God’s Intention is to Build Himself into our Being and to Build us into His Being

What does the Body of Christ need today? Have you ever wondered, what is the greatest need in the Body of Christ?

Some may say that the Body needs more gifted members while others may emphasize more social work, practical help, or preaching the gospel. But what the Body of Christ mainly needs today is ministers with the ministry of the new covenant.

Throughout history we can see that great gifts given by the Lord to the Body have helped a little but have divided the Body into sects and denominations; what the Body needs is not more gifted members but more ministers, more people who are constituted, produced, and formed by the experience of the riches of Christ through many sufferings, consuming pressures, and the killing work of the cross.

This is what the Apostle Paul was, and this is what the Lord is looking to obtain today. Such people have God wrought into them, and when they speak, they minister the builded God and the building God into others. They are real priests: they minister to God, they are filled with God, and they have God built into them; then, when they speak or do anything, they simply minister the Christ which was wrought into them to others for the building up of the church as the Body of Christ.

In our ministry as priests, we all need to be one with the building God (the God who actively builds Himself into us) and with the builded God (the God who has already been built into us) to build God into man and man into God (see Eph. 3:16-17; John 14:2, 23).

What the Body of Christ needs today is more Ministry through the Cross

There’s a difference between gifts and ministry; being a gift makes you a “special person”, one who is naturally gifted and who also has something of the Lord to minister to others, while having the ministry means that you enjoy and experience Christ through many sufferings and pressures so that Christ would be wrought into you.

What the Body of Christ needs to day is not gifts, intelligence, or abilities; the Body needs ministry through the cross. What is needed today is not eloquent brothers who can open the word of God clearly and can give messages on any topic but those who are constituted with Christ by their experiences of the riches of Christ through sufferings, consuming pressures, and the killing work of the cross.

We are all on our journey from gift to ministry; we may discover we have a certain ability which can be useful to the Lord in the church life, but we need to go through all kinds of experiences so that God would be wrought into us.

The principle of a priest is that he ministers God to man; what kind of God does a priest minister to man, and in what way is he ministering God? As priests to God we need to be able to minister to others the God who has been built into our being.

It is good to spend time with the Lord daily, but merely having a time with the Lord in His word is not enough; we need to be constituted with God through our experience of the riches of Christ through pressures, sufferings, and the cross.

The new covenant ministers minister to others what they are; their ministry is what they are in their inner being, and they speak the Christ that has been wrought into them. To minister as priests the building and builded God into the saints is not a work, an activity, or a shallow matter; the Body needs saints who have a history in God over years and decades, saints who have God wrought into their being so that whomever they meet and whatever they say, God just flows through them.

The Apostle Paul was such a one; as he was writing 2 Corinthians he was outwardly in prison but inwardly he was in the Holy of Holies functioning as a priest, and so he testified, death operates in us and life in you – he was a priest in the Jordan river, holding the ark for all the people to enter into the good land.

We need to place ourselves into the Lord’s hands and ask Him to give us the experiences that we need so that Christ would be wrought into our being. Placing ourselves into the Lord’s hands to become ministers with the ministry of the new covenant, that is, to be real priests to God, is the most secure place to be.

It will be enjoyment beyond what we have imagined and pressures until we can’t bear them, but God will be with us, He will work Himself into us, and when we meet others we will just impart to them the God who has been built into us!

Lord Jesus, we place ourselves into Your hands: give us the experiences we need that will produce this ministry for the building up of the Body of Christ! Lord, we choose to be ministers of the new covenant; we do not rely on our ability or gifts but we seek to have God wrought into our being. Lord, You must have the priesthood. You must build Yourself into us through our experiences of the riches of Christ so that we may minister the building and the builded God to others for the building up of the Body of Christ!

God’s Intention in His Economy is to Build Himself into our Being and Build us into His Being

God has never intended to be “the God in the heavens whom the people on earth worship and respect reverently”; He wants man to contact Him, fellowship with Him, and experience Him so that God would work Himself into man and build man into God for God’s building, the church as the Body of Christ.

God’s New Testament economy is for the processed and consummated Triune God to be wrought into us to become our life and our being (see 1 Tim. 1:4; 2 Cor. 13:14; Eph. 3:16-17a; Rom. 8:9-10, 6, 11). God went through a process to become man and then become the Spirit, and now as the Spirit He is in our spirit to dispense Himself into every part of our inner being until God is built into us and we are built into God.

God’s economy and goal according to His heart’s desire are to build Himself in Christ into our being (see 2 Sam. 7:12-14a; Eph. 3:17; John 14:20). He has no intention that we do things for Him or serve Him without having God wrought into us and without us being built into God.

We need to pray that the Father would strengthen us with power through His Spirit into our inner man so that Christ would make His home in our hearts through faith so that we may apprehend with all the saints what the vast dimensions of Christ are and become the church, the fullness of God (Eph. 3:16-19).

God’s economy and goal according to His heart’s desire are just to build Himself into man and to build man into Him. We have seen that Athanasius said, “He [Christ] was made man that we might be made God.” This means that as God’s children we are “baby gods,” having the life and nature of God but not the Godhead. However, not even this is God’s goal. God in Christ is within us to build Himself into our being and to build us into His being. He builds His divinity into our humanity and builds our humanity into His divinity in order to mingle and blend His divinity with our humanity into one entity. This is like the meal offering: fine flour mingled with oil for the satisfaction of both God and man. (Witness Lee, Life Study of 1 & 2 Samuel, pp. 186-187)

Our ministry as priests to God is to be one with the Lord to build God into man and man into God; we need to experience and enjoy Christ and have Him wrought into our being through our experience of Him, and then we need to cooperate with Him to minister Christ into others.

God in Christ is within us to build Himself into our being and to build us into His being; He is making His home deep down in all the inward parts of our being, and in this way He is building Himself into us and us into Himself, making us a mutual abode for God and man (see John 14:23).

God is actively building Himself into us (He is the building God), and there is a measure to which we have God built into our being (He is the “builded God”); we need to cooperate with God to minister the building and the builded God to others for the building up of the church.

As He is building Himself into us and building us into Himself we become a mutual abode: God dwells in us and we dwell in God; we live a life of an organic union with the Lord, a mutual indwelling of God and man, and even a life of coinherence.

In His Godhead God will always be transcendent, and we will never partake of this; but in His economy He is deeply subjectively related to us, and we are united, mingled, and incorporated with Him. We can cooperate with God’s operation in us by simply praying to Him,

Father, strengthen us through Your Spirit into our inner man so that Christ may make His home a little more in our heart today. Lord, it is Your desire and intention to work Yourself into us, and therefore we pray, Lord, work Yourself into us and build us into Yourself for Your building, the church as the Body of Christ! Nothing is more precious to us than You as the treasure in our earthen vessel. Spread Yourself from our spirit into our mind, emotion, and will to occupy and saturate our entire soul with Yourself.

References and Hymns on this Topic

• Inspiration: the Word of God, my Christian experience, bro. Ron Kangas’ sharing in the message for this week, and portions from, Life-study of 1 & 2 Samuel, pp. 168-187 (by Witness Lee), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, The Recovery of the Priesthood or God’s Building, week 8 / msg 8, The Recovery of the Priesthood for God’s building.
• All Bible verses are taken from, Holy Bible Recovery Version.
• Hymns on this topic to strengthen this burden:
  # Lord, grant me the experiences / To produce such a ministry. / Through revelation and sufferings, / Lord, constitute Yourself in me. / By Your all-fitting life, / Lord, I learn to live. / By Your sufficient grace, / Lord, make home in me. (Song on the need for ministry)
  # God’s economy and goal / According to His heart’s desire / Are to build Himself into our being / And to build us into His being / In order to mingle His divinity with our humanity / Into one entity (one entity)— / The Body of Christ, / Which consummates the New Jerusalem! (Song on God’s economy)
  # Oh, strengthen my spirit, Lord Jesus, / Oh, strengthen my spirit, I pray; / Oh, strengthen my spirit with power / And spread to my heart today. / Into my heart, into my heart, / Spread into my heart, Lord Jesus; / Make home today and have Your way / In all of my heart, Lord Jesus. (Hymns #1134)