Being Full of the Stature of Christ for the Building up of the Body of Christ

Col. 2:7, Having been rooted and being built up in Him, and being established in the faith even as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.

God’s desire is not only to save as many people as possible but that His people would grow in life unto maturity to arrive at a full-grown man. This means that as we grow in number in the local churches, there’s a parallel great and urgent need for all the saints to grow in the divine life.

If we don’t grow in life, however many people we have in the church, we will still not be able to fulfill God’s purpose and intention. The Lord is not happy today with just a large number of His children if they are not growing in life unto maturity.

In Rev. 12 the great universal bright woman (the totality of all of God’s people) gave birth to a manchild – not to a little baby boy but to a mature ready-to-fight-and-rule man-child. The manchild is comprised of the overcomers, the stronger part of the woman, and when the manchild is born the dragon is cast down from the heavens.

The overcomers the Lord is looking after are full-grown men, perfect, complete, mature in life, and fully ripened, so that they corporately would become the bride of Christ – even a warring bride – as Christ’s counterpart, and they would also become an army for Christ to defeat the Antichrist and to bring in the kingdom of God.

What is therefore our desire and burden when we see all this? Don’t you desire to be an overcomer, one that would be part of the full-grown corporate man? We want to become part of that bride, that warrior!

This is not for our own spirituality and piousness, but so that Christ would obtain a full-grown corporate man and a grown-up beautified and adorned bride!

God needs an army equipped and ready to fight with Him. He needs a kingdom composed of the believers in Christ who reign in life. He needs those who know the position and reality of ascension.

As Christ is interceding in the heavens, there should be a group of people on earth who correspond to Him. As Christ is administrating, He needs some who are qualified to be one with His governmental administration of the universe and the whole earth – and these ones are the full-grown men, those full of the stature of Christ!

How much we need to grow in life today unto maturity to be such ones!

Being Full of the Stature of Christ

When we speak of “being full of the stature of Christ” and being full-grown men we mean that our life in Christ has attained to the realm of full maturity (see Heb. 6:1). As we go through stage after stage of dealings, as we learn to know ascension and be in ascension, as we reign in life and are putting on the whole armor of God, God’s life in us is growing to the level of full maturity.

When we were regenerated, Christ was born in us – firstly, as a small “baby”, then as we contact Him, enjoy Him, fellowship with Him, and are gained by Him, He is increasing His stature in us. The more we allow Christ to live in us, the more His stature in us increases.

We should not think that it is only at one point in the future or maybe not in our life-time will we be mature in life. We can, we must, and we will arrive at the stage of full maturity! It’s either in this age or in the next. Let us arrive today – this is not a dream or something unattainable in our lifetime….we CAN and we MUST be matured in life if we cooperate with Him!

The divine life we have received is a growing-unto-maturity life and a maturing life. The Lord is sounding out a call to all of us to come into the fourth stage of the experience of life that we may be mature in life, full of the stature of Christ!

The growth of life is the increase of the stature of Christ within us – and we need to grow in the divine life to arrive at the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ (Eph. 4:13). Christ has a fullness – this is His Body. This Body has a stature, and this stature has a measure. The measure of Christ in us needs to grow so that His stature in the Body would grow.

This is not some “nebulous growth in the spiritual realm” – the growth in life is the increase of the measurable stature of Christ within us. Christ is the standard of this stature, and the measure we have is the measure we grow in Christ. We need to be brought on to be a fully grown man. May we no longer delay it but cooperate with the Lord’s life growing in us!

The Building up of the Body Depends on the Personal Building up of all the Believers

In Col. 2:7 we see that we have been rooted in Christ and we are being built up in Him. This “being built up” refers not directly to the building up of the Body but to the personal and individual building up of Christ in our being. It refers to the increase of our spiritual stature in Christ.

We loath individualism and we reject being individualistic in the Body of Christ, but we shouldn’t take this as an excuse not to grow in life personally. It’s not “if the Body grows, I will also grow along”; rather, if we don’t grow, the Body of Christ doesn’t grow.

There’s a great need for all the local churches to increase their stature in Christ and be built up, and all the saints to personally grow in Christ unto maturity. If we are lacking in our spiritual stature we can hardly be built up in the Body of Christ. If we all are a bunch of babies and infants in Christ, there’s hardly any building up.

We need to grow so that there would be more of the stature of Christ in us. We personally need to spend time with the Lord and give Him more ground in our being, and we personally need to assimilate the riches of Christ in our being. As His riches are being assimilated into us, as we allow Christ to make His home in our hearts (Eph. 3:16-18), we will grow and we will be built up. Only grown up believers can be built up in the Body.

The individual growth of the many members of the Body becomes the corporate growth of the Body of Christ. We need to build ourselves in Christ and grow in Him. The new man is the composition of all the inner men in all the saints. If our inner man is not mature and fully grown, the corporate new man will suffer the lack of maturity also.

We all need to be strengthened by God according to the riches of His glory by His Spirit into our inner man so that Christ may make His home in our hearts through faith. This is the growth of the measure of Christ. When the inner man is strong and has the stature of Christ, automatically the Body will grow in stature.

Remember: the building up of the Body depends upon the individual and personal building up of all the believers!

Lord Jesus, grow in us. We want to give You more ground in our being so that Your life may grow in us. Make Your home in all our heart. Lord, we are desperate concerning this before You – don’t let us stay the same. May Your stature in us increase. May we be built up in Christ so that Your measure in us would grow. We want to be built up in the Body of Christ together with the other saints – Lord, grow in us unto maturity! Lord, we must grow! Lord, You must grow in us more today!

References and Hymns on this Topic

• Inspiration: the Word of God, my Christian experience, bro. Minoru Chan’s speaking in the message for this week, and portions from, The Knowledge of Life (ch. 12), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Entering into the Fourth Stage of the Experience of Life to Arrive at a Full-Grown Man for the Fulfillment of God’s Purpose, week 6 / msg 6, The Fourth Stage of the Experience of Life (5) – Full of the Stature of Christ.
• Further reading: recommending, The Conclusion of the New Testament (msgs. 212, 354).
• Hymns on this topic:
  # All things forgetting, cleaving unto Christ, / Applying Him until maturity; / Let us count everything but loss for Him, / For Him, our All in all, eternally.
  # Life so glorious, holy, mighty, / Overcoming life is He; / Strength imparting ’till in vict’ry / We attain maturity. / He transforms us to His image, / Frees us from entangling weights; / ’Till He comes and we’re transfigured, / Day by day He saturates.
  # Lord, today, increase Thyself in me, / Let Thy life grow to maturity; / Just a channel of life, let me be, / A pure vessel glorifying Thee.