It's the Lord's Day

All of the meetings have been exceptional lately. The ministry meeting, prayer meetings, home meeting, and today's meetings were awesome. With all of this going on, how can anyone be upset or discouraged? The church life is wonderful!

Anyway it's a great mountain. The good land is filled with mountains and valleys. Though the valleys lie ahead, they come with rivers, brooks, streams—all kinds of sources of water, supply, refreshment. The Lord is faithful, and His supply never fails. May I remain an open vessel, opening increasingly day by day. A brother shared with me not too long ago that what matters the most to the Lord is that our vessel remains open to Him. Regardless of what our situation may be, as long as we are open to the Lord, He has a way to supply you with Himself, dispensing more of Himself into you, and this is everything. Everything is to open our vessel more and more to the Lord, allowing Him to do His transforming work within us. Do it, Lord!!

Also amazing is the story of Mary mentioned in Matthew 26:6-13, and in other places in the other gospels. The title of the message for today's meeting was "The Faith of the Gospel and the Goal of the Gospel". I believe most of the saints were touched on the matter of Mary breaking the alabaster flask and pouring out the ointment on the Lord. The disciples called it a waste, but the Lord said that it was a noble deed done, and that whenever the gospel is preached on the earth, the story of Mary would also be told as a memorial. So the gospel is the story of how the Lord loved us, and the story of Mary is the story of how she loved the Lord, and "wasted" what was most precious on Him. This is the goal of the gospel, because this is what the gospel should produce—not merely persons saved from eternal perdition, but ones who would love the Lord with the first love, giving Him the preeminence in all things, willing to "waste" everything, including their own lives, entirely on the Lord. Yet this matter was preceded by the faith of the gospel, showing to us our need to develop this faith within us until we actually have something to pour out on the Lord. Anyway it's already late and I don't have much utterance to share the message in a good way…. if you want to read it, it's here. Also, there's a message by Watchman Nee on the matter that I HIGHLY recommend called "Waste and Pragmatism" (Go to chapter 2).