What God needs today in the church life is more ministers of life, persons who know Him as the God of resurrection and minister Him as the God of resurrection into others. We need to see the difference between merely having a “gift” and having the ministry of life.
What is needed for the building up of the church is not gifts but ministers constituted with the Triune God, those who experience God as the God of resurrection and minister Him into people (see 2 Cor. 1:8-10). This means that we need to grow and mature in the divine life, and we need to minister the divine life we experience and enjoy into others also (see 1 John 1:2; 5:14-17).
The Gospels, the Epistles, the New Testament, and the entire Bible ends with John’s mending ministry of life, and what is needed the most in the church life today is more experience, enjoyment, and ministry of life. Life is what we need.
We don’t need big gifts or large gatherings with a good schedule and excellent choir… we need life! More divine life! More impartation of life. More growth in life. More ministry of life. More supplying of life to one another!
Experiencing and Ministering the God of Resurrection
In 2 Cor. 1:9 Paul said,
Indeed we ourselves had the response of death in ourselves, that we should not base our confidence on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead.
In order to produce the ministry of life, God sovereignly allows us to go through all kinds of distresses and difficulties so that we may know Him as the God of resurrection.
We open to Him, consecrate to Him, and He is faithful to tailor-make and bring about things and situations and people that would cause us to know Him as the God of resurrection and allow Him to work His element into us.
The working of the cross terminates the self and the flesh so that we may experience and know God in resurrection. As we experience the cross, we are ushered in resurrection and we know God as the God of resurrection, and such an experience produces and forms the ministry.
Having the ministry of life is not related to our doing and our capacity, but it is related to our person and our living. God allows a certain measure of suffering so that we may be brought into the new creation so that God would be wrought into us and produce us as ministers of life.
He doesn’t give us what we expect or what we want, but what He knows that we need. In those distressful and despairing moments that you have no recourse but to trust in the Lord, you will know Him as the God of resurrection.
Then you will experience the God of resurrection and you will minister the God of resurrection into others.
Our Need for the Mending Ministry of Life
John was called by God when he was mending the nets with his father (Matt. 4:21), and his ministry was a mending ministry of life.
In God’s sovereignty, John’s Gospel is the last of the gospels, John’s Epistles are the last books in the New Testament, and John’s Revelation is the last book of the New Testament and of the entire Bible. The ministry of the apostle John – the ministry with which the Bible concludes – was a mending ministry of life (see John 1:4; 10:10; 11:25; 20:31).
The ministry that is so much needed today in the church life today is the ministry of life, the mending ministry of life. Life is all we need! The many holes of the Christian net, the degradation of the Christian church, the broken Christian life and church life, and our degraded condition all need the mending ministry of life.
We are so short of life. We need brothers and sisters who are rich in the divine life, experienced in life, and full-grown in life, some who enjoy and experience life to the extent that they overflow with life and minister life to the saints in the church.
Also, even though we ourselves may be short of life and not mature in life, we can go to the Lord and ask Him to grow in us and also to minister life and cause life to grow in other saints.
The reason believers sin is because they are short of life. But how can we minister life to others if we ourselves are short of life and we don’t have a surplus of life? We may be short of God and we may feel we don’t have enough life to minister to others, but we can come to the Lord and tell Him,
Lord, have mercy on me. I need more life. I need more God. Work Yourself into me. Grow in me, and cause me to experience and enjoy You as life. Lord, what about my brother? Grow in him and give him more life. He also lacks life, Lord, have mercy on him! Cause the level of the divine life to grow in him. Lord, minister life to him and give him the growth in life!
References and Further Reading
- This sharing is inspired from brother Minoru Chen’s speaking in this message and portions in, Life-Study of 2 Corinthians (msgs. 1-2), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, ITERO spring 2013 “The Experience, Growth, and Ministry of Life for the Body“, week 6 entitled, The Ministry of Life.
- Further reading: The Mending Ministry of John (ch. 11), by Witness Lee.
- Hymns on this topic:
# Grow in me; grow in me; / For the Body grow in me, / Through the rich dispensing of Your life supply; / For the Body grow in me.
# Growing, growing, in us He is growing, / More and more each day. / Into all our living He is flowing— / This is now His way. / For growth, O Lord, we pray; / Increase in us each day. / It’s not enough to know; / Now Thy life in us must grow.
# Lord, grant me the experiences / To produce such a ministry. / Through revelation and sufferings, / Lord, constitute Yourself in me.
