At the time of regeneration, all believers receive the divine life and are begotten as children of God. Yet, this life most grow and it does so by regulation unto maturity and function. This regulation comes from revelation and issues in obedience. This word is crucial for our progress and training in the divine life for our maturity and function in our living and service to God.

The Collected Works of Witness Lee, 1964, volume 1, contains messages and fellowship given by Brother Witness Lee from February 14 through July 4, 1964. During this period of time Brother Lee gave conferences in Las Vegas, Nevada, and Blackfoot, Idaho. Also, in April he traveled to Albuquerque, New Mexico, and to three cities in Texas--Plainview, Odessa, and Tyler. Unfortunately, only the messages given in Tyler were recorded. After returning to Los Angeles for the month of May, Brother Lee traveled to New York City, where he gave messages during a monthlong conference and training from June through July. The contents of this volume are divided into ten sections, as follows: 1. Ten messages given at a conference in Las Vegas, Nevada, on February 14 through 20. This series of messages is included in this volume under the title Experiencing Christ in Our Spirit for the Church Life. 2. Five messages given at a conference in Blackfoot, Idaho, on March 8 through 11. These messages are included in this volume under the title Vessels of God. 3. Four messages given to young people at a conference in Big Bear, California, on March 24 and 25. These messages have been previously published under the title A Young Man in God's Plan. 4. Four messages given in Los Angeles on March 27 through 29. These messages have been previously published under the title The Centrality and Universality of Christ. 5. Nine messages given in a conference in Tyler, Texas, on April 24 through 29. The recorded messages were edited to form the eleven chapters of this section, which is entitled Exercising Our Spirit to Practice the Body Life. 6. Six messages given at a conference in Los Angeles on May 26 through 31 and included in this volume under the title Serving in the Body for the Carrying Out of the Lord's Recovery. 7. Nine messages given in Los Angeles during the Lord's Day meetings from January 5 through May 31. These messages are included in this volume in the section titled Lord's Day Meetings. 8. Seven miscellaneous messages given in the Los Angeles area from February 9 through June 2. These messages are compiled in this volume under the title Miscellaneous Speakings. The contents of this section were composed from personal notes taken by saints who attended the meetings. 9. A series of thirteen messages given in New York City on June 17 through July 11 as part of a monthlong conference and training. This series appears in this volume as twelve chapters under the title Knowing and Experiencing God as Life. 10. A series of ten messages given in New York City on June 22 through July 4 as part of a monthlong conference and training. This series appears in this volume under the title Standing and Functioning on the Ground of Oneness.

"The entire Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, shows us that God is our enjoyment. God also has His fullness (Eph. 3:19b). He is full for us to enjoy. His fullness is the expression of the riches of Christ, and the reality of Christ is in the Spirit. We know this by the revelation of the Word. The riches of Christ are revealed in the Word. Furthermore, we can realize God as our enjoyment in our spirit (John 4:24)."

When God created man, He placed him before two trees: the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and the tree of life. In warning man to avoid the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, God indicated His desire for man to eat of the tree of life, signifying that man should receive God as his life supply. Witness Lee unveils in The Tree of Life that God is not looking for well-behaved Christians; He is looking for those who will experience and enjoy Christ as the reality of the tree of life.

This book traces "the New Testament service in the Gospel of Matthew from its beginning with the conceiving of Christ of the Holy Spirit, to finding Christ by following the heavenly living star, on to testifying of Christ in a living way, and then to the matter of following Christ. Finally, [it considers] the matter of life and the matter of work in the New Testament service according to the parables of the ten virgins and of the talents. In all these aspects, it is a governing principle in our service in the church life that the New Testament service is a service of coordination in every step to fulfill the Lord's purpose."

Two things are the key to the real experience of [the divine] life: our flesh and our spirit. On the negative side, we have to know the flesh. On the positive side, we have to experience our human spirit, which has been mingled with the divine Spirit (Rom. 8:16; 1 Cor. 6:17).

In the Lord’s recovery during the past five hundred years the church’s knowledge of the Lord and His truth has been continually progressing. This monumental and classical work by Brother Witness Lee builds upon and is a further development of all that the Lord has revealed to His church in the past centuries. It is filled with the revelation concerning the processed Triune God, the living Christ, the life-giving Spirit, the experience of life, and the definition and practice of the church. In this set Brother Lee has kept three basic principles that should rule and govern every believer in their interpretation, development, and expounding of the truths contained in the Scriptures. The first principle is that of the Triune God dispensing Himself into His chosen and redeemed people; the second principle is that we should interpret, develop, and expound the truths contained in the Bible with Christ for the church; and the third governing principle is Christ, the Spirit, life, and the church. No other study or exposition of the New Testament conveys the life nourishment or ushers the reader into the divine revelation of God’s holy Word according to His New Testament economy as this one does.