We need to see
a vision of the self
so that the self
may be exposed and denied
and that we may hate
our independence from God and from the Body.
The self
is the soul-life
with the emphasis on
human thoughts and opinions.
In Matthew 16:23-25
three terms
are related to one another:
mind, himself, and soul-life.
Our mind
is the expression of our self,
and our self
is the embodiment of our soul-life.
Our soul-life
is embodied and lived out by our self,
and our self
is expressed through
our mind, idea, thought, concept, and opinion.
The self is the embodiment of Satan;
the self is the essence of Satan in the soul,
making the soul independent from God
to express its self-opinion and self-will :
The origin of the self
was Satan’s injecting his thought
into the human mind.
The soul became the self
when something of Satan was added to the soul;
the thing that was added to the soul
was the thought, or the mind, of Satan.
The self is
the soul plus the satanic mind.
If we have a vision of the self,
we will see
what the self is
—the self is
the soul declaring its independence from God :
Due to the fall,
the soul created by God
declared independence from God :
Man took the thought, the idea, of Satan
into his soul,
resulting in the soul becoming the self,
which is independent of God.
The soul is especially independent of God
in the opinion and in the will :
The self is something of Satan in the soul
expressed through the opinions.
We have opinions
as the incarnation and manifestation of the self
because we are independent of God;
the more we are independent of God,
the more we have opinions
as the manifestation of the self.
Whenever we do something by ourselves
without depending on God,
we are in the self.
Being independent of the Body
is equal to
being independent of God.
The hindrance
to seeing the vision of the Body
and to practicing the Body life
is the self:
The Body is versus the self,
and the self is the enemy of the Body.
Because the self is something
independent of the Lord and of the Body,
the self is the greatest problem
to the building up of the Body :
When we have the self,
we do not have the Body.
When we have the Body,
we do not have the self.
We should deny ourselves
and identify ourselves with the Body;
if we do this,
the life we live
will fully be the Body life,
and the Lord will gain
the expression of His Body.
In order for the Body to be built up,
the self, the independent soul,
must be condemned, denied, rejected, and renounced.
We should deny the self,
take up our cross,
and follow the Lord :
For a person to overly care for himself
is for him to love the self
and to always look at, think about, and consider himself.
To deny the self
is to forget about our self
and to forfeit our soul-life;
losing the soul-life
is the reality of denying the self.
We need to see
how to deny the self,
to deal with the self:
We need to have the revelation
that our old man
has been crucified with Christ.
After seeing this revelation,
we need to recognize and accept this fact.
We need to apply to ourselves the death of Christ
that He accomplished
and that we have recognized;
this is the correct meaning
of bearing the cross :
This application
must be carried out
in the Spirit.
When we live and walk in the Spirit,
the Spirit applies the death of Christ to us.
To bear the cross
is to remain
under the killing of the death of Christ
for the terminating of
our self, natural life, and old man;
in so doing,
we deny the self
so that we may follow the Lord, the resurrected Christ,
as the life-giving Spirit in our spirit.
It is crucial
that we deny the self
and take Christ as our person
for the church life
as the living of the one new man :
In the one new man
there is only one person
—Christ.
It is vitally important
for us to know
that our spirit
is the inner man
and that the person of this inner man
is Christ :
If we would take Christ as our person,
we must see
that our spirit is not merely an organ
—our spirit is our person.
We should deny our self, our own person,
and live by our spirit, our new person.
For the church life as the living of this new man,
we must reject our old person
and live by Christ as our new person.
We need an absolute consecration
of handing ourselves over to the Lord
and yielding our person to Him
so that He can be our person;
our consecration
is to take Christ as our person.
Hits: 0
7 replies on “The Vision of the Self”
Prophecy note, 14 September 2014
If we learn the lesson in our family life
of being dependent on God,
when anything happens,
the husbands, wives, and all the members
will not express an opinion.
Rather, they will say,
“Let’s go to God.
Let’s seek the Lord’s mind.”
In this case,
there will be no trouble.
This is the right way.
If we learn this lesson in the family,
when we come to the church life,
we will act in the same way.
We will say,
“Brothers, let’s go to the Lord.
Let’s pray and wait on Him.”
We will all be
subdued by the Lord
and dependent on the Lord.
We must not say,
“I feel,” “I think,”
or “In my opinion.”
This is the self.
If we see the vision of the self,
we will realize
that we can no longer be independent of God.
Then we will say,
“I must depend on God all the time.
Whatever I do,
I must depend on God.
Whatever I am,
I must depend on God.”
In order to be built up,
we need to be opened, exposed, and broken.
We should be able to present ourselves
to others in fellowship
and tell them
that we are ready for
whatever is necessary
to be built up with them.
God’s intention
is to have the church,
and this church
must be the Body.
We must be built up in the Body,
but the hindrance to this building
is the self,
one of the last things in us
to be dealt with by the Lord.
If we would be built up in the Body,
the self must be condemned, denied,
rejected, and renounced.
Day by day
the self must be renounced in all things.
Only when the self is renounced
will we
have the Body
and be genuine members of the Body.
Day 6
We must know
that our spirit is the inner man
and that Christ is the person of this inner man.
In the past
we experienced the power of Christ,
and for this,
our spirit as an organ
was sufficient.
But now
we need to experience the person of Christ,
and for this,
we must know
our spirit as the inner man.
To take Christ as our person
means to deny the self.
The self is our fallen person.
We must deny our person
and take Christ as our person.
Many of us
can testify
that the Lord Jesus has listened to our prayers.
If the Lord did not listen to prayer,
we would not even be saved.
However, after being saved
for a period of time,
it seems as if the Lord no longer listens to us.
This is
because He wants us to listen to Him.
The Lord wants us to put ourselves aside
and let Him be our person.
At some point
we will not even ask for things;
we will only speak of our situation in prayer
in order to hear
His feeling and His leading as our person.
There are two persons
in every believer.
Before a believer is saved,
his person is in his soul,
but after being saved,
there is another person in his spirit.
Hence, there are two persons
in every believer.
According to the Bible,
one of the persons within us
has been crucified
and must be denied.
Romans 6:6 says
that our old man, that is, the person in our soul,
has been crucified with Christ.
Even though the person of our soul
has been crucified and must be denied,
the function of our soul
has been preserved.
This means
that the life of the soul
needs to be killed,
but the faculties of our soul
—the mind, emotion, and will—
have to be renewed.
Being crucified with Christ
does not mean
that we no longer use our mind
or that we no longer express any emotion.
Rather, it means
that the corrupted life in our soul, our old man,
has been crucified
in order for the faculties of the soul
to be renewed.
We must be clear
concerning this matter.
Formerly, our soul was our person,
but today our spirit is our person.
Formerly, the spirit was an organ,
but now the soul is an organ.
We should not let
our soul voice its opinions
or take the lead.
This is to deny
the expression of our soul as our person.
However, when we need to remember certain things,
we can utilize
the faculty of our mind as an organ
related to memory.
Thus, our soul is no longer our person
but merely an organ.
Our spirit is our person today.
If we would take Christ as our person,
we must see
that our spirit is not merely an organ
for us to contact God;
we must see
that our spirit is our person.
Thus, we must deny our soul-life, our own person,
and live by our spirit, our new person.
The Lord Jesus
is this new person.
In Ephesians 1
our spirit is an organ;
in chapter 3
our spirit is our inner man.
In chapter 1
our spirit is an organ
for us to experience the power of Christ;
in chapter 3
our spirit is our inner man
for us to take Christ as our person.
Absolute consecration
means to hand ourselves over to the Lord
and to take Him as our person.
Once we take the Lord as our person,
we will have no problems:
we can be either poor or rich,
we can be abounding or be in want,
and we can be either filled or hungry.
In everything
we can learn
the secret of taking Christ as our person.
Day 5
For a person to overcare for himself
is to always look at, think about, and consider himself.
This is not to care about
his living, eating, and drinking;
rather, it is to always consider
whether he is proud or humble,
whether he is really with the Lord,
whether he is proper,
or whether he has offended anyone.
With such a one,
ninety-nine percent of what he has
may be his self,
and one percent
is the Lord.
He is mostly occupied with the self
to care for the self.
For this kind of person,
many failures become his helpers.
Failures make a person bankrupt
in caring for his self.
Many believers need to care for their character,
but an introspective person
should forget about his character.
The more he builds up his character,
the more he is in the self.
This kind of character building
simply helps him to analyze himself more.
Day by day
he checks to see
if he is genuine and real.
This becomes
a very serious hindrance
to his spiritual growth.
Rather, spiritual growth
depends on the denial of the self,
and the denial of the self
simply means to forget about the self.
There are two problems with fallen man:
sin in the body
and the self in the soul.
After we have been saved,
we need to deal with these two matters.
Here we will see
how to deal with the self.
First, we need to have the revelation
that our old man has been crucified on the cross.
The soul is the life of the old man,
and the self is in the soul.
Our old man, that is, the soul-life, our self,
has been crucified on the cross.
We need to see, to have the revelation of, this fact.
Second, after we have seen
that the old man has been crucified on the cross,
we recognize and accept the fact.
We say,
“Lord, praise You,
I have been crucified!”
We even tell the enemy, the devil,
“Satan, I have been crucified!”
Third, we need to apply to ourselves the death of Christ
that He accomplished
and that we have recognized.
This is the correct meaning
of bearing the cross.
When we recognize
that we have been crucified on the cross,
we receive this fact.
Now, because we have been put on the cross,
we receive the cross
and put it on us.
In this way
we bear the cross day by day
to put the self to death.
This application must be carried out
in the Holy Spirit.
It is in the Spirit
that we bear the cross.
When we are living and walking in the Spirit,
the Spirit applies the death of Christ to us.
Step by step, day by day, moment by moment,
and even event by event
we check our self, opinion, will, thought, and concept
by the Spirit.
The Holy Spirit checks us all the time,
and when we are checked by the Holy Spirit,
we are willing to put the self under Christ’s death,
that is, to put the cross upon the self,
to apply the Lord’s death to the self.
This application of the cross
is always in the Spirit and by the Spirit.
This is
why we must contact the Lord
and fellowship with the Lord.
The self needs to be crossed out.
For dealing with the self,
we need to bear the cross.
This means
that we must remain under the killing
of the death of Christ
for the terminating of our self.
The self is
so living, active, and aggressive,
so we need to apply the cross
every day and all day long.
If our self is crossed out,
the ministry will be wonderful,
the eldership will be wonderful,
all the services will be wonderful,
and there will be
no problem, no dissension, and no division among us.
The self
is a great, hidden, damaging factor
to our service in the church.
We need to share this lesson with the saints
with the ministry of life
to give them
a deep impression of our need
to deny the self.
Day 4
Seeing the vision of the self
has much to do with the Body.
Today we are in the Lord’s recovery,
and the recovery will eventually come to this crucial matter
—the building up of the Body.
The enemy of the Body
is the self.
The greatest problem,
the greatest frustration and opposition,
to the Body
is also the self.
When we have the self,
we do not have the Body.
When we have the Body,
we do not have the self.
In order for the Body to be built up,
the self, the independent soul,
must be dealt with.
The self is
the independent “I,” the independent “me.”
When we are independent,
we are in the self,
the Body is gone,
and we do not have peace.
The hindrance to the building up of the Body
is the self.
Certain brothers and sisters
have seen something of Christ and of the church
and have come to the ground of the church.
However, they have never opened themselves to others.
Outwardly,
they do not criticize the elders,
and they seem to be very nice,
but inwardly,
they are critical.
The problem with them
is not sin
—it is the self.
This indicates
that in order to be built up,
we need to be opened, exposed, and broken.
We should be able to present ourselves to others in fellowship
and tell them
that we are ready
for whatever is necessary
to be built up with them.
The Lord intends to build up
a real expression of the Body.
His desire is not
that we simply come together and meet together
but that we be built up together.
Oh, how we need the vision of the Body!
We need to be burdened to pray,
“Lord, help me to see the vision of the Body.
It is not good enough
just to be a Christian and a member of the church.
I must be built up in the Body.
In a practical way,
I must be a member of the living Body.
I must have fellowship with others
and be related to others
in the Body.”
God’s intention
is to have the church,
and this church
must be the Body.
We must be built up in the Body,
but the hindrance to this building
is the self,
one of the last things in us
to be dealt with by the Lord.
If we would be built up in the Body,
the self must be condemned, denied, rejected, and renounced.
Day by day
the self must be renounced in all things.
Only when the self is renounced
will we have the Body
and be genuine members of the Body.
It is by the Body
that God’s purpose will be fulfilled;
it is by the Body
that Christ will be expressed;
and it is by the Body
that the enemy of God
will be defeated.
Nothing is as worthy as the Body.
Not even the preaching of the gospel
is as worthy as the Body.
Nothing can compare with
the building up of the Body.
May we all see the vision of the Body
and be captured by this vision.
In doing things,
our motive, intention, aim, and goal
may all be right,
but if we are independent,
we are in the self.
This may be our situation
even in preaching the gospel,
for we may preach the gospel
in the self and by the self.
We may also do certain other works for the Lord,
but we may do them
in the self and by the self.
In Matthew 16:21-26,
Peter was not doing something evil to the Lord.
On the contrary,
he was acting out of love for Him
and intended to do something good for Him.
Nevertheless, because Peter was independent of the Lord,
the Lord turned to Peter and said,
“Get behind Me, Satan!”
This indicates
that no matter what we do,
even if it is something very good,
we are in the self
whenever we are independent of the Lord.
He has regard for our dependence on Him.
If we are dependent on the Lord,
we are spontaneously dependent on the Body.
Day 3
The origin of the self
was Satan’s injecting his thought
into the human mind.
The self is the soul
being independent of God.
Whenever the soul is not dependent on God
but is independent of Him,
the soul immediately becomes the self.
This means
that whenever we do something by ourselves
without depending on God,
we are in the self.
No matter what we are
and no matter what we do,
as long as we are independent of God,
we are in the self.
God created man as a soul
to be always dependent on Him.
Man is a soul,
and as a soul
he should depend on God for everything.
We may use married life
as an illustration of the dependence of the soul on God.
A wife should depend on her husband.
This is indicated
by a bride’s wearing a head covering
on her wedding day.
Her wearing a head covering
signifies that she will take her husband as her head
and will depend on him.
Otherwise, there will be two heads,
and this will lead to
contradicting, fighting, and even divorce.
Just as a wife should depend on her husband,
so the soul should depend on God.
However, the soul has become the self.
The self is simply the soul
declaring independence from God.
If we have the vision of the self,
we will see
what the self is—
the soul declaring its independence from God.
If we see this vision,
we will realize
that we can no longer be independent of God.
Then we will say,
“I must depend on God all the time.
Whatever I do,
I must depend on God.
Whatever I am,
I must depend on God.”
Because the self is something independent,
the self is the greatest problem
to the building up of the Body.
We should be dependent not only on God
but also on the Body, on the brothers and sisters.
Whenever we are independent of the brothers and sisters,
we are in the self, in the independent soul.
For us today,
being independent of the Body
is equal to being independent of God.
This is a matter not of doctrine
but of experience.
If you check with your experience,
you will realize
that when you were independent of the brothers and sisters,
you had the sense
that you were also independent of God.
Likewise,
when you were isolated from the brothers and sisters,
you had the sense
that you were also isolated from God.
When some hear this,
they may say,
“Isn’t the Lord omnipresent?
Since the Lord is everywhere,
I can have His presence anywhere.
I can have the Lord’s presence
in my home or in any other place.”
However, having the Lord’s presence
depends on
whether or not you are dependent on the Body
and are rightly related to the Body.
If you are rightly related to the Body,
you will have the Lord’s presence in every place.
But if you are not rightly related to the Body,
then no matter where you may be,
you will not have the Lord’s presence.
Therefore, having the Lord’s presence
depends on our relationship with the Body.
If we are wrong with the Body,
we will not sense
that we have the Lord’s presence.
If we are right with the Body,
we will have the sense of His presence
wherever we may go.
In order to be dependent on the Lord,
we must be dependent on the Body.
If we are dependent on the Body,
then we will also be dependent on the Lord.
You may wonder
why you do not have a deep sense
of the Lord’s presence.
You do not have the Lord’s presence,
because you are isolated from the Body,
because you are not properly related to
the members of the Body.
Endeavor to be built up
and to be right with the Body.
If you are right with the Body
and are built up in the Body,
you will surely sense the Lord’s presence.
Day 2
The self is the embodiment of Satan.
As Christ is the embodiment of God,
so the self is the embodiment of Satan.
This is indicated by the fact
that the Lord Jesus said to Peter,
“Get behind Me, Satan!”
The Lord was speaking to Peter,
yet He called Peter Satan
because Satan was embodied in Peter.
Where was Satan embodied?
Satan was embodied in Peter’s soul
by occupying his mind.
The mind is
the leading part of the soul
and the representative of the soul.
To take over a person’s mind
is to take over the entire person.
The body became the flesh
because something of Satan—sin—
was injected into it.
The soul became the self
when something of Satan
was added to the soul.
The thing that was added to the soul
was the thought, or the mind, of Satan.
Therefore, the self is
the soul plus the satanic mind, the mind of Satan.
When the mind, the thought, of Satan
was injected into the human soul,
the human soul
was corrupted and became the self.
In the soul
there is the self,
in the self
there is the mind,
and in the mind
there is the opinion.
Just as sin is something of Satan in the body,
the self is something of Satan in the soul
expressed mostly through the opinions.
If we learn this lesson,
whenever we come together,
we will be afraid
to have opinions.
This is not only so in the church life
but even in the family life.
There is trouble today in families
simply because the husband has the husband’s opinion,
the wife has the wife’s opinion,
and within both of the opinions
there is Satan.
The result is sometimes separation, then divorce.
If all the wives would learn the lesson
to depend on God
and give up their own opinion,
do you think there would be divorce?
How nice it would be
if all the husbands also
would give up their opinion
and depend on God.
The trouble is simply due to the fact
that each one expresses an opinion,
everyone is independent of the Lord,
and everyone is full of
the self, opinion, and reasoning.
If we learn the lesson in our family life
of being dependent on God,
when anything happens,
the husbands, wives, and all the members
will not express an opinion.
Rather, they will say,
“Let us go to God.
Let us seek the Lord’s mind.”
In this case,
there will be no trouble.
This is the right way.
If we learn this lesson in the family,
when we come to the church life,
we will act in the same way.
We will say,
“Brothers, let us go to the Lord.
Let us pray and wait on Him.”
We will all be subdued by the Lord
and dependent on the Lord.
We must not say,
“I feel,” “I think,” or “In my opinion.”
This is the self.
In Matthew 16
Peter had been
under the revelation of the heavenly Father,
but just a short time later
he was utilized by Satan.
In one moment
he spoke something from the heavenly Father,
and a moment later
he spoke something from Satan.
Now we can see
the meaning of the self.
Self is the very essence of Satan in the soul,
making the soul independent of God
to express its self-opinion and self-will.
This is the best definition of the self.
Whenever we are independent of God
and have an opinion or will,
we have the self with Satan,
who is in the self.
If we realize this meaning,
and we apply it to our daily life,
we will see
that day by day
this is the problem with every one of us.
Why are children disobedient to their parents?
It is simply
because their soul, their mind, their will,
is independent from the parents.
They have their own opinion,
and they even have their own will.
That is the self,
and Satan is in the self.
Day 1
We need to learn the lessons
regarding the self
so that we may be built up in the Body.
As we are considering this matter of the self,
I would urge you
to receive more grace
so that the self might be exposed.
In being built up with others,
the greatest problem
is the self.
Three terms in Matthew 16:23-25
are related to one another:
mind, himself, and soul-life.
Our mind
is the expression of our self,
and our self
is the embodiment of our soul-life.
Our soul-life
is embodied in and lived out by our self,
and our self
is expressed through
our mind, our thought, our concept, our opinion.
When we set our mind
not on the things of God
but on the things of men,
our mind grasps the opportunity
to act and express itself.
This was
what happened with Peter.
Hence, the Lord’s subsequent word
indicated that Peter had to deny himself,
that is, not save his soul-life
but lose it.
Losing the soul-life
is the reality of denying the self.
This is to take up the cross.
If we desire to deal with the self,
we need first to define
what the self is.
The self
is the soul-life
with the emphasis on
human thoughts and human opinions.
We can discover this
from the Bible,
where the self is clearly mentioned.
The Lord asked the disciples
to deny and forsake the self,
which meant to lay aside their own thought.
When the Lord asked the disciples
to receive the cross,
this meant that they should receive
the mind of God or the will of God.
Therefore, the Lord was asking the disciples here
to put aside their own thought
and receive the cross,
which is the will of God.
From this
we see that the self
has much to do with human thought.
Yet the self
is not human thought,
and human thought
is not the self per se.
Therefore, in Matthew 16:25
the Lord went on to say
that whoever wants to save his soul-life
shall lose it,
and whoever loses his soul-life for the Lord’s sake
shall find it.
The denying of the self
mentioned in the preceding verse
was followed immediately
by the losing of the soul-life.
This indicates
that the self that was mentioned
is the soul-life
spoken of directly following.
The soul-life is the self.
In this passage
the word of the Lord
follows step by step.
In verse 22
Peter admonished the Lord
to pity Himself;
in verse 23
the Lord pointed out
that this is
human thought or human opinion;
in verse 24
the Lord traced this to the root
by saying that this opinion is the self.
Therefore, we need to forsake and deny it.
Then in verse 25
the Lord touched the root of the self
by showing
that the very self is the soul-life.
If the soul-life
is being put to death,
which means
that the self is being denied,
there will be no more human opinion.
In this passage,
verse 23 speaks about the opinion,
verse 24 about the self,
and verse 25 about the soul-life.
Therefore, we can find here
a definition for the self:
the self in essence
is the soul-life,
whereas the expression of the self
is opinion.
Self, soul-life, and opinion
are three aspects of one thing.
This may be likened to Christ Himself
as the very God,
and the expression of Christ
as the Holy Spirit.
The three are one.
God incarnated and expressed
is Christ,
and the soul-life expressed
is the self.
When Christ is expressed before men
and touched by men,
He is the Holy Spirit.
Likewise, the self is expressed before men
and touched by men
in the form of human opinion and human viewpoint.
Just as when we touch the Holy Spirit,
we touch Christ,
so when we touch human opinion and viewpoint,
we touch the self
as well as the soul-life.