages were previously published in a book entitled Incarnation, Inclusion, and Intensification and are included in this volume under the same title. 6. Six messages given on May 24 through 27, 1996. These messages were previously published in a book entitled The Secret of God’s Organic Salvation—“the Spirit Himself with Our Spirit” and are included in this volume under the same title. 7. Four messages given on May 25 through 27, 1996. These messages are included in this volume under the title Pre-meeting Fellowship on the Secret of God’s Organic Salvation—“the Spirit Himself with Our Spirit.” [x] 8. A message given on May 29, 1996. This message is included in this volume under the title The Divine Revelation in the New Testament and the Lord’s Recovery. 9. A message that was prerecorded and played on June 4, 1996, for the blending conference of the churches in Taiwan. This message is included in this volume under the title The Three Major Sections of the Divine Revelation in the New Testament. 10. Two messages given on June 6 and December 21, 1996. These messages are included in this volume under the title Miscellaneous FTTA Fellowships. 11. Fifteen messages given on July 4 through September 8, 1996. These messages were previously published in a book entitled Crystallization-study of the Gospel of John and are included in this volume under the same title. One of the messages was divided into two chapters. 12. Eight messages given on July 4 through 10, 1996. These messages are included in this volume under the title Pre-meeting Fellowship on the Crystallization-study of the Gospel of John. 13. A message given on July 29, 1996. This message is included in this volume under the title The Office Life of the Living Stream Ministry. 14. Two personal talks given on August 7 and 8, 1996. These talks were expanded into six chapters and are included in this volume under the title My Autobiography—an Oral Presentation to My Children Revealing My Experiences of the Processed and Consummated Triune God.

This book is intended as an aid to believers in developing a daily time of morning revival with the Lord in His word. At the same time, it provides a limited review of the International Training for Elders and Responsible Ones held in Anaheim, California on March 27-29, 2015. The general subject of the training was “The Recovery of the Priesthood for God’s Building.” Through intimate contact with the Lord in His word, the believers can be constituted with life and truth and thereby equipped to prophesy in the meetings of the church unto the building up of the Body of Christ.

The Collected Works of Witness Lee, 1963, volume 1, contains the messages and fellowship given by Brother Witness Lee from January 2 through March 31, 1963. Two additional messages included in this volume were given on December 4 and 13, 1962. Most of Brother Lee's time during the months of January and February was spent in the metropolitan area of Los Angeles. During this time he gave conferences in the Los Angeles area. His first trip outside the Los Angeles area in 1963 was to Sacramento, California, on February 25. After ministering there for several days, Brother Lee returned to Los Angeles for about a week. Beginning on March 8 he spoke in a conference in New York City on four consecutive weekends until the end of the month. The contents of this volume are divided into eleven sections, as follows: 1. Seven messages given in Whittier, California, on January 2 through 8. These messages have been published under the title The Believer's Experience of Transformation. 2. Thirteen messages given in Los Angeles and previously published under the title Spiritual Applications of the Tabernacle. Messages 1 and 2 were given on December 4 and 13, 1962, and the remainder of the messages were given over the period from January 12 through February 7, 1963. Messages 12 and 13 were combined to form the final chapter. 3. Two messages given in Los Angeles on January 15 and 17. These messages are included in this volume under the title Prayer on the Ground of Christ's Ascension. 4. Two messages given in Los Angeles on January 19. These messages have been combined and published under the title The Divine Stream. 5. A series of three messages given in Los Angeles on February 3 and 10. These messages are included in this volume under the title The Key to Our Experience of Transformation--Knowing the InwardParts of Man. 6. Four messages given in Los Angeles on February 5 through 10. These messages are included in this volume under the title Highlights from the Gospel of John. The first two chapters were constructed from personal notes taken by brothers who were present in the meetings. 7. Six messages given during a conference in Reseda and Los Angeles, California, on February 12 through 17. These messages have been published under the title The Practical Way to Live in the Mingling of God with Man. No record exists for the third message. 8. Four messages given at a conference in Sacramento on February 25 through 28. These messages have been published under the title The Enjoyment of Christ for His Increase. 9. Ten messages constructed from personal notes of talks that Brother Lee gave to the leading ones during the period from January 18 through March 3 in the greater Los Angeles area. These messages are included in this volume under the title Various Times of Fellowship with the Leading Ones in Los Angeles. 10. Twelve messages given during a conference in New York City on March 8 through 31. These messages have been published under the title Experiencing the Mingling of God with Man for the Oneness of the Body of Christ. 11. One message given in New York City in March; the exact date is uncertain. This message was spoken in Chinese and translated simultaneously into English. The English translation is the basis for the English edition, included in this volume under the title The Two Spirits in the Gospel of John.

This book is intended as an aid to believers in developing a daily time of morning revival with the Lord in His word. At the same time, it provides a review of the July 2002 summer training on the God-ordained Way. This training covered the book Lessons on the God-ordained Way. Through intimate contact with the Lord in His word, the believers can be constituted with life and truth and thereby be equipped to prophesy in the meetings of the church unto the building up of the Body of Christ.

This issue of The Ministry of the Word contains the nine messages given during the international training for elders and responsible ones held in Bangalore, India, on October 3 through 5, 2019. The general subject of this series of messages is “The One New Man Fulfilling God’s Purpose in Creating Man.” The eternal purpose of God is to have a corporate man to express Him and represent Him. For this purpose God created man in His image and according to His likeness so that through His economy man may receive His life and nature and thereby become His expression. God’s intention in giving man dominion is for him to exercise God’s authority over the earth in order that the kingdom of God may come to the earth. However, the first man, Adam, became damaged and degraded; therefore, he failed to fulfill God’s purpose in creating man. Christ, as the second man and the last Adam, became a prototype and pattern of the expression, living, conduct, and work of the new man who fulfills God’s intention. In His human­ity Christ expressed the bountiful God in His rich attributes through His aromatic virtues. Christ’s God-man living constituted Him to be a prototype so that He may be reproduced in us and live again in us, the church as the Body of Christ and the new man. The church, the Body of Christ, is the one new man to accomplish God’s eternal purpose. On the cross Christ created the new man in Himself by abolishing in His flesh the law of the commandments in ordinances—forms or ways of living and worship, which create enmity and division. As the Body of Christ, the church needs Christ as its life; as the one new man, the church needs Christ as its person. The cross abolished the ordinances in order to give place to the Spirit. The more we are in the mingling of the divine Spirit with our human spirit, the more we will be set free from ordinances in order to bring forth the one new man. The goal of the Lord’s recovery is to bring forth the corporate one new man. The creation of the new man was completed on the cross, but the renewal of the new man is still going on today. For the practical exis­tence and reality of the one new man, we need to put off the old man and put on the new man by being renewed in the spirit of our mind and by taking Christ as our person. The renewing of our mind and of our entire being is carried out by the renewing Spirit being mingled with our regenerated spirit as one mingled spirit to spread into our mind. When we live our life by taking Christ as our person, especially in making decisions, our living will be the living of the new man. Moreover, for the bringing forth of the one new man, we must grow and mature in life by growing up into Christ in all things. The reality and practicality of the new man require our persevering in particular prayer, such as the prayers modeled by Paul in Ephesians 3:14-17 and the Lord Jesus in John 17, which is our response to Christ’s activities in His heavenly ministry. Furthermore, we must labor and struggle according to the operation of God to dispense Christ into others in order to present every man full-grown in Christ until we all arrive at the oneness of the faith, a full-grown man, and the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. The dispens­ing of Christ is a service carried out by all believers as faithful stewards of the mysteries of God, which is Christ and the church. A steward is a dispenser, one who dispenses the divine life supply to God’s children. The stewardship of grace is the dispensing of the riches of Christ into our being so that we may grow and become the church. All the local churches in the different countries are the one new man; thus, they need to practice the church life in the consciousness of the new man. If we take Christ as our life and as our person in the new man and with the new man, spontane­ously we all will speak the same thing and do the same one work for the unique Body, the universal one new man. In this way the new man will grow and mature, and we will arrive at a full-grown man. This will be the ultimate church life—a universal new man taking Christ as his person and living out Christ; this will conclude this age, usher in the kingdom, and bring the Lord back. The Announcements section at the end of this issue contains a list of upcoming conferences and trainings hosted by Living Stream Ministry and a website link for information related to similar events in Europe.