Losing the Soul-Life for the Lord’s Sake and for the Church to be Built up Today

We need to learn to exercise the key of losing the soul-life to lock this gate of Hades for the building up of the church; if we are willing to lose our present soulish enjoyment for the sake of the Lord’s sake and for the church, others will be nourished by us, we will enjoy Christ, and we will not suffer but be joyful! Amen!

As believers in Christ, we need to exercise the kingdom of God for the building up of the church.

The kingdom of God today is the church, and in the church life we need to live in the reality of the kingdom of God.

The church and the kingdom are intimately related. We cannot have the proper church life without being in the kingdom of God in reality.

The Lord Jesus said that He will build His church, and immediately after speaking this, He said that the gates of Hades will not prevail against it.

He gives us the keys of the kingdom of the heavens to lock the gates of Hades for the building up of the church.

How much we need to exercise our spirit, live in our spirit, and exercise the keys of the kingdom of the heavens in order to shut and lock up the gates of Hades in a subjective way in the church life today!

If we want to build up the church today, we need to learn to shut up and lock up the gates of Hades through the exercise of three keys.

First, there is the key of denying the self.

As soon as the church was revealed to Peter and the disciples, Satan came in through Peter’s good intentions and was expressed through his opinion, and the Lord immediately identified it as Satan.

Wow, our good intentions, our desire for others not to go through suffering, and our opinions can be the embodiment of Satan, opening the gates of Hades for the enemy to attack the church and damage it!

The self is simply the soul declaring independence from God; when we do not depend on the Lord and on the Body, we are in the self.

The second key is taking up the cross. To take up the cross simply means that we take up the will of God, for the cross is God’s will.

The cross is not a suffering; the cross is death, termination.

We were crucified with Christ, and when we exercise our spirit to be one spirit with the Lord, we experience the cross of Christ in the Spirit with our spirit.

May we be those who deny the self and take up our own cross to follow the Lord today.

May we exercise our spirit and let the cross operate in us so that we bear the cross and follow the Lord, closing the gates of Hades in the church life for the church to be built up today!

Learn to Exercise the Key of Losing the Soul-Life, Losing the Enjoyment of our Soul today

The third subjective key to locking up the gates of Hades in our experience is losing the soul-life (Matt. 16:25).

What is this soul-life and why does the Lord want us to lose it?

In several places in the Gospels, the Lord said that if we save our soul in this age, if we allow the soul to have its enjoyment in this age, we will lose our soul in the next age, that is, we will lose our soulish enjoyment in the next age.

To save the soul-life is simply to please the self by allowing the soul to have its enjoyment.

However, to lose the soul-life is to lose the enjoyment of the soul.

The Lord created us with a soul; we all are a living soul with many desires, feelings, thoughts, emotions, and decisions. God created man as a soul (Gen. 2:7), and man’s soul needs enjoyment.

However, because of the fall of man, man’s soul desires to enjoy things that the world offers, things that are from the enemy, and even things that are apart from God.

When we believed into the Lord Jesus and received God into our spirit, we now enjoy Christ in our spirit, and receiving God and expressing Him should be our joy and amusement.

As believers in Christ, receiving God into our spirit and expressing God through our soul should be our joy and amusement today (Neh. 8:10; Rom. 14:17).

However, because we live in this world and we are conditioned, trained, and encouraged to enjoy the things our fallen soul loves, we believers in Christ many times allow our soul to have its soulish enjoyment and do not lose our soul-life.

The Lord Jesus said that, if we want to follow Him, we need to lose our soul-life for His sake; if we lose our soul-life for His sake today, we will find it in the next age.

The Lord Jesus took the lead to do this; when He was on the earth, He did not seek His own things, He did not do what His soul liked, and He did not accomplish or say things that satisfied Him but rather, He lost His soul-life to the uttermost.

He laid down His soul-life for His disciples to be shepherded, cared for, nourished, and taught with the words of life, and He made the ultimate sacrifice to lay down His soul-life by dying on the cross for us.

This was a suffering, humanly speaking, but the Lord was looking to the reward, the joy set before Him: the church as the product of His death and resurrection.

The Lord Jesus lost the enjoyment of His soul in this age so that He might find His soul-life in the coming age (John 10:11; Isa. 53:12); we must do the same today (John 12:24-26).

It might seem that it is a suffering for our soul to lose its present soulish enjoyment, but if we do it by exercising our spirit to enjoy the Lord in our spirit, we lose our soul-life for the Lord’s sake and for the sake of the church, and our soul will enjoy the Lord and being with the saints.

We need to realize that, if we save our soul-life in this age, we will lose it in the coming age; however, if we lose our soul-life in this age, we will find it in the coming age (Matt. 16:25).

May we be those who save our soul life in the next age by losing the soul-life for the Lord’s sake in this age!

One of the rewards in the coming kingdom is to find our soul-life, that is, to have the enjoyment of our soul as God has ordained.

However, today we need to lose our soulish enjoyment for the Lord’s sake; we need to exercise the key of losing the soul-life for the sake of the Lord and for the sake of the church.

The only way that the church can be built up is if we lose our soulish enjoyment in this age.

If you and I lose our soul-life today, not allowing our soul to enjoy what it wants in this world but denying this soulish enjoyment for the sake of the Lord and of the church, the church can be built up.

How can the church be built up if each believer in Christ does what they like in their soul?

How can the church be built up if we all save our soul by enjoying what the soul likes in this age? Oh, Lord!

May we see that 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).

When we love the Lord, love the church, and are willing to lose our soul-life, even hate it for the sake of the Lord and of the church, we overcome the enemy and we shut and even lock up the gate of Hades to build up the church today.

May we come to the Lord in the morning and also throughout the day to tell Him,

Lord Jesus, we love You! We give ourselves to enjoy You! We exercise our spirit to enjoy and experience You today. Amen, Lord Jesus, we want to follow You today by denying the self, losing our soul-life, and taking up our cross. Oh Lord Jesus, make us willing to lose our present soulish enjoyment for Your sake and for the sake of the church! We want to exercise the key of losing the soul-life today for the building up of the church. May we cooperate with You by exercising our spirit and not allowing our soul to have its enjoyment in this age but lose the soulish enjoyment for Your sake. Amen, Lord, we want to receive You in our spirit and express You through our soul so that we may be filled with joy and enjoyment. Hallelujah, the joy of the Lord is our strength! Praise the Lord, we can enjoy the Lord in our spirit and lose our soul-life for His sake and for the sake of the church today! Amen, Lord Jesus, make us willing to lose our soul-life in this age for Your sake and for the sake of the church so that we may find it in the next age at Your return! Amen, Lord, make us Your overcomers, those who apply the blood of the Lamb, speak the word of our testimony, and not love our soul-life even unto death!

Being Willing to Lose our Present Soulish Enjoyment for the Lord’s Sake for Others to be Nourished and for the Church to be Built Up

When the Lord Jesus went to the cross, He did not do it with tears or by complaining about it; rather, as Heb. 12:2 says, He went to the cross joyfully.

Though the cross was the ultimate losing of His soul-life, He looked away to the reward, the joy set before Him.

He foresaw what was the result, so He never felt sorry for Himself about losing His soul.

He knew that through His death many grains will be brought forth (John 12:24) and in His resurrection, the many believers in Christ will be regenerated to be His Body (1 Pet. 1:3).

This was the joy set before Him, and for this joy, He was willing to lose His soul-life for our sake and for the sake of the church.

Today people seek many things outside of God to satisfy themselves and to be amused, entertained, and made happy.

There are so many things today that attract man, captivate man, and lead man away from the Lord simply by being so entertaining, amusing, and attractive. Oh, Lord.

In the old times people used to play games and were addicted to some games, but today people have their mobile phones with lots of games, apps, and things that notify us, remind us, and draw us away from the Lord and from doing the right thing.

Even more, there are many things that our soul loves, such as travelling, watching entertainment, reading, working out, playing sports or watching sports, etc.

Even though we are believers in Christ, many times when we’re by ourselves, in the privacy of our own home, and no one in the church sees us, we allow our soul to have its present soulish enjoyment.

Nowadays more than ever the world is at our fingertips, in our pockets, and all around us, drawing us, notifying us, reminding us, and usurping us at every level.

When we play or watch certain sports, when we travel or watch others travel, when we drive or watch others drive, when we play a game or watch others play a game, our soul is entertained and made happy.

Anything that causes our soul to be happy apart from the Lord is something of the world that usurps us and brings in death in the church life.

If we do not lose our present soulish enjoyment for the sake of the Lord and for the sake of the church, we will lose our soulish enjoyment in the next age.

We do not lose our soul-life because we HAVE to; we lose it because we love the Lord and we enjoy Him, and for His sake and for the sake of the church, we willingly lay down our soul life.

We lose our soul-life today by looking away unto Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of our faith, who has cut the way by taking the lead to lose His soul-life for the sake of obtaining the church!

Amen, if we are 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 built up through us; this is not a suffering but a joy!

We all can testify that we have tasted this joy of losing the soul-life for the sake of the Lord and for the sake of the church, and the saints were nourished through us and built up in the church.

For example, when we lose our present soulish enjoyment and give the saints a ride to the meeting or from the airport, the saints are nourished.

When we lose our soul-life and do not do what our soul wants but pay the price to be in the Word and visit the new ones to fellowship with them in the Word, they are nourished and are built up together.

On the one hand, our soul suffers the loss of its enjoyment; on the other hand, because we exercise our spirit to touch the Lord and enjoy Him in spirit, eventually the soul enters into the enjoyment of the Lord, and He has a way to be expressed through our soul.

If we are those losing our soul-life for the Lord’s sake in this age, we will enter into His joy in the next age.

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 (Matt. 16:25-28; 25:21, 23).

If we are willing to lose our soul-life for the Lord’s sake in this world, we will enter into His joy when He returns; He will ask us His followers, His partners, to enter into His joy.

This will be the saving of our soul!

Lord Jesus, we love You and we give ourselves to enjoy You today! Amen, Lord, we exercise our spirit to touch You, enjoy You, and experience You. We are willing, dear Lord, to lose our present enjoyment for the Lord’s sake, for the sake of the church, and for the sake of all the saints! Amen, Lord, as we lose our soul-life for Your sake, we believe that others are nourished and built up through us! Oh, what a joy it is to exercise our spirit, enjoy the Lord, and lose our present soulish enjoyment for the Lord’s sake and for the sake of the church so that the church may be built up! Amen, Lord, we want to enter into Your joy in the coming age by being willing to lose our soulish enjoyment in this age for Your sake! Oh Lord, make us willing to lose our soulish enjoyment today for Your sake. We want to follow in Your steps today, being just like You in losing our soul-life for Your sake. Live in us today. We want to enjoy You in our spirit and let You be expressed in our soul!

References and Hymns on this Topic

• Inspiration for this article/sharing comes from the Word of God, the enjoyment in the ministry, a sharing by brother Minoru Chen in the message 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,” pp. 94-107, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Living in the Reality of the Kingdom of God (2024 October ITERO), week 4, The Exercise of the Kingdom for the Building Up of the Church.
• Similar articles on this topic:
  – Our Preparation for the Lord’s Coming (3) Losing the Soul-life and Receiving the Salvation of the Soul, outline via LSM webcast.
  – How to Build the Church, via, New Jerusalem blog.
  – Message Two – The Losing of the Soul-life, Participating in the Rapture of the Overcomers…, a message by brother Ron.
  – 9 Crucial Practices for Building Up a Vital Christian Life, via, Holding to Truth in Love.
  – Christ, the Cross, and the Church, via, Shepherding Words.
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• Hymns on this topic:
  – Once I thirsted for a fountain, / Something deep that would satisfy, / But the fountain that I’d drink from, / Left me searching and still so dry. / Then one day I found Him, / He satisfied my thirst, / Became in me a deeper source / Whence living waters burst. / Now I drink Him! / Jesus, Jesus is my life now, / Jesus, Jesus is my life; / I’m fully satisfied now, / Jesus, Jesus is my life. (Hymns #1327 stanzas 1 and chorus)
  – Lord, I treasure the sweet flow of life, / And my soul-life at last I lay down; / O Lord, deepen the pure flow of life; / At Your coming may life be my crown. (Hymns #1191 chorus)
  – 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)