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Scripture Reading: John 3:6; 4:24; Rom. 8:16; 1 Cor. 6:17; John 6:57, 63; 14:20; Gal. 2:20; Matt. 10:19-20; John 17:21-23; 1 Cor. 12:13
There are two crucial matters in the Scriptures — Christ as life and the Body of Christ. We see the first matter at the beginning of the Scriptures, where there is the tree of life, and we see the second matter at the end of the Scriptures, where there is the holy city, a composition of many persons as one Body. This shows us that God’s intention is that He would be life to us so that we would be built together in His life as one Body, the holy city. This is the central message of the entire Scriptures.
In this message we would like to see the matters of mingling and oneness. Mingling is related to life, whereas oneness is related to the Body. Mingling is a matter of God becoming life to us (Lev. 2:4-5; 1 Cor. 6:17); when we take God as our life and God becomes life to us, He mingles Himself with us. Oneness, on the other hand, is a matter of the Body. When we saved ones are built together as the Body, we have the oneness. Thus, we may say that God’s intention is to become life to us so that we would be built together as one Body. We may also say that God’s intention is to mingle Himself with us so that we may become one with Him and with one another.
Many years ago I was taught that our relationship with God was a matter of union and that we were united with God and joined to the Lord. However, one day as I was preaching and teaching this matter of union, the word mingling came to me. I realized that our relationship with God is not only a matter of union but also a matter of mingling, which is much deeper. The word mingled can be found in Leviticus 2, where it is used by the Holy Spirit to describe God’s desire in His relationship with man. Verse 5 says that in preparing the meal offering the oil had to be mingled with the fine flour. The oil signifies God Himself as the Holy Spirit (Luke 4:18; Heb. 1:9), and the fine flour signifies the Lord Jesus’ humanity. Thus, the oil being mingled with the fine flour signifies God being mingled with humanity. The oil and the fine flour signify divinity and humanity as two different natures being mingled together as one. However, this mingling does not produce a third nature; rather, the two natures remain distinguishable in their combination.
Whatever we eat becomes mingled with us; thus, the best way for something to become mingled with us is for us to eat it. Although this is very clear and simple, most of the time we do not apply this to our relationship with the Lord Jesus. We must be impressed by the Lord’s word in John 6: “I am the bread of life...He who eats Me, he also shall live because of Me” (vv. 48, 57). The Lord told us that He is the bread of life and that we may eat Him. This word concerning eating the Lord is very simple and practical, yet we do not pay much attention to it. Have you experienced eating Christ as your food in order to live by Him? If you have never experienced Christ in such a practical way, I am concerned for you as a Christian. We must have some real experiences of Christ. Every day I have the experience of eating and living by the food that I eat. If I had not eaten today, I would be tired and weak. But because I have eaten something, I am refreshed and strengthened, and I am living by what I ate. Every child knows how to eat. We must know how to take Christ as our food, how to eat Him, and how to live by Him. Our taking the Lord as our food day by day is the only way for God to be mingled with us. We must all consider and ask ourselves whether we have had the real experience of taking the Lord as our food day by day and living by Him.
Once I asked a group of believers whether they had had such an experience of taking the Lord as their food and living by Him. One sister told me that she had experienced the Lord in this way many times. She said that whenever she got into trouble or had some burden or difficulty, she would go to the Lord and commit her burdens to Him, and the Lord would take her burdens and bear them Himself. Actually, this is not an experience of taking the Lord as food. Suppose you had a burden, and you asked your food to bear the burden. If your food could speak, it would tell you, “Leave your burden on your shoulders. I want to come into you to be digested by you and energize you to bear the burden. I will not take this burden away from you. Rather, when you eat and digest me, I will become your constituents to energize you to bear the burden. I will be your energy and strength so that you will be able to bear what you by yourself cannot bear.”
At a certain time the apostle Paul was given a thorn in his flesh. Because he was just as human as we are, he went to the Lord and prayed three times that the Lord would take the thorn away. However, the Lord said to him, “I will not take the thorn away from you, because My grace is sufficient for you, and My strength is perfected in weakness. My way is not to help you by taking away the thorn. My way is to strengthen you with Myself as the sufficient grace. My grace, which is simply Myself, will be your strength to energize you to suffer the thorn” (2 Cor. 12:7-9). This is the way that the Lord deals with us. Our concept, which is wrong, is that whenever we get into trouble we should go to the Lord and say, “Lord, be merciful to me and remove this trouble.” Sometimes the Lord does something to remove the burden or difficulty, but the more we grow in the Lord, the more we will discover that the Lord does not take away many of the difficulties and troubles we encounter. Instead, the Lord leaves them with us and causes us to learn to take Him as our food and our life supply to become inwardly energized. When our inner man, our spirit, is energized, we become strong enough to bear the burden and suffer all our troubles while praising Him. This is the way the Lord deals with us, and this is the way we can experience the Lord as our food and live by Him. By doing this we will grow with the Lord and in the Lord, and the Lord Himself will increase in us day by day.
God’s eternal purpose is that we would daily take Him as our life, life supply, and food so that He can be mingled with us. All the matters in the Christian life are actually matters of God being mingled with man. For example, what is real Christian love? Real Christian love is the mingling of God with man. When we love others in the Lord, the love with which we love them should be the mingling of God with us. In other words, it should not only be we who are loving them, but it should also be God mingled with us who is loving them. There must be the mingling of God with us in our love. What is Christian patience? Christian patience is nothing but the mingling of God with us. What is real prayer? Real prayer is the mingling of God with us. Andrew Murray once said that real prayer is prayer made by the Christ dwelling in us to the Christ in the heavens. In other words, when we are praying, it should not only be we who are praying but also Christ within us praying. Real prayer is the mingling of Christ with us.
What is real Christian worship? Most Christians think that when we come to worship the Lord, it is best to kneel down, bow our heads, close our eyes, and concentrate our mind on the Lord. However, this is not real Christian worship. Real Christian worship is the mingling of God with us who are Christians. When we come to the Lord’s table meeting, we often have the natural concept that we are there to remember the Lord in our mind. Then as we remember Him in our mind, we open our mouths to praise and thank the Lord for how good He is to us and for all the things He has done for us. However, in instituting the Lord’s table, the Lord Himself said, “This is My body, which is given for you; this do unto the remembrance of Me...This cup is the new covenant established in My blood; this do, as often as you drink it, unto the remembrance of Me” (1 Cor. 11:24-25). The real remembrance of the Lord is to take Him, drink Him, and feed on Him in our spirit. While we take the bread with our hands, we must enjoy Him in our spirit. The real remembrance of the Lord is to be mingled with the Lord.
Every day and every moment we must practice being mingled with the Lord. Before we begin praying, we must tell Him, “Lord, I am going to pray, but I do not want to pray by myself. While I am praying, I would like You to pray with me and in me.” In all the matters and situations that happen to us day by day, we must practice one thing — to live not by ourselves but by the Lord. Even before we begin talking with a brother, we must tell the Lord, “Lord, I am going to talk with this brother, but I do not want to talk with him by myself. While I am speaking with him, I would like You to speak in me.” The Lord told us that when we are brought to the rulers and are persecuted, we do not need to consider what to speak or how to speak because the Spirit of the Father will speak in us (Matt. 10:18-20). This is the Christian life. The Christian life is not a life of our living out ourselves but a life of Christ living within us (Gal. 2:20).
In all our daily happenings we must practice taking Christ as our life and living by Him in a practical way. We all know the doctrine of mingling, but now there is a need for the real practice of mingling. Throughout the day we must learn to practice being mingled with the Lord. In order to practice this we must be reminded that the Lord is the Spirit, that we have a spirit, and that we have been reborn in our spirit by the Spirit of the Lord (2 Cor. 3:17; 1 Thes. 5:23; John 3:6). Now the Spirit of the Lord, the Lord Spirit (2 Cor. 3:18b), is living in our spirit. Wherever we go or whatever we do, we must remember that the Lord is now living in our spirit. We must reject and deny our natural life, mind, will, and desires. We must turn to the spirit, the innermost part of our being, to contact the Lord and sense His desire. Then we will sense the Lord’s moving and working, and we will know what to say and do. What we do will not be merely out of ourselves. Rather, it will be something done by us yet through the Lord and with the Lord. This is the simple way to take the Lord as our life supply and to live by the Lord. This is something that we must practice all the time.
The result of this mingling will be the real oneness among the saints, the oneness of the Body. We have been baptized in the Spirit to be one Body and have been given to drink this one Spirit (1 Cor. 12:13). Thus, the more we drink Him, the more we will be in the one Body. The more we take the Lord as our food and life supply and live by Him, the more we will realize the oneness of the Body. The life by which we live in the Lord is not an individualistic life but a life for the corporate Body and the members of the Body. As those who are in Christ, we are not merely individuals but members of the Body. When we live by the self, we do not feel or sense the need for the Body or the saints. However, when we reject ourselves, deny ourselves, and take the Lord as our life and life supply to live by Him, we sense that we are no longer mere individuals but members of the Body. We sense our need for the other members and realize the oneness of the Body.
The oneness of the Body is a matter of life, not a matter of doctrine, teaching, or organization. As we take Christ as our life and life supply day by day and moment by moment, we will be in the oneness of the Body, because we will be living by the one life. None of us should live by ourselves; rather, we must learn the practical lesson of living by Christ. When we live by Christ, there will be a longing in us to always be related with others and a real desire to be one with all the saints. This oneness is not in doctrine, teaching, or organization but in Christ Himself experienced as our life. If we live in such a way, taking Christ as our life supply moment by moment and applying Christ to all our situations day by day, we will have the inner registration that we can never be separated from the saints, independent of the saints, or individualistic. We will sense that we are simply members of the Body and will treasure the relatedness between us and the other saints. When the oneness is among us, the divine love, the expression of the divine life, will also be among us. We will love one another not in ourselves or by ourselves but in the life of God, which is Christ Himself. The divine love will be spontaneously expressed among us through our living by Christ. We will be mingled with God and will be in the oneness of the Body.
These are the two most important matters in the Scriptures — being mingled with God and being one with all the saints. As Christians and children of the Lord and as the Body of Christ, the church of God, there must be the mingling and the oneness among us. The mingling is a matter of our relationship with God, and the oneness is a matter of our relatedness with one another. With God we should be mingled, and among the saints we should have the oneness. Both of these matters depend on our practice day by day of denying our natural life, our self, and learning to apply Christ to all the aspects of our daily life. If we practice taking Him as our life supply and living by Him, we will be delivered from the natural life and individualism. May we all be enabled to practice this lesson, that is, to apply Christ to our daily life. Then we will be fully mingled with God and will have the real oneness among us.
