Building up God’s Dwelling Place with the Christ we Enjoy, Experience, and Offer to God

If we see that God’s purpose, His heart’s desire, and His goal is the church, His dwelling place, we will realize that we were saved for the church, we enjoy Christ for the church, and we are under God’s light and revelation for the building up of the church.

It is crucial to see the vision of God’s building, grow in life to a certain degree of maturity, be in the vision, and have years to spend shepherding others into the vision and building up of the Body of Christ, God’s dwelling place.

How can we build up the church, the Body of Christ? It is Christ who builds up His church, but He does it through us, the many members of His Body. God’s dwelling place is built up with the Christ whom we have enjoyed, experienced, and offered to God (see Exo. 25:2-7). We build up the church, the house of God, with the Christ we have enjoyed and experienced.

In the Old Testament in the days of Haggai the prophet, the people of Israel was experiencing a period of economic recess; God spoke through the prophet that the reason for this was that His house lies waste, while everyone runs to his own house. If we return to the building up of God’s house, the blessing will come.

Many believers reach a period of dryness and emptiness in their walk with the Lord until they realize that it’s not just about you, your situation, or your needs – it is all about God’s house.

If we give ourselves to the Lord to enjoy Him and experience Him, we will have Christ to offer to God for the building up of the church, the house of God. For this we need to consecrate our precious things, even our precious and sweet experiences of Christ, to God for His house.

To consecrate doesn’t mean that we promise the Lord to do this or keep that for Him; it is to open to the Lord without any reservation and be willing to let Him work Himself into us for the building up of His house.

In this way we will reach the goal of God’s building, journeying from the world (typified by Egypt) to the place where we can build up the church with the proper materials in resurrection.

Building up God’s Dwelling Place with the Christ we Enjoy, Experience, and Offer to God

We cannot build up the church with our natural ability, capacity, talent, or gift; we cannot build up the church with anything natural of ourselves. Only the Christ that has been enjoyed and experienced by us is the right material for the building up of the church.

Christ is all-inclusive; He is now so available, having been prepared by God to be our food, our drink, and our everything; we need to eat Christ, drink Christ, enjoy Christ, and experience Christ, and we will have something of Christ in resurrection to offer up to God for the building up of His house.

In Exo. 25:2 we see that the materials for the building up of the tabernacle were presented to God as a heave offering; this shows us that we need to experience Christ in resurrection and ascension for the building up of His dwelling place on earth.

Nothing natural can build up the church. The children of Israel could not build the tabernacle in Egypt or right after they crossed the Red Sea; they had to be reconstituted with the heavenly food and the living water, and they had to build the tabernacle according to the pattern shown to Moses on the mountain.

We cannot build up the church by exercising our skills to organize meetings and things; we need to pass through death and be in resurrection in the heavenlies to build up the church with the Christ we have enjoyed, experienced, and offered up to God.

But who cares for the building up of the church? Paul said to the Philippians that everyone cares for their own things – only Timothy cares for the things of Christ Jesus.

Do we care for our own things, our own growth in life, our own family life, our own career, and our own personal development more than we care for God’s house? There has to be an intrinsic organic change happening in us in which we enjoy and experience Christ for God’s building!

The church is built up with the Christ who has become our experience, and the materials with which we build up the church need to be filled with the character of resurrection and altogether in a heavenly position.

We need to experience, enjoy, and possess the virtues of Christ’s person and work, and we need to offer these back to God in resurrection as a heave-offering for the building up of God’s dwelling place.

We may go through some tough situations and costly things, and Christ has a way wrought into us; we then need to realize that even that experience is for God’s building, and we need to heave it up to Him in resurrection.

Lord Jesus, all that You have gained in us is for Your building! We want to experience You, enjoy You, know You, and offer You up to God for the building up of the church, the house of God! Oh Lord, we offer up to You all our experiences of Christ for the building up of the church. We hold nothing back. We refuse to focus on our own personal growth in life more than we focus on Your building. May the virtues of Christ’s person and work be possessed, enjoyed, and experienced by us so that we may offer them to God in resurrection for the building up of the church, God’s dwelling place!

Our Consecration is Needed for God’s Building, our Destination and Goal

For the building up of God’s dwelling place we all need a consecration in which we offer precious things to God for His building. In order for God’s building to come into being in a practical way, we need to consecrate our precious things and experiences to Him for His building (Rom. 12:1; Exo. 25:2; 35:4-9).

To consecrate ourselves to God doesn’t mean that we promise to do this or that for Him but rather that we present ourselves to Him unconditionally, opening to Him and giving Him the consent to direct our ways and work Himself into our being.

At the end of the age of the church today the Lord is waiting for a group of His believers who would give Him the full consent to work in them and build Himself into them so that even their precious enjoyment and experience of Christ would be for the building up of the church as the Body of Christ!

If we are such ones who open to the Lord unreservedly, we will build up the church as the dwelling place of God with our precious and sweet experiences of Christ.

As we see in the book of Exodus, we started in the world as slaves under Satan’s usurpation and we end up with the building up of the church, God’s dwelling place, so that God would fill His building with Himself as glory (see Exo. 1:11; 40:17, 34-35).

We were dead in the world, under the authority of darkness, without God and without hope; but God saved us, He is supplying us with Himself, He gives us a revelation of His heart’s desire, and we are brought into the goal: God’s dwelling place.

The tabernacle and the temple in the Old Testament were a symbol of God’s people, the children of Israel, who were the real dwelling place of God, the house of God (Exo. 25:8-9; Heb. 3:6).

At the beginning of the New Testament age Christ came as God’s embodiment to be both the tabernacle of God with man and the temple of God in man (see John 1:14; 2:19-21), and through His death and resurrection the individual Christ was enlarged to be the corporate Christ, the church, as the enlarged house of God, the Body of Christ (see 1 Cor. 3:16-17; 1 Tim. 3:15; Heb. 3:6; 1 Cor. 12:12).

Eventually, God’s house will consummate in the New Jerusalem, where we see the Triune God mingled with His redeemed people of both the Old Testament and the New Testament to be God’s eternal mutual dwelling place in and with man (Rev. 21:3, 22).

Our goal and destiny is to build up, be built into, and become God’s building for eternity; for this, may the Lord be merciful to us that may we receive the Lord’s speaking and supply, and may we receive from the Lord a heart to know Him because we love Him, and a heart that takes His goal as our goal, so that our life would be on the course toward God’s building!

Lord Jesus, we present ourselves to You unconditionally and without any reservation so that You may direct our way and work Yourself into us. Lord, we open to You and we allow You to work Yourself into us through all our enjoyment and experience of You so that we may offer the Christ we experienced up to God for the building up of His house. Lord, we are here for Your building. Gain the enlarged dwelling place of God in man in the church, the Body of Christ, for Your corporate expression in humanity!

References and Hymns on this Topic

• Inspiration: the Word of God, my Christian experience, bro. Ron Kangas’ sharing in the message for this week, and portions from, Life-study of Exodus, msgs. 81-82, as quoted in, the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Crystallization-Study of Exodus (1), week 1 / msg 1, A Revelation of God and God’s Building as the Goal of His Salvation, Provision, and Revelation.
• Hymns on this topic:
  # Our flesh for building is no good; / God’s house must have acacia wood! / Christ’s human life is balanced and fine, / And it’s adorned with gold divine. / We want to stand as boards so strong, / Held by the bars where we belong; / To be the church for which You long— / One full-grown man! (Hymns #1173)
  # Build me, Lord, with other saints, / Independence ne’er allow, / But according to Thy plan / Fitly frame and join me now. / In experience not my boast, / Nor in gifts would be my pride; / For Thy building I give all, / That Thou may be glorified. (Hymns #839)
  # Within those whom You’d call / Put such a restless caring / For building to give all— / These times are for preparing; / The gates of hell cannot prevail / Against the builded Church! / The hours are few, the builders too— / Lord, build, O build in us! (Hymns #1248)