For God to fulfill His eternal economy He needs to build Himself into our being by working Himself in Christ into us to be our life, our nature, and our constitution for the church as the one new man.
Christ said that He will build His church (Matt. 16:18), and He does this not mainly by doing a lot of outward things but by building Himself into us until He becomes our very inward constitution, so that we become intrinsic parts of the church as the one new man.
The principle in God’s work is to gain persons, that is, to gain people who are open to Him and let God work Himself into them for the building up of the church as the Body of Christ.
What God is after is not a lot of outward works for Him – even though much of the work in the church life is absolutely necessary; what God is after is our being, that is, that He would work Himself into our being so that we may be fully one with Him, so that He would live in us a life and work in us a work for the building up of the church.
Only Christ can live the church life, and only Christ can build up the church; we need to be constituted with Christ and filled with Him until He in us lives and works everything.
It is of God we are in Christ Jesus, and it is Christ who operates in us both the willing and the working, according to His good pleasure. Our priority in the church life should be not to work for God or do things for God but for God to work Himself into us.
We may prepare for the meeting, we may practically take care of many things, or we may contact someone to fellowship in God’s word, but in all these things we need to contact the Lord, open our being to Him, and allow God to build Himself into our being for the building up of His church, the Body of Christ.
We can work for God only as far as we experience God, and what we are determines our usefulness in God’s hands. The importance of our person, our being, our constitution, far exceeds that of our work for God, for what we are is more important than what we do.
Many believers do this and that for God, and they seemingly have some success, but then because of what they are, they tear down much more than they built up.
We need to have a constant spiritual progress by allowing God to gain more ground within us day by day, and we need to cooperate with God’s building work by opening to Him, being poor in spirit and pure in heart, seeking Him with a single heart, and opening our whole being to the Lord to be filled with Him as our content.
Amen, may we see God’s central work and cooperate with Him in prayer for Him to build up His church.
Christ Builds up the Church by Building Himself into our Being until we are Reconstituted with Christ
If we love the Lord, we will love His word, and Him and the Father will come to us and make an abode with us (John 14:23).
For the fulfillment of God’s eternal economy, God needs to build Himself in Christ into our being, working Himself in Christ into us as our life, our nature, and our constitution, to make us God in life and in nature but not in the Godhead (2 Sam. 7:12-14a; Rom. 1:3-4; Eph. 3:17a; John 14:23; Col. 3:10-11).
Christ is the One who builds up His church (Matt. 16:18), and He does this by building Himself into us, into our inner being, until He reconstitutes us with Himself.
First, through regeneration we receive the life of God in our spirit, and we become children of God who have God’s divine life and partake of His divine nature (John 1:12-13; 2 Pet. 1:4).
We have been born of God, we have His divine life, we partake of His divine nature, and we are partially like God; through the processes of renewing, sanctification, transformation, and conformation, we are being made the same as Christ to be His corporate expression and reproduction on earth.
Because we are born of God, we have God’s life and nature, but we do not share in His Godhead. Only God can be worshiped as God, but we share in His life and nature to be part of His corporate expression.
God wants not only men after His heart like David, but men who have God’s life and nature growing, developing, and being manifested in them.
We the believers in Christ need to let God build Himself into us for the building of the church. God’s habitation is not by our working or doing but by Christ’s building.
Christ builds the church by first coning into our spirit and then by spreading Himself from our spirit into our mind, emotion, and will, to occupy every part of our being and saturate us with Himself.
God doesn’t need us to do anything for Him; what He needs is to build Himself into us as life, nature, and essence, until the Triune God becomes our intrinsic constitution.
This is what David needed and this is what we need. We need to let God build Himself in Christ into our being for the building up of the church.
What satisfies God and what God is after is a building of God with man, man in God and God in man, to express Him corporately.
This is what we see in type in 2 Samuel 7 and in reality in the New Testament and in our experience.
We need God to build up Christ into our intrinsic constitution so that our entire being would be reconstituted with Christ (Eph. 3:17). The result is that we are not only changed but also transformed metabolically from one kind of person to another.
For the fulfillment of His eternal economy, God is building Himself into our being by working Himself in Christ into us as our life nature, and constitution, to make us the same as He is – God in life and nature but not in the Godhead.
We can cooperate with His building work by opening to Him and telling Him,
Lord Jesus, build Yourself into our being for the building up of the church as the Body of Christ. Thank You for regenerating us with Your life. Spread into every part of our inner being. Saturate our mind, emotion, and will with Your element. Lord, we open to Your building work. Build Yourself into us until You become our life, our nature, and our constitution, so that we may be made the same as You are in life and nature for the church as the one new man, where Christ is all and in all!
Cooperating with God’s Central Work and Ministering the Builded God into Others
God’s economy is to work Himself into us in Christ as His embodiment so that He may obtain a corporate expression.
The central work of God is for Him to work and build Himself into our inner being so that He may be fully one with us to live in us and build up the church through us. God became a man, died on the cross to accomplish redemption, and resurrected to become a life-giving Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45).
Now God in Christ as the Spirit is in our spirit, and we need to let God work Christ as the Spirit into every part of our being.
Christ is building His church by building Himself into us until it is no longer us but Christ (Gal. 2:20) and for us to live is Christ (Phil. 1:21).
We need to cooperate with God’s central work by being poor in spirit (Matt. 5:3) and pure in heart (v. 8), seeking the Lord with a single heart (Psa. 27:4), turning to the Lord (2 Cor. 3:16), caring for the sense of life (Rom. 8:6), being willing to be enlightened (Eph. 1:17-18), and opening our whole being to the Lord to be filled with God as our content (3:16-19).
First, we cooperate with God’s central work of building Himself into our being by being poor in spirit; we need to be unloaded, emptied, and open in spirit for Him to infuse us with Himself and to give Himself to us more and more.
Then, as He works Himself into us, we need to be pure in heart, having only one goal: the utmost enjoyment and experience of Christ for the building up of the church. We need to seek the Lord with a single heart, being saved from any other distractions and focusing on Him only.
And when our heart turns away from Him, we need to practice turning our heart to the Lord so that any veils would be taken away and we would behold the Lord face to face and be transformed in His image.
We need to care for the inward sense of life, which comes from setting our mind on our mingled spirit. We need to be willing to be enlightened, praying for a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the full knowledge of Him.
We need to open our whole being to the Lord to be filled with God as our content; for this, we need to let Christ make His home in our heart through faith.
Furthermore, our work in the church life should be to minister God to people; we minister not just the building God (the God in Christ who builds up His church) but the builded God, the God who has been built into our being.
If we fail to minister in this way, our work will be wood, grass, and stubble.
We need to reconsider our work for the Lord; He may use us to bring many to the Lord, but how much of Christ as the embodiment of the Triune God has been wrought in these ones?
If we’re genuine and sincere we will humble ourselves before the Lord and confess that not very much of the Triune God has been wrought into the ones we have brought to God.
Therefore, we need to practice this one thing: ministering the processed Triune God into others, so that He may build Himself into their inner man.
Lord Jesus, we want to cooperate with Your central work by being poor in spirit and pure in heart, by seeking You with a single heart, and by turning our heart to You! Lord, we want to care for the inner sense of life and be willing to be enlightened by You. We open our whole being to You to be filled with God as our content. We want to learn to minister the building God and the builded God into people. Build Yourself into us, Lord, and teach us to minister this builded God into others so that You may build Yourself into them for the church, the one new man!
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message given by Ron Kangas for this week, and portions from, Life-study of 1 & 2 Samuel, msgs. 24, 28 (by Witness Lee), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Taking Christ as our Person and Living Him in and for the Church Life (2018 spring ITERO), week 1, Experiencing the Central Work of God and taking Christ as our Person in and for the Church Life.
- Hymns on this topic:
# God’s economy and goal / According to His heart’s desire / Are to build Himself into our being / And to build us into His being / In order to mingle His divinity with our humanity / Into one entity (one entity)— / The Body of Christ, / Which consummates the New Jerusalem. (Song on, God’s economy is His plan to dispense Himself)
# There’s nothing that we are / Or have or do well-pleasing; / We need Thee, glorious Christ, / Inwrought into our being. / O Lord, our heart’s still vacant now! / Come in and settle down. / Come saturate and permeate / And fill us with Yourself. (Song on, Recall how David swore)
# Thus in life we’re built together, / Then in love we’re knit as one; / God is now His plan fulfilling, / Finishing what He’s begun. / Lord, increase Thyself within us / That we might be built by Thee / Into that great corporate vessel / Filled with God exclusively. (Hymns #1325)
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