As we experience Christ day by day, the inexhaustible Christ is magnified through us. Our experience of Christ is a mystery; whatever we experience of Christ is unlimited, and if we realise this, we will see that, even in our sufferings, God wants to magnify Christ through us.
If we read the book of Philippians, in the very first chapter, we see how the apostle Paul – who was in prison – believed that his situation will turn out to salvation, and he wanted to magnify Christ.
Paul experienced Christ as his unlimited endurance, and this was the magnification of the unlimited Christ. To magnify Christ doesn’t mean only to make Christ visible to others, but to express Him without limitation (Phil. 1:20).
To magnify Christ is to show to the whole universe that the very Christ by whom we live is unlimited. In the eyes of men, Christ is small, insignificant, and sometimes even non-existent; but when we live Christ and experience Christ, we express Him without limitation, and He is being magnified through us.
In this way others can see Christ being magnified in us, and He becomes great before them.
Christ is unlimited, but many times He is limited and not great in our experience; when we experience Christ, we magnify Him, we express Him through the magnifying glass, magnifying Christ in our living.
We Christians are mysterious people, for we have Christ – the mystery of God – in our spirit, and we are the church, who is the mystery of Christ.
We can experience Christ in our daily life; nothing is more important than experiencing Christ, and even though such an experience is a mystery, we need to seek to experience Christ.
When we experience Christ, our virtues are uplifted and enriched, and the expression of the human virtues through us will be unlimited, even Christ is unlimited.
Our human love is limited; we may love our spouse and our children, but when they do something repeatedly to upset and annoy us, our human love runs out. This doesn’t mean that we should “build up our love”; rather, we need to experience Christ, and He in us will love others in an unlimited way.
Our endurance, our patience, our wisdom, and our tolerance are virtues that have an end, but when we experience Christ, our experience of Him is unlimited, and all these virtues therefore become unlimited.
This is the real Christian experience and life; we need to experience Christ and live Christ, and this will magnify Christ before others, with the result that the church will be built up.
Our Forgiveness is the Inexhaustible Christ being Magnified in us, even in our Sufferings
Our human forgiveness runs out; Peter came to the Lord and asked Him if it is enough to forgive his brother seven times, but the Lord clearly said that he has to forgive him seventy times seven (Matt. 18:21-22).
This is an unlimited forgiveness; this is something that we in ourselves cannot do, but when we experience Christ, we will magnify Christ and our forgiveness will be the inexhaustible Christ being magnified in us.
Christian forgiveness is endless forgiveness. If we look at ourselves, however, we will see that we are lacking in this; we may know what it means to experience Christ and love Him, but we are short in our forgiveness.
How can we forgive when we are offended, mistreated, and persecuted for no sound reason?
When we experience Christ and magnify Him, we will have no complaints or murmurings no matter how others treat us; we will simply thank the Lord, accept His will, and ask Him to live in us and be magnified through us.
Our forgiveness has to be the inexhaustible Christ being magnified in us.
We should not let the unforgiven offenses and mistreatment eat up for days and weeks in our family life and church life; we should experience Christ and allow the inexhaustible Christ to be magnified in us.
Even in the midst of suffering, we should simply love the Lord and seek to experience Him; when we experience Christ, we will magnify Christ, expressing Him as the One who is unlimited (see 2 Cor. 12:7-10).
Many times when suffering comes we ask the Lord to remove it or to reduce its intensity; Paul also asked the Lord to remove the thorn in his flesh, but the Lord rather increased the grace.
We should not encourage one another to ask for more sufferings or seek sufferings, but we should realise that, according to God’s sovereignty, sufferings are needed for us to experience Christ and for Him to be magnified through us.
Our sufferings are necessary for our experience of Christ and magnification of Him.
We may pray that the Lord would remove the sufferings, but His answer will remain that He wants to increase the grace, increase our experience of Christ, so that we would realise that even in our sufferings Christ can be magnified through us.
In insults, necessities, persecutions, and distresses on Christ’s behalf, we can boast in Christ, for He is sufficient for us, and He is the One who is magnified in us.
When we are weak, He is strong; when we run out of strength, His grace floods in; when we run out of hope, the endurance of Christ becomes ours.
When we find ourselves being weak to the uttermost and yet we turn to the Lord and seek to experience Him, we find ourselves powerful in the grace of Christ. His power is perfected in weakness, and His grace is manifested in our sufferings.
Whether we suffer or not, we need to seek to experience Christ so that the inexhaustible Christ would be magnified in us.
He doesn’t want to just be expressed in us in a small way, in our daily life; He wants to be inexhaustible in our experience, and He wants to be magnified through us, whether through life or through death.
Lord Jesus, we want to experience You day by day. We turn to You, Lord, and we accept Your will in our life. Live Yourself through us, Lord, for You are our very life. We expect that, whatever happens to us, Christ would be magnified in us and seen through us. Lord, may our forgiveness be the inexhaustible Christ being magnified in us. May we enjoy Your grace in the midst of sufferings, and may we enlarge You, make You great, and magnify You in all our experiences. Amen, Lord Jesus, Your grace is sufficient for us, and Your power is perfected in our weaknesses.
God Intends to Magnify Christ in us: the Church is the Manifestation of God in the Flesh
Our experience of Christ is a mystery, and whatever we experience of Christ is unlimited; if we see this vision, it will not only control our life but also strengthen our Christian walk. We will realise that God’s intention is to magnify Christ through us.
May we see this vision and may we realise that, no matter what happens to us and what our environment is, we need to experience Christ and magnify Christ, and God wants Christ to be magnified in us.
When we see this vision, we will be governed and controlled in our life and walk as Christians. Oh Lord Jesus!
We need to realise that, even though we may see much in the word of God and we have a good church life, we may often times live just like those in the world; we react like them, we deal with things like them, we seek help like them…Oh Lord!
May we realise that the situation we are in, the suffering we’re under, and the problem we’re going through, are not just another problem or suffering we need to pass through, but there is a reason!
God has an intention – He intends that His Son would be magnified through us in our experience. Realising this doesn’t mean we are “too spiritual” but rather that we want to experience Christ so that He would be magnified through us; this is the most practical and reasonable thing to do as a believer.
Before we run to others to get help, before we try to find the solution with someone else, we need to go to the Lord, open to Him, and ask Him to gain us more and be magnified through us, so that we may gain Him.
Virtually everything coming our way and happening in our life is for us to experience Christ in some way or another, so that Christ may be magnified in us.
The church life is not the sum total of our Christian practice; yes, we do need good, solid, scriptural, and healthy Christian practices in the church life, but it is the sum total of our living that composes the church life.
The church life is the sum total of our Christian living; therefore, when we all live Christ, our Christian living is added together to make the church life, and the church is a complete mystery – the mystery of godliness, God manifested in the flesh (1 Tim. 3:15-16).
The church life is the sum total of our living – our unseen and unseen living, our living in front of the people and at home, our living in the meeting hall and in our bedroom, the sum total of our living.
Is the vision of experiencing Christ to magnify Him controlling us in an adequate way? Without such a vision it is possible that we promote certain practices and even implement them successfully, but we may not really have the church life.
May we realise that the church is the great mystery of godliness – God manifested in the flesh. May we be saved from being engaged merely in outward practices that are devoid of the proper living of Christ to back them up.
May we be saved from merely going through the motions and going to the meeting, without the real experience of Christ in our daily life.
We need to know how to conduct ourselves in the house of God, which is the church of the living God; here we need to live as God does, that is, by living Christ.
When God is expressed in the flesh, when God is manifested in us and through us, that is the church, the mysterious church. Paul says, “To me, to live is Christ” (Phil. 1:21a); this means that we can live to be Christ.
The Christ whom we experience and whom we live is a mystery, so if we really experience Christ, we do not have the full assurance that we did experience Him, for all experiences of Christ are mysterious.
We shouldn’t analyze or be in our mind, but just pursue Christ, experience the bountiful supply of the Spirit, and seek to experience Christ, and all the experiences will take care of themselves.
Lord Jesus, we love You! We want to pursue to gain You and be found in You so that You may be magnified in us. Lord, save us from performing outward practices devoid of the experience of Christ. Save us from going through the motions in the church life yet without any living of Christ. Oh Lord, what about our experience of Christ to magnify Him at home, at work, in our room, and even in our secret time? May You be magnified in us and through us. Lord, gain the proper church life, the sum total of our Christian living, our living of Christ and experience of Him. May You gain the manifestation of God in the flesh, the mystery of godliness, among us in the church life!
Read this article / this sharing in the Romanian language – citiți acest articol / această împărtășire și în limba română via, Cristosul inepuizabil este mărit prin noi pe măsură ce-L experimentăm pe Cristos zi de zi.
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message by bro. Minoru Chen for this week, and portions from, The Experience of Christ, ch. 1 (by Witness Lee), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, The Experience of Christ (2019 Memorial Day Conference), week 1, The Intrinsic Significance of the Experience of Christ.
- Hymns on this topic:
# Oh! Christ, expression of God, the Great, / Inexhaustible, rich, and sweet! / God mingled with humanity / Lives in me my all to be. (Hymns #501)
# Live Thyself, Lord Jesus, through me, / For my very life art Thou; / Thee I take to all my problems / As the full solution now. / Live Thyself, Lord Jesus, through me, / In all things Thy will be done; / I but a transparent vessel / To make visible the Son. (Hymns #403)
# But if I delay, / I write that you may know / How one ought to conduct / Himself in the house of God, / Which is the church, / The church of the living God, / The pillar and base, / The pillar and base of the truth. / And confessedly, / Great is the mystery, / The mystery of godliness: / And confessedly, / Great is the mystery, / The mystery of godliness: / He who was manifested in the flesh, / Justified in the spirit, / Seen by angels, / Preached among the nations, / Believed on in the world, / Taken up in glory. (Song on, And Confessedly, Great is the Mystery)
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