In the entire universe today God is doing only one thing: building up His eternal habitation. God’s building is the desire of God’s heart and the goal of His salvation. What please the Lord the most is not that many of his believers would overcome sin or be spiritual individually, but that He would get a building, a divine-human entity composed of the built-up believers in Christ.
He created all things to produce some materials for His building. He came as a man to redeem the fallen humanity so that they would be materials for His building. And today God is working on building His church, the Body of Christ, for His home, His habitation, and His dwelling place.
But what is God’s building? What does it mean to be part of God’s building? Does it mean to merely be in fellowship with the believers the Lord put you with and coordinate with them concerning so many outward things that need to be taken care of in the church life?
Is being built up in God’s house the same as spending time together with the saints and becoming intimate with them, knowing their problems and them knowing your problems?
We need to have a divine understanding of God’s building, seeing what the Bible actually says that God’s building really is. May the Lord save us from our natural understanding of God’s building and give us His view of what His dream is about.
God’s Building is the Mingling of God with Man
Eph. 3:21 To Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus unto all the generations forever and ever. Amen.First of all, God’s building is the mingling of God with man. The real meaning of God’s building is the mingling of God with man. This is basic, essential, and crucial. We need to ask ourselves, Lord, how much are You mingled with me? How much are You mingled with the saints?
To mingle means to take a few elements and put them together, mixing them up to blend them and mingle them, yet without producing a third element or substance. For example, a branch can be mingled with a tree by grafting it into the tree, and an organic process takes place.
The building God is after is the mingling of God with man, God entering into man and man being brought into Christ. When we fellowship with the saints what matters is how much we open to the Lord together to be mingled with Him, how much do we give Him the preeminence in our conversations and doings.
The divine building is a matter of IN – Christ in us and we in Him. God wants to be a God in man and He wants man to be in God. We need to abide in Him and He abides in us (John 15). Without this mutual abiding there is no building. Just because you meet with the saints, are well coordinated together, and each one does his part doesn’t mean that God has a building.
The degree to which God has a building is the degree to which God was able to get into you and saturate you, and the degree to which you have been brought into God. In all our activities in our family life and church life we need to allow the Lord to enter in and be involved, saturating us and mingling Himself more with us.
Mingling is the basic requirement for God’s building, and without mingling there’s no building. The principle of God’s building is that God builds Himself into us and builds us into Himself (see Eph. 3:17).
The church is God’s building composed of God Himself as the divine material mingled with man as the human material (1 Cor. 3:9, 11); these two are mingled to become God’s building.
God’s Building is the Corporate Expression of the Triune God
Essentially, God’s building is the mingling of God with man. Outwardly, what others see is the corporate expression of the Triune God. The building is not your expression or the expression of some spiritual brother or sister but the corporate expression of God.
The building of God, the church, is God manifested in the flesh (1 Tim. 3:15-16). Just as our human body is our expression, so the Body of Christ is the expression of God. When we serve the Lord, read the bible, enjoy the Lord, we need to have a sense that we are being related to other members and we are functioning together with them.
God’s intention is to have a group of people who are built up together as a spiritual building to express God and represent Him by dealing with His enemy an recovering the lost earth for God (see Gen. 1:26; 1 Pet. 2:5, 9).
God’s desire is that He would be expressed and represented by man on earth, and this can be fulfilled only when we are built up together. When the believers in Christ pay the price to put away their interests, desires, names and denominations, opinions, and natural man, the Lord will have a way to build them up into the church as the Body of Christ, and God will have a corporate expression.
When others come among us they shouldn’t see only the good order and proper functioning but God Himself expressed through all the saints. A sign that we are God’s building is that what is expressed among us is God Himself in a corporate way.
God’s Building is the Enlargement and Expansion of God to Express God Corporately
Gen. 35:15 And Jacob called the name of the place where God had spoken with him Bethel.
Just as Eve was taken out of Adam to be the increase and enlargement of Adam so the church was taken out of Christ to be Christ’s increase, enlargement, and expansion.
God’s building is not something apart from God; it is the enlargement and expansion of God to express Himself in a corporate way. For this, Christ needs to increase in us and we need to decrease.
Genuine building is not merely a group of men on earth coordinating together but the enlargement and expansion of God Himself. Such a group of people have the weight of God, the taste of God, the view of God, the wisdom of God, and the element of God is increasing in them.
The genuine building is the Triune God Himself as life being wrought into us so that we may become His one expression, the enlargement and expansion of God in His economy.
In His essence, God is perfect and cannot expand; in His economy, God increases, expands, and is enlarged in humanity. When we are born again we become part of the enlargement and expansion of God. The more we enjoy the Lord as our life, the more He increases in us, and the more we become His increase.
This is Bethel, the house of God – the increase of God, the enlargement of God, for God’s corporate expression. We need to spend time with the Lord daily and we need to regularly fellowship with the saints under the divine dispensing so that we may be filled with God and have His element increased and enlarged in us.
This is the house of God, Bethel, which is the church today and will consummate in the New Jerusalem as the eternal habitation of God with man. The New Jerusalem is the Tabernacle of God, and God Himself and the Lamb are it’s temple.
Today God is working Himself into us and transforming us for His building, His mingling with man, His enlargement in humanity, for His corporate expression.
Lord Jesus, uplift our view of the building of God. Save us from having a natural view and understanding of what God’s building is. Cause us to see that God’s building is the mingling of God and man. Lord, mingle Yourself more with us for Your building. Make us Your enlargement, Your increase, Your spread in humanity by working Yourself into us for Your building. Lord, obtain Your corporate expression in humanity, God manifested in the flesh, by mingling Yourself more with us today!
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Inspiration: the Word of God, my Christian experience, bro. James Lee’s sharing in the message for this week, and portions from, The Church as the Body of Christ (chs. 3-6), as quoted in, the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Crystallization-Study of Genesis (3), week 3 / msg 3, Transformation for God’s Building.
- Hymns on this topic:
# God’s intention in this universe is with humanity, / So the Lord became the Spirit just with man to mingled be. / We rejoice that we can all partake of His economy. / Yes, mingling is the way. (Hymns #1199)
# As the branches of the grapevine / Are its outward spread, / With it one, abiding, bearing / Clusters in its stead; / So the Church’s many members / Christ’s enlargement are, / One with Him in life and living, / Spreading Him afar. (Hymns #819)
# Bring me to be with others, Lord, / That we express Your Person corporately. / A living stone for building now, / Make us to be Your Body, one with Thee. (Song on God’s building)
I bless the lord for you sir I needed this ❤️