The Removing of Self to become Pure Gold
To become a component of New Jerusalem we first need to receive Christ as our Savior, our Redeemer, and our Life. This brings an amount of spiritual gold into us. Now we need to gain more of this divine element.
We dearly need to obtain more of God, to be filled with the Spirit, and to know more of Christ. But there is another work—it is not of increasing but of reducing. God’s basic work is to reduce us. From the day we were saved, God has been doing this work, and the instrument for this work of subtraction is the cross. The work of the cross is to cancel out….Within us there is so much that is refuse. There are so many things that are not of God, which do not bring glory to Him. God wants to remove all of these things through the cross so that we may become pure gold.*
Second Corinthians 4:7 says we have Christ as the treasure in us, who are earthen vessels. Verses 10-11 say, “Always bearing about in the body the putting to death of Jesus that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body. For we who are alive are always being delivered unto death for Jesus’ sake that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh.”
This putting to death is the removal of things not of God, as mentioned in the quote above. This putting to death is also the renewing of the Spirit, which eliminates our old nature and brings in the new nature. This renewing is the Spirit applying in us the death of Christ to discharging our natural being and impart the newness of New Jerusalem into us.
* From chapter 5 of The Glorious Church by Watchman Nee, published and © by Living Stream Ministry, available at www.ministrybooks.org/ and www.livingstream.com/en/the-church/8012401-glorious-church-the.html.
Posted by Don on June 20, 2022
