Experiencing and Ministering the Eternal Life for the Church to be Full of Life

This week I was really encouraged to see that we, as believers in Christ, not only HAVE the eternal life and MAY experience this life, but we also CAN minister this life to other members of the Body of Christ.

First, we as children of God have received the divine life of God through our regeneration; this life is in our mingled spirit, and whenever we set our mind on the spirit, the divine life spreads into our soul to fill our soul with life, and eventually this life will spread even in our mortal body to fill it with life (see Rom. 8).

We now need to experience the divine life day by day simply by touching the Lord and turning to our spirit so that we may be filled with Him, saturated with Him, and have His thoughts and desires imprinted on us; then, He will live in us and we will live Him out.

If we daily contact the Lord, allow His life to flow in us, and cooperate to the best of our ability with His dealings and breaking work, then there will be a flow of life within us and even out of us to others to minister life to them.

We HAVE the divine life, we MAY experience this life, and we CAN minister this life to others. In the church life our main goal should be to minister life to one another; there may be many things we need to take care of in the church life, and we may need to be involved in much activity, but the focus and the goal is not accomplishing something or carrying out a service but ministering life.

Our concept needs to be changed, our opinion and zeal needs to be put aside, and our heart needs to be open to the Lord so that He may shine on us and really impress us with the matter of ministering life.

We need to take care of our children and preserve them for the Lord, but the goal is to minister life to them. We need to arrange the chairs in the meeting and there needs to be some ushering done, but the goal is to minister life.

We need to play the piano in the meeting, visit the saints, play basketball with the students, prepare our home for the home meeting, have appointments on campus, clean the meeting hall, give a ride to saints to the airport, have hospitality, etc – all these are necessary, but the focus and goal should be not “doing them in the best way for the Lord” but ministering life.

Satan’s Attack upon the Church is by Death, but We have the Eternal Life of God in us!

If we would be those who want to minister life to others, we need to realize that Satan attacks the church not merely by division, sin, the world, the flesh, opinions, the self, or religion but mainly by death.

What Satan wants to do is to inject death into the fabric of the church, and for this he may allow meetings to go on and saints to visit one another, as long as they are in death and they spread death, that is, as long as the saints are not growing in life and are not ministering life.

Starting from the garden of Eden, God’s controversy with Satan has been on the issue of life and death (see Gen. 3:3-4). What is of God is fully characterized by life, and what is of Satan, by death; in the church everything that issues from God is life, and everything that issues from Satan is death.

In Christ was life, and this life was the light of men (John 1:4); He came so that we may have life and may have it abundantly, while Satan comes to kill, to steal, and to destroy (John 10:10). Christ Himself is the resurrection and the life – He is the life that passed through death and now lives forever in resurrection, and He cannot be held down by death (John 11:25; Heb. 2:14).

Satan’s attack upon the church was identified by the Lord Jesus right when He spoke of building up the church, “I will build My church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it” (Matt. 16:18). The Lord promised that He will build His church, but at the same time He told us that the gates of Hades, death itself, is always there to fight against the church.

The church is an entity completely in life; the believers in Christ are persons of life, men in whom the divine life dwells, grows, and bears fruit, but Satan wants to bring in death. Sin may be identified easily, the world can be exposed and hated, the self can be denied, the flesh can be crucified, but still DEATH is not so easy to see, sense, or identify.

But Hallelujah, on the cross Christ destroyed the devil – who has the might of death, and He entered into death, defeated death, took the keys of death and Hades, and rose up victoriously – and now He is IN US as such an incorruptible, undefeated, eternal, resurrection life!

We as believers in Christ have the divine eternal life of God in us, and this life within us CAN overcome both death in ourselves and death in other members of the church! Hallelujah!

Satan’s greatest fear with regard to the church is her resistance to his power of death (2 Tim. 1:10); therefore, let us terrify the enemy, put him to shame, and destroy him by enjoying God as life, experiencing His divine life, and ministering His life to others for the removing of death and increase of the life of God in man for His glorious expression!

Lord Jesus, thank You for coming to bring us life, be our life, and supply us with life abundantly! We want to reject any death in us, in our family life, and in our church life. We choose LIFE! WE choose to exercise our spirit and enjoy, experience, and minister Christ as life to others for Satan’s defeat and the building up of the Body of Christ! Thank You Lord for coming into us as the eternal life that can overcome death both in ourselves and in other members of the church! Praise the Lord!

Enjoying, Experiencing, and Ministering the Eternal Life for the Church to be Full of Life

If we read 1 John 5:4-13 carefully we will realize that we have God’s testimony in us, we who believe into Christ have the Son of God, we have the divine life, and we have the eternal life! Hallelujah!

Therefore, now that we know that we have the eternal life, we know that, if we ask Him anything according to His will, we know that He hears us and He gives us what we ask for, that is, if we ask the Lord to impart life to a brother who lacks life, He will do it (1 John 5:14-17).

Praise the Lord, the eternal life we have received at the time of our regeneration has the capacity to overcome death both in ourselves and in other members of the church! The eternal life within us, once we enjoy it, experience it, and minister it, can swallow up death in us and in others.

What we need to do today is to enjoy and experience the eternal life of God, and we need to minister this life to others by being a channel through which life can flow!

We need to daily come to the Lord by faith through the exercise of our spirit to enjoy Him, contact Him, drink of Him, and let Him flow in us and spring out of us as rivers of living water (John 7:37-39). When we exercise our spirit to enjoy God as life and minister Him as life, this divine life is ministered to others and it swallows up any death in them.

We all can testify that many times we have come to the meeting fully in death, with many questions, and having a lot of doubts, but once we enjoyed the divine life being ministered among the saints, we left the meeting full of life and having any death removed and swallowed up! Hallelujah!

This is because the church is a container of the life of God: Christ as the Head is LIFE, and He is in each one of us to minister life to us constantly; now we are much more saved in His life (Rom. 5:10, 17), and we learn to be one with Christ to minister life to others also!

The church is the vessel of Christ on earth, and so in the church life we need to learn to enjoy the eternal life, experience the eternal life, and minister the eternal life to others. God intends for the church to manifest the life of Christ; hence, the church must be FULL of life, and our service in the church must minister life (see 1 John 1:1-2; 2:25; 5:11-13, 16; 2 Cor. 4:12).

Satan can attack all he can and at any time he wants – we choose to enjoy Christ as life, experience this life, and minister this life to others!

May we not give in to doubts, questionings, doctrines, and opinions, but may we choose LIFE, choose to enjoy, experience, and minister the eternal life in our spirit to others so that we may be a channel through which the eternal life of God can flow freely!

The One who raised Lazarus from the dead is now in us as resurrection and life; He lives in us, moves in us, imparts life to us, and waits for our cooperation, our willingness to enjoy Him, experience Him, and minister Him as life today!

If we are willing to be those enjoying, experiencing, and ministering the eternal life, we will be channels of life in the church life, and Satan with his attacks of death will be exposed and eliminated!

Lord Jesus, we want to experience and enjoy the eternal within us, and we want to learn to minister the eternal life to others in the church life! Lord, make us channels of life, persons through which eternal life can flow freely! We choose LIFE! We choose to enjoy, experience, and minister the eternal life so that any death would be swallowed and life would flow freely! Amen, Lord, may the church fully manifest the life of Christ! Fill the church with life, and fill our service in the church with much ministry of life!

References and Hymns on this Topic

• Inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message by brother Ron Kangas for this week, and portions from Life-study of 1 John, msg. 38 (by Witness Lee), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Service for the Building up of the Church (2016 Spring ITERO), week 8 / msg. 8, A Life-ministering Service.
• All Bible verses are taken from, Holy Bible Recovery Version.
• Hymns on this topic:
  # Channels of life are we, / Allowing God to flow! / Through us and out of us / That others life may know! / After you receive, / Are filled and enriched / By such a supply, / Go! Open your mouth! / Speak to all men the words of this life! (Songs on being channels of life)
  # Cleanse me, oh, cleanse me, my Savior, / Make me a channel today; / Empty me, fill me and use me, / Teach me to trust and obey. / Rivers of living water, / Rivers of life so free, / Flowing from Thee, my Savior, / Send now the rivers through me. (Hymns #251)
  # Lord grant me today, a new start in this way. / A person of life I would be— / Just expressing You in all that I do. / Oh may this life flow out of me! (Songs on flowing out God)