We need to enjoy Christ day by day to accumulate the experiences of Christ and keep a rich storage of the Lord’s word in our being, and when we come together, we must have an exhibition of the Christ upon whom we have laboured, the Christ whom we have enjoyed and experienced. Amen!
On the personal side, we need to spend time with the Lord in His word regularly, seeking to enjoy Him and be shined on by Him.
On the corporate side, we must meet with the saints on the ground of oneness to exhibit the Christ we have enjoyed and experienced. Amen!
Our daily life as believers in Christ should be in the Lord’s presence, even in the index of the Lord’s eyes.
Like the apostle Paul, we should not do anything without first checking with the Lord, having rest in our spirit, and having our eyes fixed on Him.
The Lord Jesus is a wonderful living person who is in us, in our spirit; when the eyes of our heart are enlightened, we can behold Him face to face, and He infuses us with what He is, what He intends to do, and what His feeling and thoughts are.
However, throughout the day there are many things that come in to distract us from enjoying Christ.
There are things, matters, persons, and situations that are around us and can be used by the enemy to distract us from gazing at the Lord’s wonderful face.
May we remain fixed on Him, having our eyes set on Him and our heart turned to Him.
May we keep turning to our spirit, again and again, to enjoy Him and open to Him concerning all things.
May we enjoy such a sweet fellowship with the Lord by living in the tender feelings of Christ and being infused with the thoughts of Christ in our organic union with Him.
When we do this, when this is our experience – though not constantly but at least instantly from time to time – we will have a rich storage of Christ, a rich storage of the word of God, that we can bring to the meetings of the church for the saints’ edification and the Father’s satisfaction. Amen!
Even our forgiving others should be in the person of Christ, in the index of His eyes, in His face.
We need to behave ourselves, have our being, and do all things in our organic union with the Lord.
Brothers and sisters, when we taste how good it is to be one with the Lord in our spirit in our daily living, we will always return to Him and refuse to be drawn away from Him!
When we take Him as our person and He becomes our life in a practical way, we will always seek to turn to Him, deal with anything that His light exposes, and go on with Him day by day.
Accumulate the Experiences of Christ and Keep a Rich Storage of His Word to have Something to Speak in the Meetings for God’s Satisfaction and the Saints’ Edification
![Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another with psalms [and] hymns [and] spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to God. Col. 3:16 If you abide in Me and My words abide in you, ask whatever you will, and it shall be done for you. John 15:7 I have written to you, fathers, because you know Him who is from the beginning. I have written to you, young men, because you are strong and the word of God abides in you and you have overcome the evil one. 1 John 2:14](https://i0.wp.com/www.agodman.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Let-the-word-of-Christ-dwell-in-you-richly-in-all-wisdom-teaching-and-admonishing-one-another-with-psalms-and-hymns-and-spiritual-songs-683x1024.jpg?resize=400%2C600&ssl=1 "Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another with psalms [and] hymns [and] spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to God. Col. 3:16 If you abide in Me and My words abide in you, ask whatever you will, and it shall be done for you. John 15:7 I have written to you, fathers, because you know Him who is from the beginning. I have written to you, young men, because you are strong and the word of God abides in you and you have overcome the evil one. 1 John 2:14")
As those who love the Lord and pursue after Him, we need to accumulate the experiences of Christ day by day.
Like the apostle Paul, we should not be content with where we are and what we have gotten; we need to pursue Christ to gain Him more day by day (Phil. 3:8-10, 12-14).
We may have had such a good experience of Christ yesterday, but today we have a new day.
We want to forget the things which are behind and stretch forward to the Christ that lies ahead of us to experience Him.
This doesn’t mean that we discard the experiences of Christ we had in the past; rather, we do not get complacent or satisfied that we experienced Christ yesterday but rather, we are hungry to experience Him even more today.
We need to pursue Christ and seek Him to accumulate the experiences of Christ continually.
As we are travelling to work or taking care of the chores around the house, no matter what we do and where we are, we want to enjoy and experience more of Christ in all our situations.
This will cause us to have an accumulation of the experiences of Christ, and Christ will be constituted into our being.
Then, when we come to the meetings of the church, we will have something of Christ to share with others.
We will not be short of experience but rather, we will speak the word of God, and this word will have the backing of our real experience of Christ.
This is what we all need today in the church life.
We must also keep a rich storage of the Lord’s word, allowing the Lord’s word to richly dwell in us in all wisdom (Col. 3:16; John 15:7; 1 John 2:14).
We need not only to accumulate the experiences of Christ but also have a rich storage of His word in our being.
We may think that the Bible is such a big book, with so many books, epistles, psalms, and words, so it is not easy to read it or remember it.
What we need to do, however, is just to practice taking two or three verses every morning to pray over them and chew on them so that we may enjoy the Lord and eat Him in His word.
We need to daily take a few verses in God’s word to pray-read them, and they will become a rich storage of His word in us for our nourishment.
If we practice this, if we daily take a few verses to pray over them and then masticate them throughout the day, we will gain a rich storage of God’s living word.
The word of God will not only be in our memory; the word will be stored richly within us.
![Brothers, I do not account of myself to have laid hold; but one thing [I do:] Forgetting the things which are behind and stretching forward to the things which are before, I pursue toward the goal for the prize to which God in Christ Jesus has called [me] upward. Phil. 3:13-14](https://i0.wp.com/www.agodman.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Brothers-I-do-not-account-of-myself-to-have-laid-hold-but-one-thing-I-do-Forgetting-the-things-which-are-behind-1-1-683x1024.jpg?resize=400%2C600&ssl=1 "Brothers, I do not account of myself to have laid hold; but one thing [I do:] Forgetting the things which are behind and stretching forward to the things which are before, I pursue toward the goal for the prize to which God in Christ Jesus has called [me] upward. Phil. 3:13-14")
Then, when we come to the meetings of the church, we will have a rich storage of the Lord’s living word, and we can share something with the saints.
The riches of Christ are embodied in the holy Word of God, and by our coming to the Word with an exercised spirit and a turned heart, we can dig these riches, enjoy them, and be constituted with them.
We can all testify that many times we come to the Word of God and, though we may have read that portion before, we receive new light, fresh nourishment, and a sweet understanding and application of the word because we exercise our spirit to pray-read the word and the Lord’s light shines on us. Amen!
When we practice this day by day, we will have a rich storage of God’s word in our being, and when we come to the meetings, we will have a freewill offering to God and to the audience.
No one has to encourage us or tell us to speak; we will simply overflow, for we have an accumulation of the experience of Christ and a rich storage of His word in our being.
Our speaking will be a freewill offering to God for His glory and satisfaction and to the attendants for their enlightening, nourishing, and building up. Amen!
Lord Jesus, we love You and we pursue after You today so that we may accumulate the experiences of Christ continually. We open to You. We want to enjoy and experience You today. We seek after You with a pure heart so that we may experience You today in all our situations. May there be an accumulation of the experience of Christ in our being so that we may have something to share with the saints and offer to God in the meetings of the church. Lord Jesus, we want to let Your word dwell in us richly in all wisdom. We come to You in Your word day by day to pray-read Your word and be richly fed and nourished with Your word. We want to find Your riches in Your word and be filled with Your riches. Amen, Lord, we want to gain a rich storage of the word of God in our being so that we may be filled with Your riches and have something to speak in the meetings of the church! May our meetings be filled with freewill offerings from the saints who share something of their experience of Christ and their enjoyment of the Lord in the Word for God’s satisfaction and glory and for the saints’ edification, enlightening, and building up!
Meeting Together to have an Exhibition of the Christ we have Enjoyed and Experienced
As seen in Deut. 14:22-23, whenever the people of God come together, they should bring something of the riches of the land upon which they have laboured.
We should not come to the meetings of the church emptyhanded; rather, we must meet together to have an exhibition of the Christ we have enjoyed and experienced.
This means that daily, in our personal life with the Lord, when no one else sees us, we should enjoy Christ and experience Christ in all the details of our life.
When we enjoy Christ personally in our daily life, we will have something of His riches to share with the saints for our collective enjoyment of Him in the meetings.
Then, when others among us see this rich exhibition of Christ, they will realize that God is among us, and we are His dwelling place and His kingdom.
1 Cor. 14:26 indicates that, whenever we come to the church meetings, we all should have something.
It’s not just those who are more eloquent or who serve God full time who should be prepared to share something; we all can bring something of the riches of Christ.
We all need to accumulate the experiences of Christ and have a rich storage of His word in our being, and we need to come to the meetings of the church to share this wonderful Christ with others.
When we come together, we can share a psalm to praise the Lord, a teaching to minister the riches of Christ to nourish and edify others, or a revelation to give visions of God’s eternal purpose concerning Christ as God’s mystery and the church as God’s mystery.
We can also offer a tongue as a sign to the unbelievers (v. 22) that they may know and accept Christ, or an interpretation to make a tongue concerning Christ and His Body understandable.
All things must be done for building up.
We should not think, however, that we need to wait for an inspiration before we speak for the Lord. Instead of waiting to be “moved by the Spirit” or “inspired by the Holy Spirit” we should simply exercise our spirit and release our portion of Christ in the meetings of the church.
When we enjoy Christ day by day and gain a rich storage of His word in our being, the church meeting will be filled with God, and all its activities will convey and transmit God to people that they may be infused with God (1 Cor. 14:25).
When an unbeliever enters among us, they will see such a display, such an exhibition of this Christ that we have enjoyed and experienced, and they will be convicted, shined on, and exposed, and they will repent and return to the Lord.
The true worship of God by His people is when everyone is full of Christ, radiant with Christ, and exhibiting the Christ they have enjoyed and experienced.
When we all labour upon Christ in our daily life and then come to the meetings of the church with the Christ we have enjoyed and experienced, we will be radiant with Christ, and others will see the expression of Christ among us.
As we daily accumulate the experiences of Christ and gain a rich storage of His word in our being, we need to do one more thing: before coming to the meeting, we need to prepare ourselves.
![[In] the Feast of Tabernacles in ancient times, the children of Israel brought the produce of the good land, which they had reaped from their labor on the land, to the feast and offered it to the Lord for His enjoyment and for mutual participation in fellowship with the Lord and with one another. We must labor on Christ, our good land, that we may reap some produce of His riches to bring to the church meeting and offer. Thus, the meeting will be an exhibition of Christ in His riches and will be a mutual enjoyment of Christ shared by all the attendants before God and with God for the building up of the saints and the church. Life-study of 1 Corinthians, second edition, p. 562, by Witness Lee](https://i0.wp.com/www.agodman.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/In-the-Feast-of-Tabernacles-in-ancient-times-the-children-of-Israel-brought-the-produce-of-the-good-land-which-they-had-reaped-683x1024.jpg?resize=400%2C600&ssl=1 "[In] the Feast of Tabernacles in ancient times, the children of Israel brought the produce of the good land, which they had reaped from their labor on the land, to the feast and offered it to the Lord for His enjoyment and for mutual participation in fellowship with the Lord and with one another. We must labor on Christ, our good land, that we may reap some produce of His riches to bring to the church meeting and offer. Thus, the meeting will be an exhibition of Christ in His riches and will be a mutual enjoyment of Christ shared by all the attendants before God and with God for the building up of the saints and the church. Life-study of 1 Corinthians, second edition, p. 562, by Witness Lee")
We need to come to the Lord and prepare ourselves for the meeting with something of the Lord, either through our experience of Him or through our enjoyment of His word and fellowship with Him in prayer.
We need to prepare a portion of Christ to share with the saints.
Then, after coming into the meeting, we shouldn’t wait for an inspiration; rather, we should exercise our spirit and use our trained minds to function in presenting what we have prepared to the Lord and to the saints (vv. 31-32).
We need to function in the meetings by releasing our portion of Christ in our speaking for the Lord for Him to be satisfied and gain the glory and for the attendants to be enlightened, nourished and built up.
In this way we exhibit Christ and the riches of Christ will be manifested both for the Father to be satisfied and for the saints to be supplied.
Day by day we labour on Christ as the good land, we reap some produce of His riches, and we bring these riches to the church meetings to offer to God and lay before the saints.
The meeting will then be a mutual enjoyment of Christ shared by all the attendants before God and with God for the building up of the saints and the church.
Lord Jesus, we want to enjoy You personally in our daily life so that we may have a collective enjoyment of Christ in our meetings! Amen, Lord, may our church meetings be filled with the rich exhibition of the Christ enjoyed and experienced by all the saints! May all the activities of the church convey and transmit God to people so that they may be infused with God! Fill all the saints with Christ! May all the saints radiate Christ and exhibit the Christ upon whom they have laboured in their daily life. Amen, Lord Jesus, may we all have something to speak in the meetings as a freewill offering to God and to the attendants. May we not wait for inspiration but exercise our spirit to speak of the Christ we have enjoyed and experienced so that God would be satisfied and the saints would be enlightened, nourished, and built up! Gain such a Christian life and meeting life among us today!
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Inspiration for this article/sharing comes from the Word of God, the enjoyment in the ministry, a sharing by brother Minoru Chen in the message for this week, and portions from, Collected Works of Witness Lee, 1988, vol. 1, “Speaking Christ for the Building Up of the Body of Christ,” chs. 3-4, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Laboring on the All-inclusive Christ Typified by the Good land for the Building up of the Church as the Body of Christ, for the Reality and the Manifestation of the Kingdom, and for the Bride to make Herself Ready for the Lord’s Coming (2023 Winter Training), week 12, entitled, Living a Life of Enjoying Christ as the Good Land with the Temple, the Dwelling Place of God, and the City, the Kingdom of God, as Its Issue.
- Similar articles on this topic:
– The experiences of life being the experiences of Christ, a portion from, Basic Principles of the Experience of Life, Chapter 2, by Witness Lee.
– New Jerusalem is Prepared by Our Participation in the Riches of Christ, via, New Jerusalem blog.
– The subjective God – the Trinity in Christian experience, article by Ron Kangas in, Affirmation and Critique.
– The Experience of Christ as Life, via, An Open Letter.
– Singing with Our Hearts to the Lord, via, Bibles for America blog.
– The Ministry Bearing the Mark of Death and Resurrection (4), via, Shepherding Words.
– 8 Reasons to Let the Word of God Dwell in You, via, Holding to Truth in Love.
– The word in Colossians; the practical enjoyment of Christ, a portion from, Life Messages, Vol. 2 (#42-75), Chapter 16, by Witness Lee.
– The personal and intimate experience of Christ, article by Ed Marks via, Affirmation and Critique.
– Meeting by bringing the surplus of the good land as an offering to God, a portion from, The Ground of the Church and the Meetings of the Church, Chapter 3, by Witness Lee. - Hymns on this topic:
– The Spirit of life causes Thee / By Thy Word to transfer to me. / Thy Spirit touched, Thy word received, / Thy life in me is thus conceived. / In spirit while gazing on Thee, / As a glass reflecting Thy glory, / Like to Thyself transformed I’ll be, / That Thou might be expressed thru me. (Hymns #501 stanzas 4-5)
– Our life and all we are and do / Is Christ Himself, the substance true, / That every time we meet anew / We may exhibit Christ. / In meetings Christ to God we bear / And Christ with one another share, / And Christ with God enjoying there, / We thus exhibit Christ. (Hymns #864 stanzas 3-4)
– Laboring on Jesus yields reality, / Meetings of fullness for all men to see; / There God and man are indeed satisfied, / And there God’s presence cannot be denied. / Labor on Jesus to have Him increased! / Then seek God’s dwelling and come to the feast! / There bring and offer your surplus to God, / There eat the riches, rejoice in the Lord! (Hymns #1168 stanzas 4-5)
About aGodMan
Collected Works of Witness Lee, 1988, vol. 1, “Speaking Christ for the Building Up of the Body of Christ,” pp. 185, 188
Thank the Lord for a new day to pursue Him to accumulate the experiences of Christ and gain a rich storage of His living word in our being.
May we enjoy and experience Christ today so that we may have the riches of Christ stored in us and overflowing from us when we come to the meetings of the church.
Aaaaameeen!
In order to speak for the Lord we need to accumulate the experiences of Christ, we need Christ as our base, foundation and backing!
We also need to pray read His word, our speaking then will be to His glory and satisfaction and for the saints’ enlightenment, nourishment and building up!
Amen brother.
When we come to the meetings, there is no need to wait for inspiration.
We should exercise our spirit and apply our trained mind to present the produce of Christ we have accumulated day by day.
In this way, our meetings become an exhibition of Christ in His riches and everyone is enlightened, nourished and built up.
How wonderful is the labouring life!
Our speaking in the meetings should be a free offering to God, that we do not come empty handed or feel forced to speak.
Our meetings in the church should be an exhibition of Christ.
We must come prepared to teach and admonish one another with the Christ we have enjoyed and experienced.
While we can speak the word – in which the riches of Christ are embodied- we also need the backing of our experience of Christ, otherwise our speaking will not be real or genuine.
Amen dear brother.
The true worship of God by His people is when everyone is full of Christ, radiant with Christ, and exhibiting the Christ upon whom they have laboured.
Praise the Lord! 😃🙋🏼🙌
https://youtu.be/gQBD5slW5YY?si=DMXcPyyzVXwXUyrz
6/13/24 Living a Life of Enjoying Christ as the Good Land with the Temple, the Dwelling Place of God, and the City, the Kingdom of God, as Its Issue (Week 12, Day 4)
Colossians 3:16 says, “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, in all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to God.” Here Paul says that the word of Christ should dwell in us, inhabit us. This implies that the word of Christ is living. In order for something to dwell in us or to inhabit us, it must be living. Actually, the word of Christ is Christ Himself, as the active operating Word (Phil 2:13).
When Paul speaks in Colossians 3:16 of letting the word of Christ dwell in us richly, he does not mention reading, which is an exercise of the mind. Rather, he mentions wisdom, which implies the exercise of the spirit. What comes through the exercise of the mind is knowledge, but what issues from the exercise of the spirit is wisdom.
When we exercise our spirit to read the Bible, the Spirit within our spirit reacts and echos with something. The Spirit of God explores the depths of God concerning Christ and shows them to us in our spirit for our realization and participation (1Cor 2:10). In this way, verse after verse and phrase after phrase from the Bible can be stored within us, and we can keep a rich storage of the Lord’s word.
When we come to any meeting or meet with anyone, it will be easy for us to speak, and we will have the material to release because we have the experiences of Christ and the riches of the holy word accumulated and stored within us. This will strengthen and enrich our speaking and even encourage us to speak.
All of us can speak. We have the Bible, a hymnal, the Life-study messages, and other spiritual publications to speak. If we spoke a Life-study message together, this would make the best message full of the divine riches and the refreshing utterances. We should not merely read the message but speak it, and this speaking should not be an individual speaking but a corporate speaking.
In order for us to be able to speak in the meeting, we need to accumulate a rich storage of the word of Christ. We must wake up early every morning to pray-read the Word of God using our mingled spirit so that we may gain more Spirit and life into our inner being (John 6:63). During the day, we shall experience Christ in a particular situation in our living. Then, in the evening, when we go to the church meeting, we will have a surplus of Christ, whom we labored and experience throughout the day.
During the church meeting is not the time to prepare, but the time to share our rich storage of Christ. First Corinthians 14:26 says, “What then, brothers? Whenever you come together, each one has a psalm, has a teaching, has a revelation, has a tongue, and has an interpretation. Let all things be done for building up.” According to this verse, when we come to the meeting, each one of us must have already prepared a rich storage of the knowledge and experiences of Christ to share with others, may it be a psalm, a teaching, a revelation, a tongue, or an interpretation. Then, that meeting will be full of freewill offering to God and to the audience. And this is the way to build up the church in a corporate way.
May we all prepare a rich storage of Christ so that we may be able to rise up to be the speaking ones in our meetings. May we also be desperate to practice speaking and to build up a habit of speaking in the meetings. This is a great thing for the Lord’s recovery, for His move on this earth, and this practice will really build up every saint in life.
[Excerpt from HWMR-Week 12 Day 4]
1 Cor. 14:26, footnote 1 on “each one has”, Recovery Version Bible
Listen to the audio version of this article via,
Youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6GsWeDKISLA
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Ameen!!!
We should always have something to speak in all the meetings as a freewill offerings.
So before coming to the meeting, we should prepare ourselves for the meeting with something of the Lord, either through our experience of Him or through our enjoyment of His word and fellowship with Him in prayer.
This is the true worship of God by His people. It is when everyone is full of Christ, radiant with Christ, and exhibiting the Christ upon whom they have labored. Praise the Lord!!!!
We also must keep a rich storage of the Lord’s word (Col. 3:16; John 15:7; 1 John 2:14). If we would just practice to pray-read two to four verses from the Word every morning, and we do this week after week and month after month, we will gain a rich storage of the living word. The word will not be just in our memory, but it will be something stored within us…The riches of Christ are embodied in the holy Word. This is what makes the Bible different from all the other books. Amen
The only way to truly enjoy Christ is to share Him. Yes, we can enjoy our experience of Him as it is happening, but not until it is shared is our joy made full. For that is when His joy is made full.
Dear brothers and sisters, let us be overflowing vessels, in our day to day living and most especially on Lord’s Day, where and when our precious Lord can enjoy a foretaste of the kingdom He is building through His children.