The church is what is on God’s heart, the procedure in this age to bring in the New Jerusalem in eternity, and the church is a lovely place – the kingdom of the Son of God’s love.
On the other hand though, we as the members of the church need to be in our mingled spirit and live in our spirit in order to build up the church.
What damages the church the most and what is the most opposing matter to the Body of Christ is the self. Whenever we are in our self, we damage the church and we do not build up the Body of Christ.
The self is the embodiment of Satan
Throughout the ages we can see that the heresies or persecutions did not damage the church as much as the self did. Even Martin Luther said that he was afraid of the pope but he was more afraid of the stronger pope, the self, which is in his own heart.
Nothing frustrates and damages the building up of the church than the self. The self is the embodiment of the soul, the person of the soul, which is expressed through the mind. These three – the self, the soul, and the mind – are “three in one”, and behind them is Satan. The self is the embodiment of Satan, who is behind our self.
It is serious to be offended in the church life
Even though the church life is such a wonderful place, we as human beings can get easily offended. This morning I was impressed with the fact that it is a very serious matter to be offended! Although it may not have been you who is the cause of the offense, it is you who are offended and you suffer.
What is an offense? It is simply opening the gate of the self to allow Satan to come in. If we are in our spirit, if we are those who exercise the key of denying the self, we cannot be offended! When we exercise our spirit and deny our self, the church is built up, and we cannot be offended. Blessed are those who are not offended!
We need to learn to exercise the key of denying our self by exercising our spirit. If we are in our self and do not touch the Lord in our spirit, it is very easy to be offended, whether you are in the church life or not.
The self is like a gate, so open and ready to either be expressed or be offended, and through the open gate of the self, Satan comes forth! Even if the church is wrong in a certain matter – and we are offended, we allow Satan to come in. We shouldn’t make any excuses for our being offended but learn to exercise our spirit and lock the gates of Hades!
The self is the soul declaring independence from God
We need the Lord to shine on us and show us a vision of the self. From the very beginning in the garden of Eden we see that the self is the soul declaring its independence from God. When we are no longer dependent on God but “take matters into our own hands”, we are in the self.
The self is the greatest problem to the building up of the Body, and the self is opposing the Body. The principle of the Body is depending on the Lord and depending on the brothers and the sisters.
We grow up learning to develop the self and live in our self, and especially these days people learn to cultivate, develop, and grow their self and be “strong and independent men/women”.
Saints, whenever we are independent of the brothers and the sisters, we are in the self – in the independent soul – and we frustrate the building up of the Body! To be independent of the brothers and sisters equals being independent of Christ, but when we are dependent, the self is gone, and instead of the self, we have the Lord’s presence and are full of peace.
[sharing inspired from portions in, The Exercise of the Kingdom for the Building of the Church, and, The Heavenly Vision, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, The Four Great Pillars in the Lord’s Recovery. You can follow the articles on The Four Great Pillars on this blog]
Lord, keep shining on us and keep exposing the self. We don’t want to stay with the self or in the self but rather learn to deny our self for the building up of the church! Lord, we want to learn to exercise our spirit and live in our spirit. O, Lord, keep us turning to our mingled spirit to deny our self and build up the Body! Even when we are offended, Lord, remind us to turn to our spirit and deny our self…
Amen this is why we need to exercise our spirits to be in spirit before we arrive at the meetings then we all call upon the Lord together and pray read to further our enjoyment of Christ ,even when we are driving or walking to the meeting we could sing hymns together and call on the Lord,the worst thing we can do is debate or even have an argument just before a mtg or talk worldly talk as this will deflate and kill our spiritual life and will deaden our use in the mtgs ,avoid this at all cost ,say no to Satan and yes to God,Hallelujah