Morning Nourishment - Living Stones and Sheep
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Day 1
Verses: 1 Pet. 2:4-5 Coming to Him, a living stone, rejected by men but with God chosen and precious, you yourselves also, as living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house into a holy priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. In the New Testament the believers are…symbolized by stones and are called living stones (1 Pet. 2:5). These living stones are actually transformed sinners. When the Lord Jesus first looked at Peter, He said, “You are Simon, the son of John; you shall be called Cephas (which is interpreted, Peter [meaning ‘a stone’])” [John 1:42]. The significance of a stone is that it denotes a work of transformation to bring forth material for God’s building (1 Cor. 3:12). The stone in John 1:42 signifies the believers in Christ, after being born of God, regenerated by receiving Him (vv. 12-13) to be transformed into living precious stones. This is for the building of the church, the house of God (Matt. 16:18). We, the believers in Christ, are living stones, like Christ (1 Pet. 2:4), through regeneration and transformation. We were created of clay (Rom. 9:21). But at regeneration we received the seed of the divine life, which by its growth in us transforms us into living stones. At Peter’s conversion the Lord gave him a new name, Peter—a stone. When Peter received the revelation concerning Christ, the Lord revealed further that He also was the rock—a stone (Matt. 16:16-18). Peter was impressed by these two incidents that both Christ and His believers are stones for God’s building. (The Conclusion of the New Testament, pp. 1170-1171)
God’s goal in the believers is to have a house built up with living stones [1 Pet. 2:5]. He does not want separated and scattered stones, nor even a pile of stones merely gathered together. He wants stones built up with one another. The spiritual house into which we are being built is God’s building. Eventually, this building will consummate in the New Jerusalem…We are now becoming the precious stones that will be built up into the New Jerusalem. (The Conclusion of the New Testament, p. 1171) By our natural birth we are clay, not stones…Man was made from the dust of the ground [Gen. 2:7] . Romans 9 reveals that we are vessels of clay. How, then, can we become stones? We become stones through the process of transformation. When the Lord called…Peter a stone, that meant that he would certainly become a stone. Whatever the Lord says to us will be fulfilled. If He says, “You are gold,” then you will be golden. The Lord knew that when He changed Simon’s name to Peter, a stone, he would become a stone. In John 1:42 Peter was told that he was a stone. Then sometime later, in Caesarea Philippi, in answer to the Lord’s question, “Who do you say that I am?” Peter, receiving the revelation from the Father, said, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” To this the Lord Jesus replied, “And I also say to you that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church” (Matt. 16:18). Here the Lord indicated that He is the rock upon which the church is built and that Peter is a stone. We all are clay. How can we be built up? In order to be built up as a spiritual house, we need to become stones. But how can we actually become living stones? We become living stones by coming to Christ as the living stone (1 Pet. 2:4). We may use petrified wood as an illustration of transformation…Petrified wood is wood that has been changed into stone. Over a long period of time, water has been flowing over wood and through it. By means of this flow of water, the substance of the wood is changed into stone. On the one hand, the element of wood is carried away; on the other hand, the element of stone is brought in to replace the element of wood. In this way the wood becomes stone. (Life-study of 1 Peter, pp. 151-152) Further Reading: The Conclusion of the New Testament, msg. 108; Life-
Day 2
Verses: Zech. 4:7 …He will bring forth the topstone with shouts of Grace, grace to it! 3:9 For here is the stone that I have set before Joshua—upon one stone are seven eyes. I will engrave its engraving, declares Jehovah of hosts, and I will remove the iniquity of that land in one day. Jesus Christ is a stone for God’s building…According to Acts 4:12, this stone is the One in whom we can be saved. Hence, He is the Stone- Savior. As the Stone-Savior, He is solid, strong, and reliable…This stone is the rock, the foundation stone, and the cornerstone. In Zechariah 4:7 we see that He is even the topstone. Christ is the material for God’s building. God’s building is entirely of Christ. (Life-study of Acts, p. 125) The topstone with shouts of “Grace, grace to it!” signifies Christ, who is the grace as the stone, upon which are the seven eyes of Jehovah, the sevenfold intensified Spirit of God for the completion of the rebuilding of God’s temple (Zech. 3:9; 4:7-10; Rev. 5:6). To bring forth the topstone is to complete the building…For God’s building, Christ is a stone in three aspects. Christ is the foundation stone to uphold God’s building (Isa. 28:16; 1 Cor. 3:11), the cornerstone to join together the Gentile and Jewish members of His Body (Eph. 2:20; 1 Pet. 2:6), and the topstone to consummate God’s building. (Life- study of Zechariah, pp. 30-31)
Do you know what the Lord Jesus is today? He is the stone. He is the Lamb and the Lion in order to be the stone. Having removed the iniquity and having defeated all the enemies, He is now building…Now we can understand why, in His last visit to Jerusalem, the Lord Jesus indicated to the Jewish builders that they were rejecting not only the Lamb, the Redeemer, and the Lion, the Overcomer, but also the stone, the cornerstone. After His death and resurrection, the age became the age of the church, which is God’s building. For the building of the church, Christ is the rock. As He Himself told Peter, “You are a stone, and upon this rock I will build My church” (Matt. 16:18). After the crucifixion and the resurrection, the age became the age of the rock, the age of the stone. This is the age of building. It seems that throughout the centuries no one has ever realized that this age is not merely the age of redemption and of overcoming but mainly of the building. Christ today is the stone…Praise the Lord that He is now the Lion- Lamb-stone. His victory and His redemption both were for Him to be the stone. If He had not defeated the enemy and removed iniquity, there would have been no way for Him to accomplish God’s building work. Hallelujah, our Lord Jesus is now the Lion-Lamb-stone! This stone has seven eyes. This is the crucial point. These seven eyes are the seven Spirits of God, and the seven Spirits of God are the seven burning, flaming lamps. What is the function of the eyes? Certainly, it is seeing. The seven eyes of Christ, however, are not for seeing things but for Him to see us, to look at us. Undoubtedly, the seven eyes of the building stone are for transfusing and infusing. Whenever He looks at us, we can understand if He is happy or unhappy…By looking at us, He transfuses all that He is into our being…The seven Spirits of God are for the imparting of life because, in the Bible, the Spirit is the Spirit of life. The seven lamps are for enlightening, searching, exposing, and judging in God’s move. This is for God’s administration. The transfusing by the eyes, the imparting of life by the Spirits of God, and the enlightening, searching, exposing, and judging by the seven lamps are all found in the book of Revelation. All of this is for the New Jerusalem. Before we came into the church, we never heard anything like this. But after we were in the church, we experienced something shining in us to search out every secret of our entire life. (Life-study of Revelation, pp. 375-376) Further Reading: Life-study of Revelation, msgs. 22, 33, 68; CWWL, 1977,
Day 3
Verses: Dan. 2:34-35 …A stone was cut out without hands, and it struck the image at its feet of iron and clay and crushed them…And they became like chaff…; and the wind carried them away so that no trace of them was found. And the stone that struck the image became a great mountain and filled the whole earth. This stone cut out without hands is Christ…He was cut by God through His crucifixion and resurrection. Through His crucifixion He was cut by being put to death (Acts 2:23), and in His resurrection He was cut out to be, first, the cornerstone for the building up of the church and the crushing stone to destroy the totality of human government (v. 24; Matt. 21:42, 44b). At His appearing as the stone cut out not by human hands, Christ will crush the great image from the toes to the head…Revelation 19 speaks of the war between Christ and Antichrist. With Christ there will be His newly married bride, composed of the overcomers, and with Antichrist there will be the ten kings with their armies. This war will be a fighting of the earth against the heavens, of man against God. Christ will defeat and destroy Antichrist and the ten kings. According to Daniel 2:34-35a, this will entail the crushing of the entire human image from the toes to the head…This signifies the complete destruction of all human government from Nimrod to Antichrist. Human government will therefore be terminated by Christ at His appearing as the God-cut stone. (Life-study of Daniel, pp. 16-17)
The Bible reveals that Christ is a stone in three aspects. First, to the believers Christ is the foundation stone in whom they trust. Concerning this aspect of Christ as a stone, Isaiah 28:16 says, “Indeed I lay a stone in Zion as a foundation, / A tested stone, / A precious cornerstone as a foundation firmly established.” Second, to the unbelieving Jews Christ is the stumbling stone (8:14; Rom. 9:33). Regarding this aspect, Matthew 21:44a says, “He who falls on this stone shall be broken to pieces.” Third, to the nations Christ will be the smiting stone. “On whomever it falls, it shall crush him to powder and scatter him like chaff” (v. 44b). Daniel 2 reveals Christ as the smiting stone crushing the great human image and causing it to become like chaff carried away by the wind. (Life-study of Daniel, p. 17) By pray-reading we take the word of God into us. Usually when we speak of taking the word of God into us, we think of the word as nourishment… The nourishing word is for our building up, whereas the killing word deals with the enemy [see Eph. 6]. In this context we should pray-read the Word not mainly to receive nourishment but primarily to experience the sword as the killing instrument. The more we pray-read the Word, the more we should experience the killing power of the word. The sword is the only aspect of the armor that is for offensive warfare; that is, it is the only item of God’s armor used for attacking the enemy. Perhaps you are wondering what this has to do with our subjective experience of the killing power of the word. If we would understand this, we must see that in spiritual warfare we must deal not only with the objective enemy but even the more with the subjective adversary. Satan is not only the enemy outside us; he is also the adversary inside us… The attacks of the enemy from without are not as serious as those of the adversary from within. To deal with this inward adversary we need to experience the killing power of the word. Yes, the enemy is outside us, but his elements are within our very being…Since the enemy has injected himself into our being, what we need is for the killing power of the word to be applied to us to deal with the elements of the enemy within us. In our experience we eventually come to realize that the most difficult foe is the self. The self is our worst enemy. Many times we are tempted not by an objective enemy but by the self, our own inner being. (Life-study of Ephesians, pp. 796-797) Further Reading: Life-study of Daniel, msgs. 3—4; Life-study of Ephesians,
Day 4
Verses: Ezek. 34:11-13 For thus says the Lord Jehovah, I Myself, even I, will search for My sheep and seek them out…And I will deliver them from all the places where they have been scattered…And I will bring them out from the peoples and gather them from the countries and bring them into their own land, and I will feed them upon the mountains of Israel by the streams and in all the inhabited places of the land. Because of our fallen condition, we were all buried under many evil things, so we needed God to search for us. In Luke 15 we have both the shepherd (signifying Christ as the Shepherd) seeking the lost sheep and the woman (signifying the Spirit) lighting the lamp and searching within the house for the lost coin. The prodigal son then was drawn home by the searching of the Spirit. The Lord has done the same thing with us. He searched for us in order to save us and recover us. Before we were saved, we were buried under many sins, but the Lord Jesus sought us. Then after we were saved, we backslid into degraded Christianity, and we were buried under many things, such as doctrines, forms, and gifts. However, once again the Lord Jesus searched for us; He sought us out and brought us out. Now we are the ones who have been sought out by the Lord Jesus as the Shepherd. (Life-study of Ezekiel, pp. 175-176)
Ezekiel prophesied that as the Shepherd, the Lord would bring His people, His sheep, out of the nations [Ezek. 34:12-13a]. This also has been our experience…As sinners or when we became backsliders,…although we were living like unbelievers among billions of others on earth, the Lord Jesus sought us out and brought us out of the nations, out of the unbelievers…Formerly, you were the same as the unbelievers, but one day the Lord Jesus as the Shepherd sought you and brought you out from among the unbelievers and brought you to Himself. In verse 13b the Lord went on to say that He would bring His people back to their own land. They were in captivity in heathen countries, but the Lord promised to bring them back to their own country, to the good land of Canaan. Our good land is Christ. Before we were saved or after we backslid, we were separated from Christ. But the Lord sought us out and brought us back to Himself and even into Himself as our good land…The good land today is also in the church life. Thus, when we were brought back to Christ, we were also brought to the church life, where we have the riches and the enjoyment of the good land. The Lord promised to bring His people back not only to their own land but also to the mountains of the heights (vv. 13-14)…This indicates that the Lord Jesus brings us back to the experience of the resurrected and ascended Christ. The Lord also said that He would bring His people back to the streams (v. 13). These streams signify the life-giving Spirit, the living water of the Spirit. From the mountains, the resurrected and ascended Christ, the living water of the Spirit flows. The Spirit of life flows forth from Christ in His resurrection and ascension. After the Lord sought us out and brought us back to Himself, we not only returned to Christ in the transcendent position of His ascension, but we also began to drink of the Spirit as the living water. Furthermore, verse 13 says that the Lord would feed His flock by the streams. We can testify that in the local churches we have the sense that the Lord Jesus is feeding us day by day by the streams of living water. While we were in the denominations, we had the sense of dryness and drought, but once we came into the meetings of the local churches, we began to have the sense that we had been brought back to the streams and that by these streams we were being fed by the Lord Jesus. Something was flowing there as a stream, and we were by the side of the stream enjoying the riches of Christ. (Life-study of Ezekiel, pp. 176-178) Further Reading: The Conclusion of the New Testament, msg. 109; Life-
Day 5
Verses: Ezek. 34:14-15 I will feed them with good pasture, and their dwelling place will be upon the mountains of the heights of Israel; there they will lie down in a good dwelling place, and on rich pasture they will feed upon the mountains of Israel. I Myself will shepherd My flock, and I will cause them to lie down, declares the Lord Jehovah. Whereas the streams signify the life-giving Spirit, the pasture signifies Christ [Ezek. 34:13-14]. By the streams we have the rich Christ as our pasture. The streams are for our drinking, and the pasture is for our eating. In the meetings of the local churches, we do have the sense that we are by the streams and in the pasture, that we are drinking and eating. Praise the Lord that we are under the care of our Shepherd, drinking by the streams and feeding in the pasture! In verse 15…to lie down means not to work, struggle, and strive…In Song of Songs 1:7 the seeker asked the Lord where He pastured His flock, where He made His flock lie down at noon. Whenever the Lord feeds us, shepherds us, and gives us something to drink, He also gives us rest. In the church meetings we often have the sense that we are lying down to rest. Outwardly, we are sitting, but inwardly, we are lying down to rest. (Life-study of Ezekiel, pp. 178-179)
As the Shepherd, the Lord will bind up the broken one and heal the sick one [Ezek. 34:16a]. How we need the Lord’s binding and healing! Frequently in the church meetings we have the sense that we are under the tender binding of the Lord and that the wounds and the broken places are being bound up by Him. At other times we may sense that we are experiencing His strengthening, His healing. Only after He gives us the life supply, binds up our wounds, and heals us can all the unjust things among us be cleared away. However, if we lack the Lord’s supply, binding, and healing, we will condemn others, blame others, and complain about others. If we condemn and blame one another, we cannot be in harmony with one another. But as the Lord recovers us by life, we have genuine revival, we have the enjoyment of Christ, which causes us to be satisfied, restful, and peaceful, and we experience the Lord’s binding and healing. The One who nourishes us and supplies us causes us to have an accurate sense concerning our relationships with the brothers and sisters. When we have such a sense, we judge ourselves, and as a result, we have a genuine oneness with the saints as the one flock. Verse 23 goes on to say, “And I will set up over them one Shepherd, My Servant David, and He will feed them; He will feed them, and He will be their Shepherd.” David typifies Christ. Christ is the real David, the real Shepherd, feeding us and causing us to be filled and satisfied. As our Shepherd, Christ takes care of us, including all our problems and responsibilities. He takes care of us not only in spiritual things but in all things related to our human needs. This means that, according to Psalm 23, He takes care of us in every aspect of our living. Since the Lord Jesus is our Shepherd taking care of us, we should not worry about our problems or about our living. Instead, we need to learn to put our trust in Him. At the end of the day, it is very good to pray to the Lord as our Shepherd. There is no need to pray at length in a formal, religious way. Simply say, “Lord Jesus, I thank You that I am under Your care. Now I am going to sleep, and I ask You to come and take care of me.” Such a simple prayer is good enough. When you wake up in the morning, you say, “Lord, I thank You that I am still under Your care.” There is no need to be religious, asking the Lord to protect you and do many other things for you. As He cares for us, He feeds us, and we have the real experience of Psalm 23: The Lord is our Shepherd, and we lack nothing. May we all learn to experience Christ as our Shepherd. (Life-study of Ezekiel, pp. 179-181) Further Reading: Life-study of Ezekiel, msg. 16
Day 6
Verses: Ezek. 34:25-26 And I will make with them a covenant of peace and banish evil beasts from the land, so that they will dwell securely in the wilderness and sleep in the woods. And I will make them and the places around My hill a blessing, and I will cause the showers to come down in their season; there will be showers of blessing. Certain portions of Ezekiel speak of God’s covenant with Israel. Ezekiel 16:60 and 62 say, “Nevertheless I will remember My covenant with you in the days of your youth, and I will establish an eternal covenant for you…And I will establish My covenant with you, and you will know that I am Jehovah.” In 37:26a the Lord promised, “I will also make a covenant of peace with them; it shall be an everlasting covenant with them.” Once a matter has been covenanted, it is established and secure and it cannot be changed…As we experience the Lord’s shepherding and remain under His kingship, we enjoy His peace and are no longer subject to spiritual troubles and disturbances. (Life-study of Ezekiel, pp. 181-182)
Ezekiel 34:25a says…that, under the Lord’s shepherding, all the evil beasts will be kept away from the Lord’s recovered people…In the proper church life there are no wolves, only lambs. In His recovery the Lord banishes evil beasts. In Ezekiel 34:27 the Lord promised to break all the yokes, including the yokes of sin and the world…Jesus breaks every fetter! In the local churches we have no yokes. Instead, we have full liberty and full release. Verse 27 also indicates that the Lord delivers us from all kinds of slavery…The more we enjoy the Lord’s shepherding, the more we are liberated from every kind of slavery. [In verse 28a] the Lord promised that those in His recovery would never be prey to the enemy. This means that they would never be defeated or captured by the enemy. In the church life we share the spoil of the Lord’s recovery, of the Lord’s victory. Instead of struggling to gain the victory, we are simply enjoying the victory of the Lord. Eventually, the Lord promised that all those in His recovery would dwell in peace and security. Verse 25b says, “They will dwell securely in the wilderness and sleep in the woods”; verse 27b says, “They will be secure in their land”; and verse 28b says, “They will dwell securely, and no one will make them afraid.” This indicates that we will dwell securely and restfully in Christ, without any fear. In Christ we have peace. In verse 15 we have the phrase lie down, and in verse 25, the word sleep. Under the Lord’s shepherding, it is safe to sleep even in the woods. In the Lord’s recovery, there is no need for us to be afraid of anything…In the proper church life in the Lord’s recovery, there is nothing for you to be afraid of. In such a church we have the sense of security…There should never be a situation in the church life that causes you to be fearful. For instance, you should never be afraid to talk to an elder or to an older sister. The Lord promised not only that His people would receive His blessing but also that He would make them a blessing [v. 26a]. If there is the peace that is the peace of the covenant, the Lord’s blessing will follow. First, we ourselves will enjoy the Lord’s blessing, and then He will cause us to become a source of blessing to others so that they may be supplied. God will cause the showers of blessing to come down in their season [v. 26b]…There will be timely rain. As we are abiding in Christ, the rain, the Holy Spirit, will often come upon us. Sometimes even at home after the meeting, we have the sense that the showers of blessing are still coming down upon us. This is the strongest sign that the Lord’s blessing is upon the local church. He sends us showers of blessing in season, so timely. (Life-study of Ezekiel, pp. 182-184) Further Reading: Life-study of Numbers, msg. 11; The Intrinsic Problem