The Growth in Life is Christ Wrought into us and Formed in us by Saturating Us

The growth in life is Christ wrought into us and formed in us until Christ is fully grown into us; He does this by making His home in our heart and by saturating every part of our heart with Himself until He takes full possession.

Christ is all-inclusive, vast, immense, and He fills all in all; in Himself, He cannot grow, but in us – in our heart – He needs to grow until He fills us to the brim and makes us the same as Him. What the Lord desires to gain is the increase of Christ in man by the growth of Christ in each one of us.

Christ came into our spirit at the time of our regeneration, but He wants to spread into all the parts of our inner being. We need to focus on Christ, take Him as our center, and care for nothing else but Christ; this Christ needs to become the One who makes His home in our heart and fills us with Himself all the time.

God gives us only Christ; He is not after our good behavior or outward improvement – He wants Christ to be increased in us.

Christ is the meaning of the universe; Christ is the meaning of our human life; God wants to see Christ increase, grow, multiply, and be duplicated and expanded in us until we all become His corporate expression.

Each day we need to let His light shine on us, His strength sustain us, and His life grow in us, and at the same time we need to let Him expose and remove anything that is not of Him in our being. Real spirituality is Christ; real spiritual progress is the increase of the element of Christ in us.

For us to have spiritual progress we need to be freed from everything that usurps the place of God in us; we need to seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and we need to seek the Lord with a pure heart.

Because life is Christ, the growth of life is the increase of Christ within us; the growth of life is the increase and expansion of Christ.

May we be very much before the Lord concerning our growth in life for the building up of the church, so that we all may grow until we all arrive at the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ, at a full-grown man.

Being the Christ-Conscious Believers who let Christ Grow in them Day by Day

Just as a seed, when put in the ground, doesn’t need teachings or adjustment outwardly but watering and good soil, so Christ as the seed of life doesn’t need correction or improvement but our cooperation for Him to grow in us.

Growth in life is nothing else but the increase of Christ within us; it has nothing to do with self-correction, self-improvement, or adjustment of our behaviour outwardly but it is altogether the element of Christ increasing in our being.

Many believers emphasize self-improvement, a better relationship with others, how to have a happy marriage life, how to improve this or that, but what the Lord wants is not believers who are “cultured gentlemen” or “nice ladies” but that Christ would grow in them unto maturity.

The church is not a place where we are taught to behave and live to obey God according to what the Bible says; the church is a place where Christ is sown into us, we are watered, and God causes the growth (1 Cor. 3:6).

Christianity is a religion full of teaching on self-improvement and how to behave, but the church is a garden full of Christ growing as life in all the believers for the building up of the Body of Christ.

Believers today don’t lack teachings on how to be a good Christian husband or father, how to have prosperity and success, and how to live a better life, but they lack the increase of Christ as life within them.

God is pleased to reveal His Son in us and work Him into our being until He lives in us, makes His home in all our heart, and is formed in us. Christ needs to be fully grown in us; our destiny is not to go to heaven but to be filled with Christ.

But who cares for what God cares? God cares only for Christ: He wants that Christ would be preeminent in us and we would focus only on Him; He wants that we would give more ground in our being to Christ for Him to grow in us.

May we be turned from anything outward to the Christ within so that we may cooperate with Him and let Him increase in us. May we be the Christ-conscious believers who let Him grow in us for the building up of the church.

We simply need to let Him grow: all He needs is our willing consent, our cooperation, and our full attention; everything is in the divine seed we have received at the time of our regeneration, and we need to focus on Christ as life and let Him grow in us more day by day!

Lord Jesus, we want to be the Christ-conscious believers who let Christ grow in them day by day. Save us from seeking to improve ourselves outwardly; may our entire focus be on the living Christ within us who seeks to grow in us day by day! Lord Jesus, grow in us! Grow in us more today for the building up of the church. May the church life be not a place of teaching how to behave but a garden where Christ grows in all the saints! May we have a proper growth in life day by day until we reach maturity in life!

The Growth in Life is Christ Wrought into us and Formed in us by Saturating Us

In Galatians 4:19 Christ is presented as the One who is formed in the believers….Paul says, “My children, with whom I travail again in birth until Christ is formed in you.” Paul considered himself the begetting father and the Galatian believers his children begotten of him in Christ (cf. 1 Cor. 4:15; Philem. 10). The word travail refers to painful toil in childbirth. In this metaphor Paul likened himself to a mother who gives birth to a child. He had labored in this way to regenerate the Galatians when he first preached the gospel to them. Because they deviated from the gospel that he had preached to them, he was toiling again in travail until Christ would be formed in them. Witness Lee

When Paul preached the gospel to the Galatians the first time and they believed into the Lord, they were begotten of God through Paul’s travail in the gospel; however, Christ still needed to be formed in them so that they would be conformed to His image, and for this Paul had to travail some more.

At the time of our regeneration Christ was born into us, but day by day we need to let Christ grow in us until He lives in us (Gal. 2:20) and until He eventually is formed in us (Gal. 4:19).

To have Christ formed in us is to have Christ fully grown in us. How can we have Christ wrought into us for Him to be formed in us? To have Christ formed in us to allow Him to permeate our being and saturate all our inward parts.

We need to no longer imprison or limit Christ in our spirit but let Him spread from our spirit into our mind to renew it, into our will to subdue it, and into our emotion to temper it and adjust it.

We need to let Christ make His home in all our heart: in our mind, emotion, and will (Eph. 3:17). We need to drop anything other than Christ – teachings, doctrines, practices, and even good things that are scriptural and from God, and focus only on Christ.

Anything else besides Christ Himself can become a distraction and hindrance to our growth in life if we focus on it rather than Christ. The Galatians were focusing on the law, which was given by God, and they were distracted and hindered from Christ growing in them; Paul therefore labored and travailed again until Christ was formed in them.

We need to let Christ saturate every part of our inner being; He must occupy and saturate our mind, emotion, and will. If we desire to grow in life by having Christ increase within us, we need to experience Christ in a full way.

In Phil. 3:7-12 Paul gave us his life experience in his pursuit of gaining Christ. He counted all things as a loss on account of the excellency of the knowledge of Christ, on account of whom he suffered the loss of all things so that he may gain Christ and be found in Christ, to know Christ and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death, if perhaps he may attain to the out-resurrection from the dead.

Brothers and sisters, we have not already obtained it, and we are not yet fully perfected, but we need to pursue the Lord to lay hold of that for which we have been laid hold of by Christ Jesus! We need to allow Christ to saturate all the inward parts of our being so that He may possess our entire being and thus be formed in us.

Lord Jesus, we want to gain You, pursue You, and count all things loss on account of the excellent knowledge of Christ. Amen, Lord, we want to pursue You so that we may lay hold for that for which we have been laid of by Christ Jesus. We want to pursue the growth in life so that Christ would be formed in us. We allow You, Lord, to make Your home in our heart. Saturate us and permeate us. Occupy our entire inner being and saturate our mind, emotion, and will until Christ is being formed in us.

References and Hymns on this Topic

• Inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message by brother Minoru C. for this week, and portions from The Conclusion of the New Testament, msg. 330 (by Witness Lee), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, The Increase of Christ for the Building up of the Church (2016 Memorial day Weekend Conference), week 5 / msg. 5, The Increase of Christ in the Believers Being Their Spiritual Progress and Growth in Life.
• Hymns on this topic:
  # It is God’s intent and pleasure / That His Christ be wrought in me; / Nothing outwardly performing, / But His Christ my all to be. (Hymns #538)
  # God’s intention is for Christ / To be wrought into His chosen people / That they may become the sons of God / For His corporate expression. (Song on God’s intention)
  # Let Your life within me saturate, / Let Your life within me permeate. / May all Your fulness be expressed through me / And my being be conformed to Thee. (Song on being saturated with God)