O God, Thou art the source of life

...Hymns, #12 speaks of God as a flowing fountain. God flows first in the Son. Then He continues to flow as the Spirit to reach us and to dispense Himself as the life element with the tree of life to quench our thirst and to satisfy us. The water quenches; the tree satisfies.

In Revelation 22:1 we see the flow of the divine Trinity— God, the Lamb, and the water of life (the Spirit). According to John 7:38-39, the water of life refers to the Spirit. God was the One who purposed, He became the Lamb who redeemed (John 1:14, 29), and finally became the life-giving, flowing Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45b). God flows in the water of life, the Lamb flows in the water of life, and the Spirit flows as the water of life. Thus, this is the Triune flow, the flow of the divine Trinity as the very life supply.

This should not be taken as a theological teaching. According to our daily experiences, we Christians should experience the flow of the divine Trinity every day. Every morning after rising up we need to say, "Lord, thank You for a new day for me to take You as my Lord. I subject myself under Your headship for the whole day. Lord, set up Your throne in my life. Set up Your throne in the center of my being. Lord, bring my whole day with my daily life under Your throne." If you would offer such a prayer to the Triune God every morning, from that moment you would have the living water flowing within you. This living water flowing is the flow of the Triune God. It is not a small thing that the Triune God flows in you today. He flows in you as the One who purposed, as the One who redeemed, and as the One who is the life-giving Spirit. This One is the very consummation of the Triune God reaching us as the living water.

Such a subjective revelation has been missed by many of today's Christians. I hope we all would realize in our experience that whenever we subject ourselves to the Triune God, taking Him as our Head, we enjoy a flow within us. Thank the Lord that in the Lord's recovery, day after day, month after month, year after year, and time after time, what is stressed is the unique flow. We have given message after message which tells us that the Triune God is flowing. There are also many hymns in our hymnal concerning this subject...

After someone calls a hymn on life, there may not be the adequate prayers to follow it. When we sing about the love of God or the greatness of God, we have much to say, although this concept of love may not be spiritual but natural. When we sing about life, however, our mouths may be shut. This is our shortage. Hymns, #12 begins, "O God, Thou art the source of life, / Divine, and rich, and free! / As living water flowing out / Unto eternity!" This is altogether against our natural concept. Twenty-five or thirty years ago this was a foreign language to me. I did not know what this meant. If we have no concept of what that hymn means, we will not be able to offer a prayer to follow it. Stanza 2 says, "In love Thou in the Son didst flow / Among the human race." We may know a little bit about love, but we may not know what is meant by Thou in the Son didst flow. In this case, we will not be able to follow the hymn with prayer, because we do not have this kind of concept and understanding. From now on, however, we will learn more and more. Then when we announce and sing this kind of hymn, right away we will have many prayers to follow it and to analyze, enlarge, and develop its meaning.

The Father is the source, the Son is the course, and the Spirit is the flow within the course. I do want you to be impressed by this concept. Hymns, #12 says, "0 God, Thou art the source of life." This source of life flows out in the Son and as the Spirit. Eventually this flow of living water—the Triune God in three persons—flows into us, the man of spirit, soul, and body. In Genesis 2:10 the river in the garden divided and became four branches. Four here represents man, meaning that this one river flows to this man and into man. From Himself as the source, God flows out and flows into man. This flowing out and flowing in eventually issues in a universal mingling of God with man. It is by this flow that God is brought into man, and it is also by this flow that man is brought into God. Therefore, the Lord said, "Abide in Me and I in you" (John 15:4). Who is this "Me?" It is God. To abide in Me means to abide in God. Who then is this "I?" It is also God. John 14:20 says, "In that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you." This is the mingling of God with man by the flow. I wish to make this very clear to you. This is something very basic concerning the inner life and the church life.