We need to be those who lose our soul-life in this age, not allowing the soul to have its enjoyment in this age so that we may gain the full enjoyment in the next age.
The church life today is the place where we can live the reality of the kingdom of God, for the church is the kingdom of God in this age.
However, for us to live the kingdom life in the church life and for us to build up the church, we need to exercise the keys of the kingdom.
God has given us the keys of the kingdom, three of which are denying the self, taking up our cross, and losing the soul-life; when we exercise these three keys, we will lock up the gates of Hades and spontaneously build up the church.
God’s kingdom today is a real exercise; when Christ comes to reign, it will be a great prize, but today we must be trained and we must exercise ourselves, exercising the keys of the kingdom in the church life and in our daily life, so that we may shut the gates of Hades and release the building up of the church.
On one hand the kingdom seed grows within us little by little day by day, but on the other, for us to have a proper expression and manifestation of the kingdom life, we need to deny the self, take up our cross and bear it, and lose the soul-life.
We need to realise that we cannot live as we did before; we cannot live like the people in the world, in the vanity of their mind, or according to a high standard of ethics or morality.
Our living should be according to the principles in the kingdom of God, and for us to build up the church we need not only to let Christ grow in us personally but corporately we need to deny the self, take up our cross, and lose the soul-life.
The gates of Hades are right there, always present where the church is; whenever we try to build up the church, the gates of Hades will try to attack.
And we may think that the gates of Hades are great persecutions or divisions in the church, but actually, it is the self, the unrenewed mind, and the life of the soul that open up the door for death to come into the church. Oh Lord Jesus!
May the Lord shine on us and show us how much we still live in the self, how much we reject the cross, and how much we still entertain our soul, allowing our soul to have its enjoyment in this age.
May the Lord have mercy on us and make us one with Him in exercising the keys of the kingdom to deny the self, take up our cross and bear it, and lose the soul life today for the sake of the church.
Why We Need to Lose our Soul-Life, Losing our Soulish Enjoyment in this age
In Matt. 16:25 the Lord Jesus said that if we want to follow Him we need to deny the self, take up our cross, and lose the soul-life. What is the soul-life and how can we lose our soul-life? To save the soul is to please the self by allowing the soul to have its enjoyment, but to lose the soul-life is to lose the enjoyment of the soul.
When God created us, He made us a living soul (Gen. 2:7), and in our soul we have the need for enjoyment.
As human beings we need enjoyment, and our chief and top enjoyment should be Christ who is in our spirit, who is our real joy. God’s intention in creating man was that man would receive Him as life in his spirit and express Him through his soul, and this should have been man’s joy and amusement (see Neh. 8:10; Rom. 14:17).
However, man fell, and instead of taking God into his spirit and expressing Him through his soul, man’s spirit became deadened (with no function) and man’s soul was corrupted to become the self with its independent will; the self seeks to have enjoyment and pleasure in this age.
When the Lord Jesus came, He lost the enjoyment in His soul in this age so that He might find His soul-life in the coming age (see John 10:11; Isa. 53:12); we must do the same (John 12:24-26).
Losing the soulish enjoyment in this age is not a matter of suffering; rather, it is a real joy. If we lose our soulish enjoyment, for example, to forgive someone who has offended us, this will lead to joy and building up.
But if we do not forgive others but “treasure” and nurture our offense, this will lead to damage in our relationships. When we lose our soulish enjoyment in this age for the sake of the building up of the church, others will be nourished and built up through us.
But if we take advantage of what the world has to offer and indulge in worldly pleasures, entertainments, and lusts, our soul will get its enjoyment in this age, and we will lose the enjoyment in the next age.
The Lord didn’t create us with a soul for us to enjoy the worldly things and pleasures in this age; these things are actually worthless, momentary, and fading; the real enjoyment is the enjoyment in the next age and the ultimate enjoyment for eternity.
The Lord Jesus, for the sake of the joy set before Him, went joyfully to the cross, and He lost His soul-life while He was on earth so that He may find it and enjoy it in the next age.
We need to follow Him in this. He knew that through His death many grains will be brought forth, so He kept His eyes on the prize.
Paul also lost his soul-life in this age, considering that Christ was a prize to be gained and even to suffer for, and he wanted to obtain Christ and be found in Him in all things.
So we all have a choice today: we can enjoy our soul life in this age, indulging in soulish entertainments and pleasures, and we will lose our soul-life in the coming age, or we can lose our soul-life in this age, and we will find it in the coming age (Matt. 16:25).
All the amusements that we seek outside of God are for the satisfaction of the soul; when we listen to music, play games, are involved in sports, and watch things for our entertainment, we are happy in our fallen soul.
It may seem that we gain the whole world, but we actually lose our soul. But if we choose to lose our soul-life in this age, we will gain it in the next age.
Lord Jesus, we love You and we choose to lose our soul-life in this age so that we may gain it in the next age. Lord, may You become our top enjoyment and entertainment. We come to You, Lord to be filled with Your life in our spirit and to express You through our soul. Amen, Lord, we want to follow You, our Savior, in denying the self, taking up our cross, and losing our soul-life for the joy set before us – the building up of the church for God’s corporate expression and representation on earth! Lord Jesus, we believe that if we lose our soul-life for Your sake in this age, we will find it in the coming age!
Loving the Lord Jesus and Losing our Soul-Life for the Sake of the Church in this age
If we are regenerated but still seek to enjoy the worldly entertainment, amusements, sports, and activities today, we will have a fleeting enjoyment in the soul today but we will lose our soul in the next age.
This age is not the age for us to have enjoyment in the soul as offered by this world; this age is for us to receive God as life in our spirit, grow in life, and lose our soul-life for the sake of the church.
We may like to play a certain game, to be involved in a certain sport, to follow a certain team or TV show, and our soul is delighted to watch, receive, enjoy, and passively be infused with what the world has to offer.
If we entertain our soul in its enjoyment in this age, we will lose our soul in the next age.
When the Lord Jesus came, He was rejected by men; this present age as the age of the church is the age of rejection – we are rejected by others because of following the Lord, and we should not seek to be accepted or well-received by them.
As the Lord’s followers, our destiny is to be rejected by the world, for we do not join them in the same flood of dissoluteness, neither do we participate in the worldly things and entertainment that they are enjoying.
Our destiny as the Lord’s followers is to lose our soul-life in this age for the Lord’s sake and for the sake of the church, for we love the Lord more than we love our soul-life, and we want the church to be built up more than our soulish enjoyment.
This age is not the age for us to enjoy things in the soul; it is the age in which we lose our soulish enjoyment. We need to love the Lord and lose our soul-life for the Lord’s sake and for the sake of the church in this age, so that we may gain our soul in the next.
When the Lord will return, that will be the time for Him – and all those who have lost their soul-life on this earth – to enjoy the earth.
Satan will be bound, Christ will recover the earth, and the entire earth will be under His reign; Christ will enjoy the earth, and all His followers who have denied their self and lost their soul-life in this age will participate in this enjoyment.
He will reward them in the coming kingdom with so much more; He will make them kings to rule over the earth, and they will be His partners in the enjoyment.
That will be the saving of our soul; for us to have the enjoyment in the coming age, we need to pay the price in this age by losing our soul. We need to love the Lord Jesus and hate and deny our soul-life, not loving our soul-life even unto death (1 Cor. 16:22; 2:9; Luke 14:26; 9:23; Rev. 12:11).
We need to be the overcomers of today who do not love their soul-life even unto death; to not love our soul-life is to hate it, for when we hate it, we will lose it.
If we’re willing to lose all our present soulish enjoyment for the Lord’s sake, for the sake of the church, and for the sake of all the saints, others will be nourished by us and will be built up through us; this is not a suffering but a joy (Heb. 12:2).
Losing our soul-life in this age doesn’t mean we become like the ascetics, cutting ourselves from anything of this world; rather, as we enjoy the Lord in the church life, we have real enjoyment in the soul – by exercising our spirit, and we build up the church and minister Christ to others.
The kingdom reward of sharing the King’s joy in ruling over the earth in the manifestation of the kingdom depends upon whether we save our soul-life in this age or lose it (see Matt. 16:25-28; 25:21, 23). If we would rule ourselves by the divine life and by walking according to the spirit today, that day we will have a part to be the co-kings of Christ to rule over this earth.
Lord Jesus, we love You, we love the church, and we love all the saints; for Your sake we are willing to lose our soul-life in this age so that we may gain our soul in the next! Amen, Lord Jesus, we want to be Your overcomers today, those who overcome the enemy by not loving our soul-life even unto death! May we be willing to lose all our present soulish enjoyment for the Lord’s sake and for the sake of the church so that others may be nourished by us and be built up through us! Amen, Lord Jesus, we love You and we love the church!
This article can also be read in the Romanian language / Citiți acest articol în limba română vizitând următorul link, Ne pierdem viața-suflet de dragul Domnului în această epocă pentru a ne salva sufletul în epoca viitoare.
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, Collected Works of Witness Lee, 1978, vol. 1, “The Exercise of the Kingdom for the Building of the Church,” ch. 5, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, The Development of the Kingdom of God in the Church Life and the Christian Life (2019 spring ITERO), week 5, The Exercise of the Kingdom for the Building Up of the Church.
- Hymns on this topic:
# Our soul gained for the kingdom’s age— / For this we lose our soul life here; / If we lay down our soul life now, / We’ll save it for Christ’s kingdom there. (Hymns #1298)
# Through the Cross, O Lord, I pray, / Put my soul-life all away; / Make me any price to pay, / Full anointing to receive. (Hymns #279)
# We need to love the Lord / And keep His pure Word, / And wear Christ as our clothes; / We need to call His name, / In Him remain, / In Him, our soul-life lose. (Song on, Divine Dispensing for the Life Supply)
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