What is growth in life? It is simply the increase of God and the decrease of our natural man, the increase of the stature of Christ and less of us, and more ground given to the Holy Spirit to work in us and less of ourselves.
Since Christ came into our spirit at the time we were born again, He is “concealed” and “enveloped” in our spirit by our soul, our flesh, and our heart. For Christ to grow in us He needs to break through every part of our soul and subdue it – the more our soul decreases, the more His life increases in us.
Also, for the divine life in us to grow there’s the need for our natural life to be broken – even the natural skills, the natural abilities and capacities, all need to be broken. For us to grow in life, our gifts need to be stripped by God, our shell and appearance of godliness and spirituality and piety needs to be broken by God – so that Christ may grow in us and live in us!
How can this be done? It is NOT by praying for “more breaking” or trying to apply this to our life. It’s not by understanding the teachings and then putting them into practice.
Proper growth in life comes only from a direct and personal contact with the Lord – face to face time with Him. We need to have regular and even particular facetime with God so that we may be enlightened by Him and just agree with His light, so that we may grow in life.
Growth in Life is the Breaking of the Natural Life and the Subduing of our Soul
All the genuine believers in Christ desire that they would grow in life, but most of them don’t realize that for God’s life to grow in them, their natural life needs to be broken and put to the cross.
How can God grows in us if we are so full of ourselves, we are so skillful and so good, and there’s no space in us for Him to grow?
The more our soul is subdued, the more the divine life grows in us. Throughout our human life and Christian life God is faithful to bring about situations, people, things, circumstances, etc that will help us break our natural life – by turning to the Lord in the midst of all this.
The divine life in us can grow when our natural life has been broken and we no longer rely on the power of our natural life but depend on the power of the life of God, and we live by the life of God.
For us to grow in life our gifts must be stripped by God, and our shell of godliness – the appearance of piety, spirituality, godliness, and natural goodness – must be knocked down and broken by God.
Maybe God endowed us with a knowledgeable mind, a skillful speaking, many gifts, and a lot of power – all these must be shattered so that the Holy Spirit from within us may be released. Only when the outer man is broken can the inner man, the divine life in us, the Holy Spirit mingled with our spirit, be released and grow. Whenever we decrease, Christ will increase.
Whenever we are broken and poured out, life can grow in us. Real growth in life is not an increase in power, gifts, speaking, works, activities, etc but it is a decrease of ourselves and an increase of God in us (John 12:24-25).
Growing in Life by Having a Direct and Personal Contact with the Lord
When we hear of breaking, the cross, stripping off, sufferings, etc – we may not like it, and we would not be inclined to pray or ask for it.
On the other hand, some may understand this and can even speak it, and they may want to “put it into practice”, “apply this teaching”, and “make it personal by applying it to our situation”. The proper way to grow in life is not by “praying for more breaking” and neither is it by understanding what it means to grow in life.
Proper growth in life is by having a personal and direct contact with the Lord. Just come to Him. When you hear or read about what growth in life is, when you read the Bible and the Lord shines on you, just come to Him and open to Him (1 John 1:5).
Have a direct contact with Him in a personal way. When the Lord shines on us, we need to just open to Him and tell Him,
Lord Jesus, I love You! I really love You. I want You to grow in me. I may not like the breaking, but I want You to grow. Lord, I take You right now according to Your enlightenment. Shine on me. Deal with anything that doesn’t match You in me. Lord, I love You!
Just be direct and personal with the Lord as He shines on you, as you are in His presence. Don’t be religious with Him, and don’t ask Him for this or that thing.
Only the life-giving Spirit through the Lord’s enlightenment can deal with all the diseases we have within our being. The Lord’s light shines, we are exposed, and we open to the Spirit’s operation within us.
We don’t know what is in us until the light shines. We cannot heal ourselves, nor can we deal with ourselves. We just need to open to His shining, allow Him to operate, and offer Him prayers of co-operation.
By ourselves we are a hopeless case, and many times the harsh circumstances or sufferings may not help breaking our outer man – until we turn to the Lord! There are so many “broken vessels” today, those who went through things that dealt with them – but they were never healed or filled with Christ, and they never grew in life.
For us to grow in life we don’t need merely the outward breaking but a personal and direct contact with the Lord, so that He may break through and grow in us (Psa. 36:9)!
Having Regular Heart Exercise by Turning our Heart to the Lord
With the Lord and His life in us there’s no problem; our problem many times is our turned-away heart. But whenever the heart turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away, and we enjoy the Lord as the Spirit (Eph. 3:16).
When our heart gets hardened, when we don’t deal with our heart to maintain it pure, fresh, loving the Lord, and open to Him, we are hardened in our thoughts, stonified in our heart, and we have a veil on us.
We need to have regular heart exercise – just as you go to the gym and you exercise until the machine says “Warm up”, then the next level is “Burning Fat”, and if you continue for a while, “Cardio”.
We shouldn’t stop at a “warm up exercise of the heart” by just praying casually to the Lord, when we remember… Rather, we need to maintain the fellowship with the Lord by exercising our heart to confess our sins and deal with anything between us and Him, so that we may go to the next stage (“Burning fat”).
Then we need to go on to take care of our heart until it no longer condemns us, and we act and behave because there’s a feeling of God (1 Pet. 2:19). Because of the consciousness of God, we don’t do certain things, go to certain places, or speak certain things.
Always deal with your heart, praying to the Lord to remove the veil by turning your heart to Him, so that we may see the Lord face to face and care more for His smile than for any teachings, rules, right or wrong, or anything else.
Lord, save us from having an unturned heart, a veiled face. Help us turn to You, Lord, and help us deal with our heart. We want to maintain our fellowship with You by allowing Your light to shine on us and remove any obstacle, hindrance, or spot that hinders us from seeing You and enjoying You. Lord Jesus, we just open to You. Keep our heart turning to You, and save us from having a clogged or rusty heart. Turn our heart to You, and keep it open and turned to You throughout the day. Lord, we love You!
References and Further Reading
- This sharing is inspired from brother Andrew Yu’s sharing and portions in, Further Talks on the Knowledge of Life, pp. 182-183 (by Witness Lee), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, ITERO spring 2013 “The Experience, Growth, and Ministry of Life for the Body“, week 3 entitled, The Urgent Need of the Growth of Life and Growing in Life by Dealing with the Heart.
- Further reading: Perfecting Training (pp. 14-21), and, The Experience of Christ as Life for the Building Up of the Church, chs. 1-2.
- Hymns on this topic:
# Remove my covering, Lord, / That I may see Thy light, / And be deceived no more, / But all things see aright. / Oh, may Thy living light, Lord, / Scatter all my night, Lord, / And everything make bright, Lord, / For this I pray to Thee.
# Pray to fellowship with Jesus, / Fully opened from within, / With thy face unveiled, beholding, / Single, pure, and genuine.
# Lord, I’ve seen Your purpose. / Your heart’s unveiled to me. / Now I’d just like to see You gain me fully. / Though You I often limit / And fail by compromise, / Keep me in the index of Your eyes.
Lord, let us depend on Your divine ability, not on our own natural abilities & live by You!
Psa 36:9 For with You is the fountain of life…
2 Cor 4:16-17 …though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day…
Thank you Lord that we are learning not to trust in our natural abilities & learning to trust in, rely & love You more each day so Your life has a way to grow in us!
PTL!!!
🙂
Whatever our situations or circumstances, we should not pick up teachings, doctrines, or lessons and try to apply them to our situations. That is something religious; that is not the proper growth in life.
The proper growth in life comes only from the direct contact with the Lord! It comes from His living enlightenment and from His instant pointing out of things within our being. We all have to go to the Lord and spend time in His presence.
2 Corinthians 3:18 "But we all with unveiled face, beholding and reflecting like a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, even as from the Lord Spirit."
In your prayer, you ask the Lord to help us turn to Him and to help us deal with our heart.
Once I read that brother Lee considers those as religious prayers. Asking for His help implies we are still trying to fulfill His demands, forgetting that we are one spirit with the Lord and He does everything!
Just calling on His name is enough, my heart is turned to Him and He deals with whatever He has to deal!
If I am wrong, please someone correct me.
When the Holy Spirit gains more ground in us, the divine life grows in us. When we yield to the Spirit in His transforming work and we listen to the inner sense given by the anointing of the Spirit, we grow in life.
Sister Beatriz, you're right, it can be a religious prayer. We don't need "the Lord's help" – we need the Lord Himself; we don't need improvement but we need transformation; we don't need help to fulfill God's word but we need to grow in life.
In brother Lee's ministry both sides are mentioned – the side of not asking the Lord for help but being direct with Him, and the side of asking the Lord to help us turn to Him. If we take both of these aspects in the way of life, we will go on with Him. If we take them literally or legally, we will be stumbled.
Remember, we are not asking the Lord to help us do this or that FOR Him – we're asking Him to help us TURN to Him and help us DEAL with our heart… I hope the Lord will help us realize where we are, what we need, and how can we cooperate with Him…
… at the same time, I'm also open for correction and help… and transformation… and growth in life… and more turning to the Lord….
Amen open ourselves to Christ, take Him as the tree of life feed on Him, drink of Him, and breath Him in more and more. this produces the guine growth of life..