enjoying God’s visitation and practicing the scriptural way to meet and serve

Isn’t it so wonderful to be in the Father’s house, in the house of God, in the church?

Here we see the continuation and the propagation of the life of God in so many human beings, our brothers and sisters. Here we learn to build up the church as the Father’s house, the house of Jehovah!

We can build up by growing in life and by being more mingled with the Triune God!

Today we see that we can build up the church as the Father’s house by enjoying God’s constant visitation and by practicing the scriptural way to meet and serve.

If we love the Lord, He will come with the Father to visit us and abide with us for God to have a dwelling place on earth!

When we meet with the saints in the church life we need to learn to function in our measure according to the principle of 1 Cor. 14, where we see that Each One Has Something for Building Up!

Building Up the Church by Enjoying God’s Continual Visitation

In John 14:2 the Lord told us that in the Father’s house there are many abodes, and He is going (through death and resurrection) to prepare them. In verse 23 He tells us that if we love Him and keep His word, He and the Father will come to us and will make an abode with us.

Here we see that a very simple way to build up the Father’s house is by enjoying the constant visitation of the Father and the Son with the Spirit (who indwells us) that we may be the mutual dwelling place of God and man!

If we love the Lord and keep His word by saying Amen to His speaking to us, the Son and the Father will come to visit us and make an abode with us.

We love the Lord, and the Father loves us, and the two of them come to us to make an abode with us! As the Triune God visits us and makes an abode with us, His house is being enlarged and is coming into being on earth!

How Can We Enjoy God’s Visitation?

You may wonder, But how can I enjoy God’s visitation? First of all, He is not visiting us once in a while, and we are not a “motel” for the Triune God.

When we believe into the Lord we receive God into our spirit and He’s here to stay with us forever! He is living in us and He is in us all the time!

But in our personal time with the Lord, we may sense that the Father and the Son love us and are here to permanently visit us to do some building work in a particular part of our being.

As He is in us operating in this way to make His abode in us, we don’t tell anyone about it but enjoy this secret inward operating of the Triune God to enlarge His abode in humanity, even in us. We may even pray,

Lord, come with the Father to visit me again and again. Lord, come to make an abode with me and in me in every area of my being. Lord, visit my family also – visit my parents, my spouse, my children, and all my relatives. Lord, make an abode with all the saints in the church. Enlarge Your abode in us, Lord, and gain every part of our inward being to be Your home!

Building Up the Church by Practicing the Scriptural Way to Meet and Serve

The church is indeed spiritual, inward, organic, and intrinsic, but it is also very much outward in the church life with all kinds of activities and practices.

The church as the house of Jehovah – the Father’s house – is built up through the practice of scriptural way to meet and to serve (see Eph. 4:11-16; 1 Cor. 14:24-26; Hag. 1:8, 14).

The way God ordained that the Christians should meet and serve looks nothing like you can see in today’s Christianity.

God didn’t mean for there to be pastors, reverends, bishops, ordained ministers, archbishops, or all kinds of other people which can be called, “the clergy”.

God never intended for there to be “a higher class” of people in the church which over-functions and teaches everyone else who are “the laymen”, listening quietly and learning in submission.

Today God wants to recover the New Testament priesthood of the gospel (Rom. 15:16; 1 Pet. 2:5, 9), in which all the believers function for the building up of the Body of Christ!

The scriptural way to meet and to serve is first to annul the clergy-laity system and second to develop the gifts, the functions, and the capacity of all the members of the organic Body of Christ (see Matt. 20:25-28; Rom. 12:4-6).

Every member of the Body is important and is vital for the functioning of the Body of Christ.

In the present advance of the Lord’s recovery He is moving to recover the perfecting of the common members of the Body of Christ that they may function in their measure for the building up of the Body (see Eph. 4:11-16).

How Can We Function in Our Measure for Building Up?

Many believers honestly ask, What is my function in the Body of Christ? What is my part? How can I build up the Body?

All these are good questions. But the fact that we may not know what our function in the Body is should not stop us from daily enjoying the Lord, reading His Word, praying, and doing our best to function as the Lord in us is saying or doing things.

We need to always be ready to function, always be exercised in our spirit and have a word to speak to others for building up.

We may not be the eye or the mouth or the hand, but as long as we exercise to enjoy the Lord and have His word deposited into us, our tongue will be like the pen of a READY writer. We will be ready to write and speak our love for Him!

We need to be recovered to being normal functioning members of the Body of Christ, normal Christians who preach the gospel, shepherd the saints, perfect the new ones, and prophesy for the building up of the Body of Christ!

Lord, make us normal Christians, vital God-men who live in the priesthood of the gospel. May the gospel be our daily living. Keep us loving You and exercising our spirit to take You in through Your word and prayer. Lord, we want to be continually filled with You that there may be an overflowing for functioning unto building up!

References and Further Reading

• Sharing inspired from portions in, The Basic Principles for the Practice of the God-ordained Way (and brother Ron’s sharing in the message), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Crystallization-Study of the Minor Prophets, week 10 (entitled, The Building of the House of Jehovah).
• Hymns on this topic:
  # Let others stretch their arms like seas, / And grasp in all the shore; / Grant me the visits of Thy grace, / And I desire no more.
  # I’m thankful that God has placed me / With you to build up His Body. / Christ in you is the hope for me! / You also need Christ lived in me.
  # Exercise the spirit! / All the forms forsake; / Share with one another, / Each of Christ partake.
• Picture credit: John 14:23, picture by one of my friends on Facebook.