We need to lose our Soul-Life and Live a Life of Brotherly Love in the Church Life

The church life is a life of brotherly love; just as the Lord Jesus laid down His soul-life that we may have the divine life, so we need to lose our soul-life and deny the self to love the brothers and minister life to them in the practice of the Body life. Amen!

In the gospel of John, we see that, for us to be saved, we need to receive eternal life to become children of God, and we need to enjoy, eat, drink, and partake of Christ as life and everything to us.

In the epistles of John, however, we see not only to receive the divine life but also how to live out this life, how to check that we are children of God, and how we can discern what are the false brothers according to God’s economy.

The apostle John says that, if we don’t love the brothers, we remain in death, but if we love the brothers, we have passed out of death into life.

Yes, we need to receive the divine life and yes, we need to remain in the fellowship of life, but if we want to really remain in life and grow in life in the fellowship of life, we need to love the brothers.

If we love the brothers, we have passed out of death into life (1 John 3:14).

But if we don’t love the brothers, there’s a question mark regarding whether we are a proper believer or not.

If we don’t love the brothers, if we don’t live in the church life as a life of brotherly love, is there really faith in us?

In a sense, what John suggests with this is that we need to both be regenerated with God’s life, have faith in God, and love the brothers in order to be saved and be a real believer. Wow!

When we receive faith, when the light of the gospel shines and Christ infuses Himself into us as our faith, love is infused into us.

Love is simply the outcome of faith, and the source of love is faith.

There is a test to our faith, however, whether faith really is in us: if we love the brothers, we have faith, but if we don’t love the brothers, how can we say we have faith?

Faith and love go together. If we say we believe into the Lord, we should also love the brothers; if we don’t love the brothers, according to the Bible, we abide in death. Oh, Lord Jesus!

It is true that, during the pandemic, as we had many of our meetings on zoom and many of the saints had a “black screen” and muted microphones, we did not meet some of the saints, and the connection has been lost with some.

Many things happened, and the faith of many may have grown weak.

As we are coming out of this gloomy period of the pandemic and the homes of the saints are more open, we need to consider one another, pray for one another, and visit one another.

If we truly enjoy the Lord in the morning, if we enjoy Christ as the Head of the Body, we will have a feeling for the members of the Body, and we will want to contact the saints.

This is a sign that we have faith, that is, that we love the brothers. May the Lord recover a life of brotherly love among us in the church life today.

Denying the Self to live a life of Brotherly Life in the Church Life Today

Our church life is not merely a social life among Christians; our church life is for the organic building up of the Body of Christ.

Therefore, the church life must be a life of brotherly love (1 John 4:7-8; 2 John 5-6; John 15:12, 17; Rev. 3:7; Eph. 5:2; cf. Jude 12).

We may have not defined the church life in this way, but this is what the church life is in reality: it is a life of brotherly love.

The apostle John is clear: we KNOW that we have passed out of death into life because we love the brothers.

The church life is a corporate life, a life that involves many brothers and sisters. As we live in the church life today, we need to live a life of brotherly love.

If we lose the brotherly love, the church life will disappear; when there’s no brotherly love, the church life is finished.

We can even say that the church life is the brotherly love, and brotherly love is the church life.

We have passed out of the source, the essence, the element, and the sphere of the satanic death into the source, the essence, the element, and the sphere of the divine life because we love the brothers.

This took place at our regeneration.

When we believed into the Lord Jesus, we passed out of death into life; when we love the brothers, that is the proof, the evidence, that we passed out death into life.

The divine life is for the building up of the church life, but this divine life is manifested and maintained by love.

If we love God and the brothers, we enjoy the divine life; however, if we don’t love the brothers, we abide in the satanic death (1 John 3:14; 2 Cor. 11:2-3). This is a warning to all of us.

Some say that they love God and believe into Him, but for some reason, they don’t meet with the saints, and they don’t have a daily church life, nor do they love the brothers.

The Bible does not leave it up to us to declare and claim that we have faith; it gives us a clear check, a solid test: if we love the brothers, if we live a life of brotherly love, then we have faith.

But if we don’t love the brothers yet we say we believe in God and love Him, we abide in death.

This is what the Bible says, and we need to bring this to the Lord in prayer.

May we not deceive ourselves. May we be saved from remaining or abiding in any satanic death and be fully brought into life by loving the brothers.

Just as the Lord Jesus laid down His soul-life that we might have the divine life through faith in Him, so we need to lose our soul-life and deny the self to love the brothers and minister life to them (1 John 3:16; John 10:11,17-18; 15:13; Eph. 4:29—5:2; 2 Cor. 12:15; Rom. 12:9-13).

There is no other way for us to practice the church life and to love the brothers except by denying the self and losing our soul-life.

The Lord told us clearly that, if we want to follow Him, we need to deny the self, lose the soul-life, and take up our cross to follow Him; He did this, and we follow in His footsteps.

Sometimes we may think that we love the brothers so much that we’re willing to die for them, even “jump in front of a train” for them, but we may not be willing to give up our opinion for them or put aside our way to take their way for them.

We may think we do love the brothers, but when we come together, we may not be willing to lose our soul-life or deny the self to love them.

May we learn the lesson of loving the brothers and being one with them even at the cost of losing our soul-life.

If we want to realize the church life, we must take the way of denying the self, losing our soul-life, bearing the cross, and following the Lord; this will spontaneously issue in a life of brotherly love.

If we cease loving ourselves, we will love the Lord and love the saints with the Lord as our love.

We may feel that the saints have wronged us or that they are mean to us, or we may feel that we are not properly taken care of in the church life, for no one seem to contact us in a regular way; we need to bring all this to the Lord and learn to deny our self, lose our soul-life, and simply love Him and love the brothers.

When we love the brothers, when we live a life of brotherly love by denying the self, we realize the church life.

This means that we need to live in the mingled spirit; we need to live not in our self, our preferences, or according to the things we know or we like to do, but according to the mingled spirit.

The more we enjoy the Lord and fellowship with Him, the more we will long to fellowship with other saints.

The more we deny the self by exercising our spirit, the more we will love the brothers.

The more we bear the cross, the more we will want to be in the church life with the saints.

If we pray to the Lord in a living way in the morning, we will desire to contact the saints and enjoy the Lord with them.

Lord Jesus, recover us to living a life of brotherly love in the church life today. Save us from living in the self or doing things according to our soul-life. We come to You, Lord, and we want to follow You. Make us willing to lose our soul-life and deny the self so that we may follow You. Oh Lord, for the sake of the church life, we put ourselves aside and we lose our soul-life to live in the mingled spirit. We want to realize the building up of the church and live the church life today. Amen, Lord, we long to fellowship with You and with the saints! We love You and we love the brothers! We are one with You in spirit, Lord, and we desire what You desire. May we touch You in a living way and contact the saints to fellowship with them and build up the church. May our church life be a life of brotherly life, a life of living in the mingled spirit!

Losing our Soul-life to Take God as our Pleasure for the Church Life, and Caring for the needs of the Saints in Love

Losing the soul-life is not something generic, an expression that we may agree with yet may not have any impact on us.

Our soul delights in certain things in this world; we may like the amusement and entertainment in the world, and our joy may be in watching things or doing things in the world and not being with the saints.

Losing our soul-life means that we exercise our spirit to delight ourselves in the Lord and not love the world with its pleasures.

We need to lose our soul-life by not loving the world with its pleasure.

Instead of allowing our soul to delight in the things it likes in the world, we need to take in God and express God as love in the church life of brotherly life (1 John 2:15-17; Matt. 16:25-26; cf. 2 Tim. 3:4; Psa. 36:8-9).

As believers in Christ, our pleasure, our joy, and our delight is not in this world nor in the things that the world has to offer; we delight in the Lord, and He is our unique satisfaction.

The more we enjoy the Lord, the more we realize that He is the only One that is real.

The more we love the Lord and live a life of brotherly love in the church life, the more we realize that real enjoyment is in the Lord and in the church life.

God created us with a need to enjoy and be delighted; He is a God who has the greatest pleasure, the greatest need for satisfaction, and the most amazing heart’s desire.

He created us in love according to His purpose so that we may delight ourselves in God and in those whom He loves.

We need to take in God and express God as love in the church life of brotherly love, having our joy, amusement, entertainment, and happiness in the church life.

Our joy is really in the Lord; whatever this world or the people around us can offer is temporary and superficial – only God is real satisfaction, the real delight.

And as we come together with the saints and enjoy the Lord together, we realize that living a life of brotherly love in the church life is what delights us the most.

May the Lord bring us to the point that we declare one with the psalmist that there’s nothing on earth that we desire but Him, and we have nothing in heaven beside Him.

May we be saturated with the fatness of His house and drink the river of His pleasures in the church life as the life of brotherly love.

If we feel that we still don’t enjoy the Lord to such an extent, we can ask Him to become our satisfaction to the uttermost.

For us to enjoy the Lord to such an extent in the church life as a life of brotherly love, we need to deny the self and lose our soul-life.

A very practical example of this is caring for the needs of the saints in love.

Brotherly love in the church life is expressed practically in our caring for the necessities of the needy saints without any self-serving purpose or outward display (see 1 John 3:17-18; Matt. 6:1-4; Rom. 12:13; 2 Cor. 8:1-7).

We should not love the Lord and the brothers only with our tongue; rather, if we see that our brother has a need and we shut up our affections for him, we need to love the brothers by the love of God which abides in us.

We need to love not only in word or in tongue but also in truthfulness.

And when we care for others, when we share material things with the needy saints, we should not spiritualize it or display it before others.

When we love the brothers and care for their needs in secret before the Lord, the grace of the Lord’s life with His love flows among the members of the Body of Christ and is infused into them.

Sometimes our love for the brothers needs to be material; if we see a material, the physical need of a brother, we should be before the Lord and meet that need, but not in a worldly way.

We need to pray and seek the Lord’s leading as to what way; the worldly way is to make a show openly about this, but the Lord’s way is to minister the grace of life to the saints.

We shouldn’t spiritualize our love but love from our spirit.

The apostle Paul did this: he both encouraged us to contribute to the needs of the saints and pursue hospitality, and he ministered to the needs of those with him and to the needy churches.

First, we need to give ourselves to the Lord, and then to the saints through the will of God.

This will allow the grace of life to flow among the saints, and brotherly love will be practiced among us.

On the negative side, loving to be first in the church (3 John 9) is versus loving all the brothers.

What a sad thing is to see a leading brother loving to be first!

The root of so many problems in the church life and in the Lord’s recovery is some who want to be number one; they want to be first.

This causes big problems. But when we lose our soul-life and live a life of brotherly love, we build up the church.

Lord Jesus, cause us to love You more than we love our soul-life. Draw us to Yourself. Attract us with Your beauty. May we see that all that is in the world – the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the vainglory of life – is not of the Father but perishes and is temporal. Amen, Lord, cause us to drink of the river of Your pleasures! May we be those who are willing to lose our soul-life and live a life of brotherly love in the church life. We want to take in God and express God as love in the church life of brotherly love today. Amen, Lord, may we be those who live a life of brotherly love, even caring for the necessities of the needy saints. May we be before the Lord and share our material things with the needy saints so that the grace of the Lord’s life may flow among us. Yes, Lord, may Your love flow among the members of the Body as we care for one another in love. May this be our reality in the church life today!

References and Hymns on this Topic

• Sources of inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, a sharing by brother Ted W. in the message, and portions from, Collected Works of Witness Lee, 1963, vol. 2, pp. 322-323, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Loving the Lord and loving one another for the organic building up of the church as the Body of Christ (2022 fall ITERO), week 6, entitled, The Lord’s New Commandment Given to Us – that we Love One Another.
• Further reading on this topic:
  – Our Preparation for the Lord’s Coming (3) Losing the Soul-life – Brother Ray Mulligan shares with us on the Lord’s second coming and how we can lose our soul life and receive salvation of the soul. Via UniStudents.
  – Church newsletter for July 2022 via, Church in Hamilton.
  – Brotherly love for the church life in Philemon, portion via, General Sketch of the New Testament in the Light of Christ and the Church, A – Part 2: Romans through Philemon, by W. Lee.
• Hymns on this topic:
  – Now in all the churches flowing, / Brotherly love. / Light and life and love bestowing, / Brotherly love. / In the oneness all believing, / Fellowship with all receiving, / Nevermore the Spirit grieving, / Brotherly love. (Hymns #1277 stanza 1)
  – The love for all the brothers, in our midst is found, / But in these days our love must increase and abound. / The Lord direct our hearts into the love of God / And prepare us in full for the day of the Lord. (Hymns #1305 stanza 2)
  – 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. / We all must learn to pay the price, / Christ must be worked into our soul; / ’Tis thus our soul is gained by Him, / This is our aim and this our goal. (Hymns #1298 stanzas 7-8)