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‹  WEEK 11 — DAY 3  ›› 
Morning Nourishment

Phil. 2:12 "So then, my beloved, even as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence
only but now much rather in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and
trembling."

Gen. 7:7 "And Noah and his sons and his wife and his sons' wives with him went into the
ark because of the waters of the flood."

     Today we are saved. But we still need to work on Christ. Noah also was saved before he began working on the ark. If he were not saved, how could he have been charged to work together with God? By the time God came and charged Noah to build the ark, he was already walking with God and in the eyes of God was a righteous man in that age (Gen. 6:9)....Since he was already saved, why did he need to build the ark? He needed further salvation from the corrupted world.

     Paul told us in Philippians 2:12 that we need to be obedient and to work out our own salvation with fear and trembling. Although we have been saved, we still need to work out our salvation. God's salvation is not so short or so brief or so simple. God's salvation has a long span. We have to enter into God's salvation and to go through from one end of God's salvation to the other end. (The Divine Dispensing of the Divine Trinity, p. 28)

Today's Reading

     Today we are in the passage of God's salvation. We have entered into this passage. Now we are going through this passage, and our going through is our working....The more [Noah] built the ark, the more he passed through God's salvation. Eventually he entered into what he worked out (Gen. 7:7). Dear saints, the very Christ you are building up will become your future salvation. One day under God's sovereignty you will enter into the very Christ whom you have built up.

     If you work together with the Lord in your daily experience, you surely build up something of Christ, and eventually you get into what you have built up, and you dwell in this Christ as your enjoyment. Then you abide in Christ. Many Christians realize that John 15 speaks of abiding in Christ, but not many know what it means to abide in Christ. First you need to build up Christ. If you do not build up Christ, you have no Christ to abide in. Doctrinally this may sound strange, but experientially it is right. You have Christ, but do you abide in Christ? We may have Christ in doctrine and yet have no Christ in experience to abide in. Just to have Christ in doctrine means nothing. You need to have Christ in your experience. Just to believe in Christ is sufficient for you to have Him. But to abide in Christ needs some building up. You have to build up Christ for you to abide in Him. What does it mean to build up Christ? By your
experience you know. You have to love Him. You have to talk to Him by calling on His name. You have to live by Him. You have to pass through all the experiences of Adam and Abel and Enosh and Enoch, and then you have to come to be Noah. Then you will have something built up.

     If you spend from Monday through Saturday loving the Lord, fellowshipping with Him, living by Him, and walking together with Him, surely on the Lord's Day you would have the deep sensation that you are in Christ. You would have a practical and present Christ for you to abide in. But if, on the other hand, you spent from Monday through Saturday not loving the Lord and not fellowshipping with Him, not living in Him, and not walking with Him, even if you wanted to abide in Him today, you would feel that He is absent. In your experience He is not with you....This would mean that for the past week you did not build Christ. You did not work on the ark. So when the flood came, you had no ark to enter into. But when you love Him and fellowship with Him and live by Him and walk with Him day after day and hour after hour,
you build Him up in your experience. You build up a Christ in your experience for you to enter into as your salvation. We all need to build up Christ. (The Divine Dispensing of the Divine Trinity, pp. 28-30)

Further Reading: The Divine Dispensing of the Divine Trinity, ch. 3; The Experience and Growth in Life, msgs. 13-14