I was reading about the four planes of the spiritual life and this was so exciting to me.These are the four planes:1)evangelistic2)REVIVAL!!!!!3)path of the cross4)ascension We're already on the first plane does this mean were getting ready for a revival? :)
We're already on the first plane does this mean were getting ready for a revival? :)Im' not sure becsuse I don't know from which book this is taken but I believe brother Nee is speaking conserning revival on a personal level and not as a widespread move of God in revival.Jessie Penn Lewis whom Watchman Nee recieved a lot of help from also lists the 4 planes in "Life out of Death". These four planes or stages can also clearly be seen in the Song of Songs which is a picture of Christ and His love relationship with His Bride and the stages of her transformation from the country girl into the Shulamite which is the femenine form of Soloman showing that she becomes his reproduction in feminine form.AS Jessie Penn Lewis points out, "we can only lead others as far as we have come". Those who have been regenerated are in the evangelistic stage and can lead others to salvation in Christ.Those in the Rivial or "Baptism of the Spirit" can lead others into this experience. But many who enjoy the reality of the Spirit are also still full of themselves. These are full of gifts and loaded with rich experiences but they still are full of Self and secretly are very proud of their experiences. They begin to think they have reached the summit of spiritual life and believe themselvs to have "arrived". They pitty others who don't have their great gifts and consider them to be far behind them. This requries the dealing of the cross.The stage of the Cross begins when by the Spirit we see our union with Christ in His death and begin to allow the Cross to deal with our Self life. God allows circomstances to try us and to expose us to ourselvse and as the Spirit shines His Light, we yield to Him and experience the severing power of the Cross. The stage of ascension is where we in union with the Lord begin to live an ascended life. The Cross has done it's work and we live wholly in our spirit and are conformed to His death living in resurrection life. Here we are able to engage in Spiritual warfare dealing with God's enemy.This is seen in Song of Songs 3:6 'Who is she who comes up from the wilderness Like pillars of smoke, Perfumed with myrrh and frankincense,With all the fragrant powders of the merchant?And in 4:4 "Your neck is like the tower of David, Built for an armory: A thousand bucklers hang on it, All the shields of the mighty men."The Shulimite becomes a strong warrior.Paradoxically, we experience these four stages over and over in deeper and deeper ways in different aspects. We have revelation, we have the experience of Christ in a new way, We seem to lose it as we are pressed in circomstances. Then one day we find it not just as revelation but it has become worked into our being and we are constituted with it.I felt I should add a little bit to this last statement.When we are in the "stage of revival" we have tons of Light. We see great truths and they are living and we have a wonderful experience of them. But what we have is just the revelation but not the fullness of it. Then after a time we are put into circomstance and we seem to lose it. We say, "where did this wonderful experience go?' We try to reckon ourselves dead to sin but it just doesn't seem to work. Things we had forsaken seem to be back. We try to lay hold on those things which were so real to us but it seems to evade us and we fail.But one day, we wake up and what had been light to us has become a part of our inner being. It is just there. We don't have to call it up. We don't have to try to reckon and repeat the verses. We just begin to operate in the reality of it. The truth we were trying to lay hold of lays hold of us and we just live it out. The Spirit has brought us not just into the light of it but the reality of it. This is assension.Graaftedbranch
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