2022-5丨General Subject：Loving the Lord and Loving One Another for the Organic Building Up of the Church as the Body of Christ

General Subject：Loving the Lord and Loving One Another for the Organic Building Up of the Church as the Body of Christ

Message Seven Being Perfect as the Heavenly Father Is Perfect by Being Perfected in His Love

C. For the kingdom people to be perfect as their heavenly Father is perfect means that they are perfect in His love (Matt. 5:44-45); love is the nature of God's essence (1 John 4:8, 16):

Matt. 5:44 But I say to you, Love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you,

Matt. 5:45 So that you may become sons of your Father who is in the heavens, because He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good and sends rain on the just and the unjust.

1 John 4:8 He who does not love has not known God, because God is love.

1 John 4:16 And we know and have believed the love which God has in us. God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God and God abides in him.

1. Through the precious and exceedingly great promises given by God, we, the believers in Christ, have become partakers of His divine nature (2 Pet. 1:4) in an organic union with Him (John 3:15; Gal. 3:27; Matt. 28:19).

John 3:15 That everyone who believes into Him may have eternal life.

Gal. 3:27 For as many as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.

Matt. 28:19 Go therefore and disciple all the nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,

2 Pet. 1:4 Through which He has granted to us precious and exceedingly great promises that through these you might become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption which is in the world by lust.

3. The virtue of this divine nature carries us into God's glory (2 Pet. 1:3), into the full expression of the Triune God; we receive the divine life by believing, and we continually enjoy the divine nature, which is the substance of the divine life; the more we enjoy the divine nature, the more we have His virtue, and the more we are brought into His glory.

4. Our enjoyment of the divine nature is both for the present and for eternity—Rev. 22:1-2.

Rev. 22:1 And he showed me a river of water of life, bright as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb in the middle of its street.

Rev. 22:2 And on this side and on that side of the river was the tree of life, producing twelve fruits, yielding its fruit each month; and the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations.

Morning Nourishment

2 Pet. 1:3-4 Seeing that His divine power has granted to us all things which relate to life and godliness, through the full knowledge of Him who has called us by His own glory and virtue, through which He has granted to us precious and exceedingly great promises that through these you might become partakers of the divine nature...

Through the precious and exceedingly great promises given by God, we, the believers in Christ, who is our God and Savior, have become partakers of His divine nature in an organic union with Him. We have entered into this union through faith and baptism (John 3:15; Gal. 3:27; Matt. 28:19). The virtue of this divine nature carries us into God’s glory, into the full expression of the Triune God.

We receive the divine life simply by believing, and the divine nature is the substance of the divine life. Although we received the divine life at the time we believed, the divine nature must be continually enjoyed by us. This enjoyment requires the grace of God. The more we enjoy the divine nature, the more we have His virtue, and the more we are brought into His glory.

To partake of the divine nature is to enjoy what God is. In order that we may enjoy all that He is, God will do many things for us according to His precious and exceedingly great promises. This will enable us to enjoy His nature, what He is. One of His precious and exceedingly great promises is that His grace is sufficient for us (2 Cor. 12:9). God’s sufficient grace will work within us day by day so that we may enjoy His nature. (The Conclusion of the New Testament, pp. 63-64)

Whatever God is, is in His nature. Therefore, when we partake of the divine nature, we partake of the divine riches. Having received the divine life at the time of our regeneration, we must go on to enjoy what God is in His nature.

This enjoyment is both for the present and for eternity. For eternity we shall continue to partake of the divine nature. This is illustrated by the tree of life and the river of water of life [Rev. 22:1-2]. Out from the throne of God and the Lamb the river of life flows. This signifies God flowing out to be the enjoyment of His redeemed. That flowing river will saturate the entire city of New Jerusalem, and the tree of life that grows in and along the river will supply the redeemed with God as their life supply.

What is God’s nature? According to the New Testament, God is Spirit (John 4:24), love (1 John 4:8, 16), and light (1:5)... These [words] denote and describe the nature of God. God’s nature includes Spirit as the nature of God’s person, love as the nature of God’s essence, and light as the nature of God’s expression. Since God is dispensing Himself in His nature into us, the more we are under God’s dispensing, the more we have of His Spirit, love, and light.

We need to experience God’s dispensing in our marriage life. Married brothers and sisters, how do you react when your husband or wife gives you a difficult time? If you react in a negative way, this indicates that you are not under God’s dispensing. If you are under His dispensing and are receiving the Spirit into you more and more, you will not react in your flesh or in your emotion. Instead, you will react with the Spirit.

Because God is love as well as Spirit, the more we are under His dispensing, the more love we have. Actually, the more God’s nature is dispensed into us, the more we become love. This means that we not only have love but that we are love. When the New Testament says that God is love, this does not mean that God merely has love but that He is love. Through God’s dispensing of Himself into us, we become love in the sense of being constituted of God as love. When love as the nature of God’s essence is dispensed into us, we shall react to others in love. Only one kind of love is genuine, and that is the love that comes out of God’s dispensing. When we are under God’s dispensing, we react with genuine love, which is God Himself. (The Conclusion of the New Testament, pp. 64, 67, 69-70)