Posts

Showing posts from December, 2013

Spiritual Struggles

On my post last week concerning the transitioning from the living of a life of struggle to the living of grace , I ended with a question: What does that mean " to have all your spiritual struggles interwoven with life and joined to life "? This question originates from a quote from the book, "The Bridge and Channel of God" by Witness Lee: "The question you should ask is: How can one come out of a life of struggle and self-effort and enter into a living of spiritual spontaneity? The answer to this question is that you need to have all your spiritual struggles interwoven with life and joined to life. Then at a certain stage you will spontaneously be joined to the automatic law of life. In Romans 8 this law is called 'the law of the Spirit of life.' " Before going into further elaboration, I would like to point out that there are three words for life in Greek. The first is bios , which means the physical life; the root word of biology. The second i

The Living a Life of Struggle and The Living of Grace

Image
Recently I have been reading a book entitled " The Bridge and Channel of God " by Witness Lee. The first four chapters of this book were spoken to college-age Christians in 1953. Some of these chapters consist of very practical spiritual questions and answers. Today I'd like to write about one of the questions asked by one of the college students in the book: How do we go from a living of grace to a living of reality? Firstly, the book clarifies that according to the truth, grace is reality: "In fact, Christ, life, grace, and reality are one." However, the author continues to expound on the two levels of the Christian living. The first level of living being a living of self-struggle, where you use your own strength to enjoy God's grace. For instance, when someone speaks unpleasant words to you, you will patiently smile and try not to lose your temper. Seemingly this is a proper thing to do, yet it involves self-effort. The second level of living