Bring the Surplus of Christ to the Church Meetings for the Corporate Worship of God

We need to daily labour on Christ to have a surplus, a harvest, to bring to the church meetings for the worship of God the Father; when we come to the meetings of the church, we need to bring the surplus of Christ for the saints’ enjoyment and the Father’s satisfaction.

We have a hymn in the hymnal, Hymns #864, which speaks of our exhibiting Christ in the meetings of the church.

This hymn needs to become our testimony and experience in the church meetings.

When we meet with the saints at the Lord’s table meeting, we especially need to bring the surplus of Christ to the meetings of the church to offer unto God as food and therefore exhibit Christ.

When we come to the Lord’s Table meeting, one of the most important and wonderful meetings of and with the saints, we need to bring our portion of Christ, the surplus of Christ, to offer to God as food and to exhibit Christ.

Our meetings should be an exhibition of Christ, for we all need to bring the surplus of Christ, the top portion of Christ, and offer it in the meetings for the saints’ enjoyment and nourishment and for the Father’s satisfaction and worship.

Daily we need to live in Christ, walk in Christ, fight in Christ, and labour on Christ – day and night, we need to labour on Christ.

And when we come together with the saints, when we gather in the meetings of the church, we need to bring the surplus of Christ to the church to exhibit Him.

Our life with all we are and do, everything we are and everything we do, needs to be Christ Himself and in Christ, for He is our substance true.

And every time we meet anew, we should just exhibit Christ.

When we meet with the saints, we not only catch up on how are things with them, and what is going on; rather, in meetings we bear Christ to God and we share Christ with one another.

We enjoy Christ with God and with the saints, and we exhibit Christ.

Especially at the Lord’s Table meeting, a meeting focused solely on the Lord and later on the Father, we need to exercise our spirit and deny ourselves, and we need to simply release our praises and songs to the Lord.

Our unique focus should be Christ; we have enjoyed Him throughout the week, we have laboured on Him as we enjoyed and experienced Him, and we now bring Him to the meetings of the church as a portion, a surplus.

And we offer the Christ we have enjoyed and experienced to the Father for His satisfaction.

The centre and reality of all our meetings should be for us to exhibit Christ.

The atmosphere and ministry in all our meetings should be that we exhibit Christ.

Our testimony, our prayer, our singing, our fellowship, and all the exercise of gift, everything we do and say in the meeting, should be just to exhibit Christ.

May we glorify the Father and exalt the Son so that we may satisfy the purpose of the meeting, which is to exhibit Christ. Amen!

We need to Daily Labor on Christ and bring the Surplus of Christ to the Meetings for the Corporate Worship of the Father

Thank the Lord that He has unveiled us to see that the meetings of the church should not all be “one man speaking and the rest listening” but rather, all the members functioning and all the saints speaking.

How can we have such meetings? How can we have meetings in which all the saints speak Christ and we all exhibit Christ?

We need to daily labour on Christ and bring the surplus of Christ to the meetings of the church for the corporate worship of God the Father (Deut. 12:6; 1 Cor. 14:26; John 4:23-24; Deut. 16:15-16).

As believers in Christ, we have been brought into Christ as the all-inclusive, good land.

The life in the land today should be one full of the enjoyment of Christ, both personally and collectively with the Lord’s people (8:7-10).

On the personal side, each one of us needs to labour on Christ by enjoying and experiencing Christ in our daily life.

Day by day we need to remain under the divine dispensing and allow the Lord to work Himself into us.

As we do this and that, taking care of many practical matters or simply resting, we need to learn to contact the Lord.

We may be upset with someone because of what they say to us, or a member of our family may say something that offends us; instead of “deal with the problem” we need to simply learn to turn to our spirit and contact the Lord.

Our life in the good land is a life of labouring on Christ, producing Christ, enjoying Christ, sharing Christ with others, and offering Christ to God so that He may enjoy Him with us.

Our real job, our real occupation, is to enjoy Christ, contact Christ, and experience Christ day by day.

Our daily life should be filled with working on Christ, producing Christ, enjoying Christ, and sharing Christ with others.

Then, when we come together, we need to bring the surplus of Christ to the meetings of the church for the corporate worship of the Father.

As we all enjoy Christ and experience Him, and as we come to the meetings of the church with a surplus of Christ to offer unto God as food, we exhibit Christ.

The entire universe can see Christ exhibited among us.

In John 4:23-24 the Lord Jesus told the Samaritan woman that the age had changed – people didn’t need to Jerusalem to worship or on a particular mountain, but they had to worship God in spirit and in truthfulness.

God is seeking such worshippers, those who worship God in spirit and in truthfulness.

The location of the worship of God is no longer Jerusalem as a physical place but our spirit, the place where God dwells.

For us to worship God the Father, we need to exercise our spirit and be in spirit.

The offerings we offer to God are no longer the outward offerings but Christ Himself as the reality of all the offerings, and this Christ being wrought into us to become our truthfulness, our reality.

2 Cor. 11:10 says that the truthfulness of Christ is in me; this needs to become our reality.

Christ needs to be enjoyed, experienced and wrought into us to become subjective to us, even to become our truthfulness.

When we come together to meet with the saints, we need to exercise our spirit and offer Christ to God, offering the surplus of Christ to God for His worship and for the saints’ enjoyment.

May the Lord gain this among us. May the divine reality be wrought into us until it becomes our subjective reality, our truthfulness.

And when we come to the meetings of the church, may we offer Christ to God for His satisfaction, thus worshipping God and shaming the enemy.

May we all be diligent to labour on Christ day by day so that we may have our hands filled with Him.

And when we come together to the church meetings, may we enjoy and share this rich and glorious Christ with God’s children and with God Himself for a rich exhibition of Christ and the corporate worship of God.

May this be the reality of our daily life and our meeting life.

May we take Christ as the reality of all the offerings, come forward to God through Him and enjoy Him through the exercise of our spirit.

May we take Him as the reality of all the riches of the good land, enjoying Him in spirit day by day.

And when we come together, may we prepare and bring forth the surplus of Christ, the top portion of our enjoyment and experience of Christ, so that we may offer it to God for His worship and satisfaction and to the saints for their supply and encouragement.

Lord Jesus, we want to daily labour on Christ by enjoying and experiencing Christ in our spirit. Keep us coming to You throughout the day, dear Lord, to contact You in our spirit. May we gain Christ day by day. May we have a surplus of Christ to bring to the meetings of the church for the corporate worship of God the Father. Amen, Lord, may our life be filled with the enjoyment of Christ, both personally and collectively with the Lord’s people. We pray for ourselves and for all the saints, Lord, that we would live a life of labouring on Christ, producing Christ, enjoying Christ, sharing Christ to others, and offering Christ to God so that He may enjoy Him with us! Amen, we want to exhibit Christ in the meetings of the church by sharing the surplus of Christ with all the saints! Amen, Lord Jesus, may we be those who are diligent to labour on Christ and have our hands filled with Him. May we bring the surplus of Christ to the meetings of the church to enjoy this rich and glorious Christ with God’s children and with God Himself!

Coming to the Lord’s Table Meeting with our Hands Full of Christ to Remember the Lord and Worship the Father

Whenever we come to the Lord’s table meeting to remember the Lord and worship the Father, we should not come with our hands empty.

Rather, we must come with our hands full of the produce of Christ, even as the children of Israel came with their hands full of the produce of the good land (Deut. 16:15-16).

Our experience many times is that we come to the Lord’s Table meeting in a passive way, and we just follow what the others are doing, maybe singing a little, declaring some stanzas, and offering a prayer.

Many times there are hymns being called in the Lord’s table meeting, one after the other, without much enjoyment of Christ and praise to the Lord.

We need to have a change in the way we come to the Lord’s Table meeting.

We need to prepare a portion of Christ and come to the meetings with our hands full of Christ to remember the Lord and worship the Father.

There must be a surplus of Christ that we bring to the meetings of the church for the corporate worship of the Father.

May the Lord save us from falling into degradation in the way we partake of the Lord at the Lord’s table meeting.

May we be saved from the customs of the nations in the way we meet. May we come with our hands full of Christ to remember the Lord and worship the Father.

By the Lord’s mercy, may we come to the Lord’s Table meeting in a new way, bringing our surplus of Christ and giving much praises to the Lord.

To worship God with Christ is to worship Him collectively with all the children of God by enjoying Christ with one another and with God (1 Cor. 14:26).

On the personal side, we need to labour on Christ day by day, and we need to allow Christ to produce Himself in us so that we may have a surplus of Christ to bring to the meetings of the church.

On the corporate side, when we come to the meetings of the church, especially to the Lord’s Table meeting, we should not passively sit and wait or go along with what is happening.

Rather, we need to exercise our spirit to worship God in spirit and in truthfulness.

We need to worship God by exercising our spirit and by offering the surplus of Christ to God as our truthfulness.

Day by day we need to produce enough of Christ so that there will be a surplus to share with others and offer the best part of the produce to God the Father for His joy, delight, and satisfaction (Deut. 15:11; 18:3-4; 12:11).

We need to labour on Christ by enjoying and experiencing Him in our spirit not only to have enough of Christ for us to survive and go on with the Lord; we need to produce enough of Christ for there to be a surplus of Christ to share with others also, and to bring to the Father for His satisfaction.

Our worship to God is not merely to the Creator but to the Father. God is our Father and we are His children; He has put His own life into our spirit, and we grow in this life and live by this life.

Day by day we learn to enjoy Him, partake of Him, and be filled with Him.

And when we come to the Lord’s table meeting, we offer a corporate worship to the Father not merely by being there and saying “praise the Lord” but by offering the surplus of Christ to Him for His satisfaction.

At the beginning of the Lord’s Table meeting, we enjoy Christ and praise Him, and at the end, He leads us to worship the Father.

The Lord leads us back to the Father in the Spirit. Our worship of God is through the Son, in the Spirit, and to the Father (Eph. 2:18).

Luke 15 fully portrays this: the Son as the Shepherd seeks us, the Spirit enlightens us, and we as prodigal sons return to the Father.

May we exercise our spirit and bring the surplus of Christ to the meetings of the church to offer to the Father for His satisfaction and worship.

Lord Jesus, we want to come to the Lord’s table meeting to remember the Lord and worship the Father by having our hands full of Christ! Amen, Lord, we want to enjoy and experience You more and more throughout the day so that we may have a surplus of Christ to bring to the meetings of the church for the corporate worship of the Father! Oh Lord, may we produce enough of Christ in our daily life so that there will be a surplus of Christ to share with others! Amen, we want to bring the best part of Christ in our enjoyment and experience to the meetings of the church for the Father’s satisfaction! Yes, Lord, gain the worship that You desire! Gain the worshippers You want, those who worship God in spirit and with Christ as their truthfulness! May all the saints come to the meeting filled with Christ, having a surplus of Christ, and offering Christ to the Father for His joy, delight, and satisfaction!

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 the brothers in the message for this week, and portions from, Collected Works of Witness Lee, 1961-1962, vol. 4, “The All-Inclusive Christ,” pp. 344-352, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Knowing, Experiencing, and Living the All-inclusive Christ for the Genuine Church Life (2023 spring ITERO), week 7, entitled, Laboring on the all-inclusive Christ – “a Land flowing with Milk and Honey” – and Bringing the Surplus of the Riches of Christ to the Meetings of the Church for an Exhibition of Christ and the Corporate Worship of God.
• Similar sharing on this topic:
  – Our Need to Exhibit Christ in the Church and to a Have a Surplus of Christ for the Corporate Worship of God Our Father, sharing by brother Ron K.
  – Meeting God’s Need and Present Needs in the Lord’s Recovery – 2021 Montana Fall Conference, messages via, The Church in Missoula.
  – Our Need to Labor on the All-inclusive Christ to Have the Produce to Exhibit Christ in the Church and to Have a Surplus of Christ to Bring to the Church Meetings for the Corporate Worship of God Our Father, a portion via, Weekly Ministry (Feb 13, 2022 – Feb 19, 2022) – the church in San Jose.
  – Christ Typified by the Dry Land in God’s Restoration and Re-creation, an outline via, The Church in Miami.
• Hymns on this topic:
  – 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! / O Jesus! You’re God’s good land / For me to labor on! / I’ll bit by bit possess You / Until the whole is won! / With Canaan is God’s purpose, / The labor He will bless; / Lord Jesus, here I gain Yourself, / Your Person to possess. (Hymns #1168 stanza 5 and chorus)
  – The testimony and the prayer, / And all the fellowship we share, / The exercise of gifts, whate’er, / Should just exhibit Christ. / The Father we would glorify, / Exalting Christ the Son, thereby / The meeting’s purpose satisfy / That we exhibit Christ. (Hymns #864 stanzas 7-8)
  – Lord, Thou art the Land of Canaan- / Elevated, rich and good, / Flowing with both milk and honey / In a glorious plenitude. / By Thy surplus God we worship, / In Thy fellowship we move; / Thus in love we’re joined together / And God’s building we will prove. (Hymns #196 stanza 5)