Hold to Truth in Love and Grow up into Christ in all Things to be Headed up in Christ

In order for us to be headed up in Christ, we need to grow up into Christ in all things; in big and small things, in all our daily life and work, in all things we need to grow up into the Head, Christ.

As we read the Bible and meet such a verse as Eph. 4:15 which tells us to hold to truth in love and grow up into Christ in all things, we need to ask ourselves and the Lord, What does it mean to grow up into Christ in all things, and how can we grow in such a way?

One very practical way is by taking Christ as our necessities and as our enjoyment.

There are certain things in our human existence that are necessities to us, things we can’t live without; they point to Christ, our real necessity.

In our Christian life and church life, in the divine and mystical realm, we need some basic, essential, necessary things that are the reality of what we see in the human realm – and the reality of all our necessities is Christ.

First of all, we need to breathe; without breathing, we are dead humanly, and without breathing spiritually, we are in death.

In John 20:22 the Lord came and breathed into His disciples saying, Receive the holy breath.

We need to daily receive Christ as the Spirit to be our breath.

How do we do this? Jeremiah says in Lam. 3:55-56 that he called upon the name of the Lord from the lowest pit, and this was his breathing.

We need to spend time to call on the name of the Lord so that we may breathe Him in. The first thing in the morning that we do should be calling on the name of the Lord.

A human necessity we have is drinking; we need to drink daily, even many times a day. Christ is our drink; He is the living water, and we need to drink of Him every day.

On one hand He is the spiritual rock following us, and on the other hand, when we speak to Him, living waters flow and we will drink of Him (1 Cor. 10:4).

Praise the Lord, we were all given to drink of the one Spirit (1 Cor. 12:13). We need to drink God in Christ as the Spirit in His word day by day.

Another human necessity is food; Christ is our real food, and we need to eat Him every day as our spiritual food. He is the bread of life (John 6:51), the living bread, the bread from heaven, the bread of God, the reality of the manna.

And if we eat Him, we shall live because of Him (John 6:57).

To eat Him is to eat His words, as John 6:63 says; the flesh profits nothing – it is the Spirit who gives life, and the words which the Lord speaks to us are spirit and are life.

Daily we need to ask the Lord to speak to us a fresh word so that we may eat Him and enjoy Him. We as men do not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds out through the mouth of God (Matt. 4:4).

Christ is also our light; He is the light of the world (John 8:12), and when we follow Him, we have the light of life.

Christ is our clothing; we can put on the Lord Jesus (Rom. 13:14). We put on Christ by living by Christ, living out Christ, and magnifying Christ. When we magnify Christ, when He shines out through us, He becomes our clothing.

Christ is our real dwelling place; He told us to abide in Him as He abides in us (John 15:7), for He wants us to dwell in Him and make Him our home. God is our dwelling place throughout the generations (Psa. 90:1).

For us to take Christ – who is God – as our dwelling place is the highest and fullest experience of God.

Every day we need to exercise our spirit of faith and tell the Lord, Lord, I take You as my dwelling place right now; cause me to abide in You, and be my home today!

We need to take Christ daily as our enjoyment and rest (Col. 2:16-17; Matt. 11:28). He is the reality of all the positive things in the universe for our enjoyment, and He is our rest – He is our perfect peace and our full satisfaction.

When we take Christ as the reality of all our necessities, and as our enjoyment and rest, we will grow up into Him in all things.

To be Headed up in Christ we need to Grow up into Christ in all things by the Growth of God in us

According to Eph. 4:15, for us to be headed up in Christ we need to grow up into Christ in all things; we need to grow up into the Head in all things, in both small and big things.

In the way we cut our hair, in the way we dress, in the way we deport ourselves, in the way we speak, in our attitude toward others, in all things we need to be headed up in Christ.

Even in the small things, we need to take Christ as our Head and grow up into Christ in all things.

The organic building up of the Body is the growth of the Body, which is the growth of God, the increase of God as life in all the members of the Body (Eph. 2:21-22; 4:16; Col. 2:19).

All the Body causes the growth of the Body unto the building up of itself in love.

The Body of Christ grows by all the Body – both the members and the joints of the rich supply – growing into the Head.

The joints of the rich supply minister God in Christ as the Spirit to all the saints, and this supply is through the operation in the measure of each one part.

We all have a portion in the Body to dispense into one another so that we may cause the growth of the Body unto the building up of itself in love.

The growing members are the building members; we need to grow up into Christ in all things by having more of God in us.

Our growth in Christ is by the growth of God in us, and our problem is that we are short of God. This is our problem: we are so short of God!

We may think that this or that thing is our problem, but our unique problem is that we are short of God. Because we are short of God, this and that are a problem to us.

If we had enough God in us, if we have God growing in us and we grow up into Christ in all things, we would have no problem.

Job 10:13 is the key to this entire book, for as Job was going through these losses and sufferings, he was puzzled, and he said, You have hidden these things in Your heart; I know that this is with You.

There are many things happening to us, many puzzling and un-explainable things, and we know that God’s heart is toward us, but these things are hidden in His heart.

What is hidden in God’s heart is His economy, the economy of the mystery which throughout the ages has been hidden in God (Eph. 3:9).

In His economy God wants to work Himself into man so that God would grow in man and man would grow with the growth of God, for the building up of the organic Body of Christ for His corporate expression.

Job was a very righteous man; he was upright, he turned away from evil, and he feared God.

However, God doesn’t want a good man but a God-man; He wants men who are filled to the brim with God, men who are filled to overflowing with the Triune God!

So we need not only to hear of God by the hearing of the ear but to see God (Job 42:5); when we see God, we gain God.

To gain God is to receive God in His element, life, and nature, so that we may be constituted with God.

When we see God, we are transformed, for in seeing God we receive His element, life, and nature, so that we may be constituted with God; our old element is discharged, and God’s element is added to us.

May we be those pure in heart to see God and gain God, and may we have no other goal but God Himself!

In this way we grow with the growth of God, we gain God, and we grow up into Christ in all things, for our seeing God is our gaining God.

The more we see God, the more we gain God, and the more we abhor ourselves, hating the self.

Lord Jesus, grow in us! We want to be headed up in Christ in all things by growing up into Christ, the Head, in all things! Amen, Lord, may we grow up into Christ in all things – both big and small things, both in our personal life and in the church life, and both in our daily life and in our work. May we grow into Christ with the growth of God, the increase of God as life, so that we may build up the Body of Christ. Oh Lord, make us growing members of the Body of Christ, building members of the Body! Amen, more of God in us!

To Grow up into the Head we must Hold to Truth in Love, Holding to Things which are True

In order for us to grow up into the Head, Christ, we must hold to truth in the element and sphere of the divine love; truth in Eph. 4:15 means things that are true (Rom. 3:4).

On one hand we must love God, Christ, and the church in the love with which God loves us and in the love which He put within us. On the other hand, we need to hold to the truth in love.

Everything besides God under the sun is vanity; there is no reality in this universe besides God Himself (Eccl. 1:2).

When God occupies the proper position in everything, then everything is true; otherwise, all things are but vanity of vanities.

To hold to truth in love is to hold to the things that are true; the things that are true are the economy of God, the Christ of God, and the Body of Christ – everything else is vain.

If we take God’s economy, Christ, and the Body of Christ from the universe, the universe will become vain.

We need to be filled with God’s love, the love which He has imparted into our heart through the Holy Spirit, and in this love we need to hold to truth.

In this love and by this love, the love as the constituent and sphere, we are able to hold to truth.

The first item of truth to hold is God’s New Testament economy.

In His economy God has created all things and has arranged all things so that man would receive God and be filled with God to become God’s corporate expression.

God arranged to create the heavens and the earth, and He created man according to His image and likeness so that man would be like Him to be His vessel, prepared for the day when God would enter into man to be mingled with man and gain the many members of the Body of Christ for His corporate expression.

We hold to this economy in love, and we grow up into Christ in all things.

We need to hold to the all-inclusive Christ, the One who fills all and in all (John 14:6; Eph. 1:23).

Christ is not only in all but also fills all. He is so vast and immense that Paul said that we can apprehend with all the saints what the breadth, the length, the height, and the depth are – He is as vast as the universe (Eph. 3:18).

The measure and riches of Christ are unsearchable.

We need to be strengthened into the inner man so that we may be full of strength to apprehend, seize, take, and enjoy this all-inclusive Christ together with all the saints.

Christ’s measure is immeasurable; Christ’s riches are unsearchable; Christ’s love is knowledge-surpassing.

Third, we need to hold to the church, the Body of Christ as the fullness of Christ to express Him.

The church is not an organization but an organism, the Body of Christ; the church is constituted by those who are regenerated, saved, and have received Christ as their life.

We hold to truth – we hold to God’s economy, Christ, and the church – so that we may grow up into Christ in all things, that is, to grow into the Head, Christ.

The more we grow up into Christ in all things, the more He increases and we decrease (John 3:30); the more He grows in us, the more our natural element decreases and the divine element increases.

Christ wants to grow and increase within us until it is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me (Gal. 2:20).

Lord Jesus, we want to hold to truth in love so that we may grow up into Christ in all things. Amen, Lord, we hold to the economy of God, the all-inclusive Christ, and the church as the Body of Christ so that we may grow into the Head, Christ! May we decrease and may You increase in us until it is no longer we who live but it is Christ who lives in us! Amen, Lord Jesus, grow in us and cause us to grow in You for the building up of the Body of Christ as the corporate expression of the Triune God in Christ! May the divine element grow and increase in us, and may we grow up into Christ in all things, growing up into the Head!

References and Hymns on this Topic

• Inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message by Ed Marks for this week, and portions from, CWWL, 1988, vol. 4, “The Perfecting of the Saints and the Building Up of the Body of Christ,” pp. 102-103, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, The Will of God (2020 spring ITERO), week 2, Knowing and Participating in God’s Great and Lofty Will to Head Up All Things in Christ.
• Hymns on this topic:
  – But holding to truth in love / We may grow up in all things / Into Him who is the Head / Christ is the Head / Out from Whom all the Body / Being joined together and / Being knit together through / Ev’ry joint of the rich supply / And through the operation / In the measure of each one part / of each one part / Causes the growth of the Body unto the / building up of itself in love, / in love, in love. (Scripture song)
  – Holding fast the Head, and growing / With His increase, in His way, / By the joints and bands supplying, / Knit together day by day. (Hymns #840)
  – To the Head fast holding ever, / That we may together grow, / From the Head supplies incoming / Thru us to the Body flow. (Hymns #913)