Labor on Christ to have a Surplus of Christ for a Rich Exhibition of Christ in the Meetings

If we as believers in Christ labor on the all-inclusive Christ, we will have the riches of Christ as the produce to exhibit Christ in the church; our proper life as Christians is to labor on Christ every day and thus have a rich surplus of Christ to bring to the meetings for the a rich exhibition of Christ.

Our need is to labor on the all-inclusive Christ, just as the people of Israel who entered the good land had to labor on the land, otherwise, they had nothing to eat.

The land given to us is very rich, but we may lack in produce, for we may not labor on the land to obtain its riches.

Not only so, if we don’t labor on Christ to gain something of Christ, we will not have anything to bring to the meetings of the church for our corporate enjoyment with the saints and for the Father’s satisfaction.

So we need to labor – not just work, but labor. To labor is something more intense, requiring more energy and effort.

For example, farmers don’t just work for a while and then they take a break; they lanor on the land to get its rich produce.

We may go to work, fulfill our responsibilities in a faithful way, produce a certain amount, and have certain results, but then at the end of the day, we may go home and forget about work.

Laboring, however, is more intense and it does not stop. And our labor is not something unpleasant; rather, we enjoy the Lord as we labor.

To labor on Christ is for us to exercise our spirit to contact Him in the midst of all situations.

Outwardly we may be at work in the office, but inwardly we exercise to contact the Lord. When we do this, when we exercise our spirit to contact the Lord in situation after situation, He produces Himself into us.

We exercise, we labor, and He produces Himself in us.

The more we gain Christ, the more He produces Himself in us through our contacting Him day by day and situation by situation, the more we have something of Christ to exhibit in the church.

Our need, therefore, is to labor on Christ so that we may bring a surplus of Christ to the meetings of the church to exhibit Christ in all His riches.

We may have an experience of Christ as the Author and Perfecter of our faith, for we may lack faith and we may open to Him and He infuses us with faith; we bring such an experience to the meeting and share it with the Lord and with the saints.

We may lack patience, and we may open to the Lord, and He infuses Himself into us to be our patience; as we experience Him in such a way, we have something of Christ to bring to the meetings of the church for our corporate exhibition of Christ.

We need to Labor on Christ every day to have a Rich Surplus of Christ to bring to the Meetings for a Rich Exhibition of Christ

If we were to consider our meetings before the Lord, especially the Lord’s Table Meeting, we will realize that, in so many ways, we may have just a form or a routine without a spontaneous overflow of the riches of Christ enjoyed by us.

We may come to the meeting and we may even be late with no inward consciousness, and we may sing, declare some hymns, utter some prayers, then sing again, and then worship the Father with some hymns and declaration of the hymns with some prayers.

There is a danger that we in the church life would fall into a formality and predictability in our meetings, and we may not be functioning in a proper way in the meeting to bring our portion of Christ for a corporate and rich exhibition of Christ.

May we allow the Lord to shine on us and show us where we are and what our need is, and may we daily labor on Christ so that we may have a rich surplus of Christ to bring to the meetings of the church for a rich exhibition of Christ.

The proper life of Christians is to labor on Christ every day and thus have the rich surplus of Christ to bring to the meetings for a rich exhibition of Christ (1 Cor. 14:26).

We need to fight against the degradation that is creeping into the church life; we need to give ourselves to the Lord to labor on Christ so that we may have a surplus of Christ to bring to the meetings for an exhibition of Christ.

When we come together in the church meetings, we need to have an exhibition of Christ (Col. 1:18, 27). Christ must have preeminence in all things; He must have the first place, for He is the center of everything.

As we gather together, we are gathered into the Lord’s name; we are gathered out of ourselves and into His name, into His person (Matt. 18:17-18).

Through our daily experiences of the riches of Christ, these riches will become an exhibition of the produce of Christ (Eph. 3:8, 17-18; Col. 2:6, 9-10, 17).

But if we have no produce, if we don’t seek to experience Christ every day through the exercise of our spirit to contact the Lord, then we have nothing to exhibit of Christ when we come together.

When we come together, we cannot pretend or put on a mask, sharing things that we never enjoyed and experienced, and praying things that we have not experienced.

May we come to the Lord, again and again, to enjoy Him and experience Him, and may we seek to enjoy Him in all our situations, so that something of Christ may be wrought into us again and again throughout the day.

Our meetings should always be an exhibition to show forth what Christ is, what Christ has, and what Christ does (Heb. 1:3; 2:9, 14; 1 John 3:8; 4:9, 15; Acts 2:24, 32-33; Rev. 1:17b-18).

When we come together, we should not simply wait for someone to open the meeting or share something; we all need to have our hands full of Christ, being ready to share something of what Christ is, what He has, and what He does.

Someone may share an aspect of what Christ – He is the Victor, He has conquered the enemy, and He did this in our experience.

Someone else can share what Christ has done and what He has, based on his experience of Christ.

There’s no conformity or order, there’s no formality or routine – there is only our learning to function in the meetings to exhibit Christ in all His riches.

As 1 Cor. 14:26 says, whenever we come together, each one has a psalm, has a teaching, has a revelation, has a tongue, has an interpretation; all things need to be done for building up.

Some of us may have a psalm to praise the Lord, a teaching (of the teacher) to minister the riches of Christ to edify and nourish others, a revelation (of the prophet) to give visions of God’s eternal purpose concerning Christ as God’s mystery and the church as Christ’s mystery, a tongue for a sign to the unbelievers so that they may know and accept Christ, or an interpretation to make a tongue concerning Christ and His Body understandable.

This means that, even before we come to the meeting, we need to prepare ourselves for the meeting with such things from the Lord and of the Lord.

We do this either through our experience of Him or through our enjoyment of His word and fellowship with Him in prayer.

When we experience and enjoy Christ in our daily living and abide in His word, and we come to the meeting with our hands full of Christ, we need not wait and should not wait for inspiration: we can simply exercise our spirit and use our trained mind to function in presenting what we have prepared.

When we all do this, there will be a rich exhibition of Christ, and we will function for the Lord’s glory and satisfaction and to the attendants for their benefit – their nourishment, their enlightenment, and their building up.

In this way, the meeting will be an exhibition of Christ in His riches and will be a mutual enjoyment of Christ shared by all the attendants before God and with God for the building up of the saints and the church (see 1 Cor. 14:26 and footnote 1, Recovery Version Bible).

Lord Jesus, we want to faithfully labor on the all-inclusive Christ so that we may have the riches of Christ as the produce to exhibit Christ in the church. Amen, Lord, may we have a proper life as Christians by laboring on Christ every day and thus having the rich surplus of Christ to bring to the meetings for a rich exhibition of Christ. We give ourselves to You to enjoy and experience You day by day in all the daily situations so that we may gain Christ in our experience. Amen, Lord, may we have daily experiences of the riches of Christ so that we may have a corporate exhibition of the produce of Christ when we meet with the saints! May our meetings be always an exhibition to show forth what Christ is, what Christ has, and what Christ does!

If we Continually Labor on Christ, we will have a Rich Surplus of Christ to Bring to the Meetings for a Rich Exhibition of Christ!

When we meet together as believers in Christ, we exhibit not only the Christ given to us by God but also the Christ whom we have produced, the Christ on whom we have labored and whom we have experienced (Col. 1:12-13; Phil. 3:10).

God allotted us a portion of Christ with the saints in the light, and each one of us has a rich portion of this all-inclusive One for our enjoyment.

However, in order for us to have a rich exhibition of Christ in the meetings, we need to labor on Christ day by day.

We have to admit, however, that most days we are in-and-out of the spirit, living in spirit for a bit and then not living in spirit; however, we all are learning to live in the mingled spirit.

In more and more situations we are turning to Him, experiencing Him, and giving Him the first place, not merely reacting to things or exercising our mind to sort things out.

None of us is an expert; we all are learning to experience Christ, and we enjoy Christ as grace in situation after situation.

It is after we go through a situation that we realize that, this time, we didn’t get angry, we didn’t react in our emotion, and we had peace because we enjoyed God as grace.

When we contact the Lord, He supplies us with grace, and because of this grace, we could live Christ.

We all need to exercise our spirit to contact the Lord in situation after situation, for no one can labor on our portion of Christ, our allotment; only we can labor on our portion and enjoy the Christ allotted to us.

We shouldn’t be surprised, however, that we may know what our allotted portion is; we simply need to exercise our spirit and contact the Lord.

If we continually labor on Christ, we will have the rich surplus of Christ to bring to the meetings for a rich exhibition of Christ (1 Cor. 1:24, 30; 10:3-4; 14:26).

We need to continually labor on Christ; whether we feel like it, whether our mood is up or down, we need to labor on Christ.

Many times we do things according to how we feel; we may feel down or just can’t be bothered, so we may not exercise our spirit to contact the Lord.

At other times, we may feel so happy, so we exercise to contact the Lord.

To some extent we have moods, and we have the body of sin and of death, and we have all kinds of feelings and goofy things, some of which require medicine to be dealt with and the others needing the cross.

We need to exercise not to be governed by our mood but rather, exercise our spirit, contact the Lord, and seek to experience Him.

Through our continual labor on Christ, we have the riches of Christ constituted into us, and when we come together, there will be a rich exhibition of Christ.

Our life as believers in Christ is first a life of laboring on Christ, and second, it is a life of having something of Christ to bring to the meetings to offer and contribute.

Being a Christian is not merely about reading the Bible and doing what it says; it is a life of laboring on Christ and bringing something of the Christ we experience to the church meetings for a rich exhibition of Christ.

We need to bring the top surplus of Christ to the church meetings for our worship of God in spirit and reality (John 4:24).

In all the situations of our daily life, as we wait in line to pay for our groceries, as we wait for the bus, as we are travelling, as we do this and that, we need to contact the Lord again and again, and He will produce Himself in us so that we may have a surplus of Christ, a rich overflow of Christ, when we come to the meetings or when we meet others.

Lord Jesus, we turn to again and again throughout the day, in all situations and circumstances, and we exercise our spirit to experience Christ. Amen, Lord, we want to gain something of what Christ is, what Christ has, and what Christ does, so that we would have a surplus of Christ. May there be a rich exhibition of Christ in the meetings of the church for the showing forth of what Christ is, has, and has done. Amen, Lord, may we have a rich produce of Christ to bring to the meeting for the exhibition of Christ as the One given to us by God and the One whom we have produced and on whom we have labored in our experience. Grant us the grace to experience Christ daily so that we may have our hands full of Christ when we come to the meetings for a rich exhibition of Christ.

References and Hymns on this Topic

• Sources of inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, a message given by Ron Kangas on this topic, and portions from, Collected Works of Witness Lee, 1987, vol. 3, “The Scriptural Way to Meet and Serve for the Building up of the Body of Christ“, ch. 10, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Meeting God’s Need and Present needs in the Lord’s Recovery, week 5, entitled, Our Need to Walk in Newness of Life, to Serve in Newness of Spirit, and to Be Renewed in Our Inner Man Day by Day.
• Hymns on this topic:
  – In meetings Christ to God we bear / And Christ with one another share, / And Christ with God enjoying there, / We thus exhibit Christ. / The risen Christ to God we bring, / And Christ ascended offering, / God’s satisfaction answering, / We thus exhibit Christ. (Hymns #864)
  – Labor on Jesus to have Him increased! / Then seek God’s dwelling and come to the feast! / There bring and offer your surplus to God, / There eat the riches, rejoice in the Lord! / O Jesus! You’re God’s good land / For me to labor on! / I’ll bit by bit possess You / Until the whole is won! / With Canaan is God’s purpose, / The labor He will bless; / Lord Jesus, here I gain Yourself, / Your Person to possess. (Hymns #1168)
  – As the Israelites did offer / From the surplus of their land, / Thus some produce reaped of Jesus / Must be in our serving hand. / We on Christ, as land, must labor, / Harvest Him for all our fare; / Tasting Him to overflowing, / Christ with others we may share. (Hymns #912)