Our God is a speaking God, and we are the speaking people of the speaking God! When we come together with the saints, our meeting need to be full of speaking Christ to one another! According to 1 Cor. 14:3-4, he who prophesies SPEAKS building up and encouragement and consolation to man!
Also, he who prophesies builds up the church! This is the way to build up the church as the organic Body of Christ: through prophesying! When each one speaks Christ, when each one prophesies by speaking for God and speaking God forth, the church is built up and God gains the building that He desires on the earth! It is time for us all to “lose our face”, deny our self, and prophesy for the building up!
He who prophesies builds up the church
According to the Bible, prophesying the way we can build up the church as the Body of Christ. Today people learn in seminaries how to give a sermon, how to make a speech that is palatable and even pleasant to hear to those who listen, how to add a joke here and there to make things easier to understand, or how to speak eloquently sound doctrines from the Bible… This is not prophesying, and in many ways it doesn’t build up the church.
We need to speak the words of spirit and life – we need to prophesy by speaking for the Lord, speaking Christ into others, and ministering life to others! This is not something that only some gifted members do: the Body builds itself up in love through the operation of each one part in its measure!
When we speak Christ to one another in the meetings, we are built up, we are encouraged, and we are consoled. Furthermore, we are convicted and judged to turn to Christ and gain Him. In this way, we are nourished with Christ – encouragement and consolation are a nourishment to us. As we speak Christ to one another, we are convicted to turn to Christ and gain Him!
When Christ is gained by us in such a way, He becomes our supply and our nourishment for us to grow in life. This growth in life is the building up of the Body (see Eph. 4:16)! All we have to do is exercise our spirit and speak Christ for the dispensing of Christ into others that they may grow for the building up of the church.
It is time for us all to prophesy!
Saints, it is time to prophesy! The enemy has distracted us with so many things – from setting up the clergy-laity system outwardly to causing us to be afraid to speak inwardly, Satan doesn’t want us to prophesy because he knows that our prophesying builds up the Body of Christ!
Everyone prophesying for the building up of the church is not very common today – but we need to come back to the Word of God and allow God to recover 1 Corinthians 14 in our experience today! At the end of this age the Lord wants to recover each member functioning by prophesying to build up the Body! When the Body is sufficiently being built up, the Lord can return! Our prophesying hastens the Lord’s return!
Time and time again we need to learn to stand against ourselves, our feelings, our desire not to speak, and against our shyness. All throughout the week we enjoy Christ, we experience Him, we breathe in God through His breathed-out Word, and we have a certain history with God.
At the end of the week we need to compose a prophecy – together with the Lord we compose something of our topmost enjoyment of Christ for the building up of the church. It is time to pick up this organic practice for the organic building up of the Body of Christ! We all can speak for Christ and we all should speak Christ into one another for God to gain His built-up church!
God desires a building – God mingled with man
All throughout the Bible we can see that God desires a building – not a physical tabernacle or temple, but a living composition of living persons who are redeemed by God and who are mingled with God! God is seeking a divine building as the mingling of Himself with humanity. This is why He became a man – to mingle God with man – and then He became the Spirit: so that He may mingle man with God and God with man.
Today God is doing this one thing – He is continually mingling Himself with man so that He may gain a divine-human building for His corporate expression and representation. This is why we prophesy: for God to gain the building!
Everything we do in our Christian life and work should be for this – for the divine building. We preach the gospel so that men would be mingled with God. We prophesy in the meetings of the church and we shepherd the saints so that God would be more mingled with man for the divine building.
When God mingles Himself with man, the materials for the divine building are being produced. Prophesying in particular is an excellent way to infuse God into man and mingle God with man for the building. Everything we do should be according to this basic principle – the mingling of God with man for God to gain His building.
Lord Jesus, gain what You are after. Gain a built-up church. Lord, may we return to the Scriptures and have 1 Corinthians 14 recovered in our experience in full. Lord, all can speak for building up! Recover the organic practice of prophesying in the church meetings for the building up of the church! Mingle Yourself more with us, Lord, and make us those who minister You to others for them to be mingled more with the Triune God! Gain Your building, Lord!
References and Further Reading
- Sharing inspired from, The Advance of the Lord’s Recovery Today (pages 109-110), and, The Building of God (page 13), as quoted in as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Taking the Lead as Elders and Responsible Ones, week 4.
- Hymns on this topic:
# This is the time for building the temple of the Lord / That all the local churches may fully be restored.
# I’m thankful that God has placed me / With you to build up His Body. / Christ in you is the hope for me!
# In our daily life and all we are and do and think and say, / How we need a deeper mingling just to gain the Lord each day; - Picture source: flowers.
