Being Matured in Life by having our Capacity Enlarged to be Filled with God’s Life

We need to be matured in life by having our capacity enlarged to be filled with God’s life.

Maturity is a matter of the enlargement of capacity; God sovereignly uses persons, things, and events to empty us of everything that has filled us and to take away every preoccupation so that we may have an increased capacity to be filled with God.

Amen, we want to be filled with God a little more today!

In order for us to be prepared for the Lord’s return, we need to grow in life unto maturity, for it is in the maturity of life that we are ready for His coming.

We have received the divine life into our spirit at the time of our regeneration; praise the Lord, that which is born of the Spirit is spirit!

We as believers in Christ, the genuine Christians, are born of God. We were given the authority to become children of God; we were born not of the will of man nor of the flesh but of God.

God is our Father (John 1:12-13; 3:3-6, 15-16). He is our Father and we are His genuine, bona-fide children.

However, the divine life we have received at the time of our regeneration needs to grow.

Yes, the Lord is in our spirit as life, but what about the other parts of our inner being?

The Lord needs to grow in us and spread from our spirit into our mind, emotion, and will.

We simply need to open to the Lord again and again and let Him grow in us.

As we turn to Him, as we call on His name, as we pray over His word, and as we simply say Amen to His inner speaking, something of God seeps from our spirit into our mind, emotion, and will.

As we learn to love the Lord by being in His word and by being with the saints, something of the element of God is infused into our emotions.

As we spend time with the Lord in His word and allow the word of God to dwell richly in our mind, the Lord spreads in our mind to make it the mind of Christ.

And as we simply say Amen to the Lord’s inner speaking and leading, putting our will aside and taking His will as our will, the Lord spreads into our will.

The Lord needs to grow in us so that Christ may live in us (Gal. 2:20) and He may be formed in us (4:19).

We are today in this process of being transformed and matured, a process that is so positive and wonderful on one hand, yet full of trials, suffering, and tears on the other hand.

On the positive side, the Lord is so rich, so near, and so dear to us, and we can partake of Him as our life and life supply day by day.

On the negative side, the Lord is working around us and in us to tear down the natural man and empty us from anything that has filled us, and He works to take away every preoccupation so that we may have an increased capacity to be filled with God.

Amen, may we remain in this wonderful process of being daily renewed, transformed, and brought to maturity so that we may be prepared to be the bride of Christ for whom He can return!

Being Matured in Life by having our Capacity Enlarged through the Discipline of the Holy Spirit

Maturity is a matter of the enlargement of capacity; a mature person is one whose capacity has been enlarged through the discipline of the Holy Spirit (Psa. 4:1).

Growth in life takes time; it does not happen overnight but is a slow daily process.

Furthermore, growth in life unto maturity requires giving the Lord more room in our being.

For this, God sovereignly allows many persons and things to be and happen around us so that our capacity may be enlarged as we experience the discipline of the Holy Spirit.

Time is needed for life to mature; young people cannot really be mature, for time is required for maturity to be there.

We must allow God to give us time to suffer, even suffer beyond measure; then, our capacity will be enlarged.

Some can suffer the loss of £5 but could not suffer the loss of £5000; some could forgive others two or three times, but the fifth time they have to do it, their hands will tremble.

By touching people and being with them we can taste whether they are ripe, matured in life, or still soul, not yet ripened.

Our Christian life grows in a natural way; we cannot be ripened artificially, as you ripen a banana with mild heat.

Our growth in life doesn’t come as a result of spiritual cultivation; rather, we have the Spirit, and we can exercise our spirit to say Amen to the Lord’s work in the environment, and we will mature in life.

For example, birds grow feathers spontaneously and automatically; there’s no need for them to cultivate feathers.

Cultivation can produce a saint only according to the concept of the world; it cannot produce a real Christian.

A real Christian has the seal of the cross.

It is important that we as believers in Christ receive the Lord’s arrangement in our circumstances; this arrangement is the discipline of the Holy Spirit.

If we try to escape the Lord’s arrangement, if we try to run away from the limitation and constraints He has placed on us in our environment, we will lose the opportunity to have our capacity enlarged.

This will prolong the time required for the divine life to mature in us, and it may even require us to make up this lesson in order to reach maturity.

Maturity in life is the sum total of receiving the discipline of the Holy Spirit (Heb. 12:5-11).

After passing through suffering, we can never be the same; we either have our capacity enlarged or we will become more hardened.

May we realize that, as we pass through sufferings, limitations, and restraints because of the discipline of the Holy Spirit, our maturity in life is the sum total of receiving the discipline of the Holy Spirit.

When others see a mature person, they may appreciate how they function and speak, for maturity can be seen and tasted in him.

However, they cannot see the accumulated discipline of the Holy Spirit which that person has received secretly day by day throughout the years (2 Cor. 1:8-10; Gen. 47:7, 10).

Psalm 4 verse 1 is the psalmist’s prayer that God would make room for him when he is in straits.

When we are in straits, it is very hard to be enlarged; so we need to pray and open to the Lord to be enlarged.

Our capacity needs to be enlarged so that we can be matured in life.

In Heb. 12 we see the matter of the discipline of the Holy Spirit; just as a father loves his children and disciplines them for a period of time, so God wants to help us enlarge our capacity so that we can be matured in life, so we experience the discipline of the Holy Spirit.

He disciplines us for our benefit, so that we can participate in His holiness.

Throughout the years, day by day, there is a secret accumulation of the discipline of the Holy Spirit, our capacity is enlarged, and we are being matured in life.

May we daily remain in the process of being matured in life by not rejecting or trying to escape the discipline of the Holy Spirit but opening to the Lord and allowing Him to enlarge our capacity so that we may be filled with God.

Thank the Lord that, in His faithfulness, He is working in us and around us to enlarge our capacity so that we may be matured in life, thus being prepared for the Lord’s return.

Lord Jesus, grow in us much more today. We open to You. Enlarge our capacity. Even when we’re in straits, Lord, may our capacity be enlarged. We allow You to give us time to suffer so that our capacity may be enlarged and we may be matured in life. Oh Lord, save us from trying to escape the discipline of the Holy Spirit. May we learn to say Amen to the sufferings, trials, and limitations that God sovereignly puts on us so that our capacity to be filled with God may be enlarged. Amen, Lord, thank You for disciplining us so that we may participate in Your holiness. Though Your discipline at the present time doesn’t seem to be a matter of joy but of grief, we believe that it will yield the peaceable fruit of righteousness! Amen, Lord, may we pay attention to and realize that maturity in life is the sum total of receiving the discipline of the Holy Spirit. Grow in us unto maturity, and enlarge our capacity to be filled with God!

God Sovereignly uses All Things to Empty us of Everything that has Filled us so that we may have an Increased Capacity to be Filled with God

According to the divine revelation in the Bible and our experience, God sovereignly uses persons, things, and events to empty us of everything that has filled us and to take away every preoccupation so that we may have an increased capacity to be filled with God (Luke 1:53; Matt. 5:6).

This is a reality; it happens in us and in all the saints, whether we or they agree with it or not.

It happened in Job’s case; he was filled with all kinds of things including his self-righteousness, so God operated in his environment to strip him of anything he had and of all his preoccupations so that he could just be an open vessel to be filled with God.

It also happened in Moses’ case; he thought he was the deliverer of his people, but he was so full of himself, his words, his intentions, and his ability that God had to spend forty years to empty him.

After forty years in the wilderness, Moses was a vessel that was fully open to God, and his capacity was enlarged to be filled with God.

It was the same in Jacob’s case; in Gen. 27 he was a supplanter, taking everything he wanted from others whether legally or not, and he was being transformed in life.

Then in Gen. 37, he entered into the process of being matured in life, and in Gen. 47 we see a mature person who was fully open to God and could only bless others, having no remorse or hard feelings concerning what happened to him in the past.

In Gen. 27 Jacob always came out ahead, and everyone around him was losing, for Jacob simply accumulated wives, children, cattle, and possessions.

Then, when Rachel died, Jacob began to suffer loss, and in ch. 37 he underwent the loss of Joseph.

Jacob lost one thing after another, and God worked in him and around him to empty him and remove any preoccupation from him so that he would have an increased capacity to be filled with God.

Jacob was transformed in Gen. 37 but he was not matured in life; so God allowed many things to happen in his family, among his children, and with his children – especially with Joseph and Benjamin – so that Jacob would be brought to maturity.

God arranged all things in his environment to remove the things that occupied Jacob. Joseph seemed to have perished, being devoured by a wild beast.

Then at Hebron, Jacob constantly lived in fellowship with God. After he lost Joseph, he was free from every frustration and was completely open to the Lord.

He might have thought and hoped to see Joseph one day, but this very thing pressed him to open up to God.

We could say that he was like a vessel open to the heavens, and the heavenly rain was continuously falling into him, and he was being filled with the divine life.

Then the blow came again, when Benjamin and Simeon were taken from him by that man in Egypt (who was Joseph), and he receive the news that Joseph was alive.

Instead of being excited by the news that Joseph is alive and wants to see him, Jacob’s heart was rather cold (Gen. 45:26, Heb.), for he was mature in life, completely filled with the divine life.

This is the process we all are going through; the Lord may not deal with us as severely as He did with Joseph, but He is working to help us have an increased capacity to be filled with God.

God is sovereignly using persons, things, and events to empty us of everything so that we may be an open vessel to God.

He uses all kinds of things, persons, and events to take away every preoccupation so that we may have an increased capacity to be filled with God.

We need to realize that everything happening to us is under God’s sovereignty for our transformation and maturity.

We don’t realize how full we are with our own things, our possessions, our family members, and our preoccupations.

So God works in the environment around us, using things, persons, and events to empty us and remove all preoccupations so that we may have an increased capacity to be filled with God, thus being matured in life.

On one hand, it seems that we keep losing and everything is being taken away from us; on the other hand, our capacity is enlarged so that we may receive and contain more of God.

May we not fight back or try to escape or change the things that God arranges for us and around us.

May we remain under the discipline of the Holy Spirit through all the things, persons, and events in our environment, and may we simply open to the Lord and ask Him to enlarge our capacity to be filled with God.

Amen, may we be matured in life and have an increased capacity to be filled with God!

Lord Jesus, we open to You again and again. Though we may not like or understand the things that are happening to us and around us, we just want to open to You. Have Your way, Lord, to enlarge our capacity to be filled with God. Grant us to be matured in life as we remain under the discipline of the Holy Spirit. Oh Lord, You see what fills our being. You know what preoccupies us. Have a way in us. Have a way to take away anything that replaces You in us. Have a way to empty us of anything that fills us so that we may have an enlarged capacity to be filled with God. Fill us, Lord. Grant us to realize that everything that happens to us is under God’s sovereignty for our transformation and maturity. Bring us on with You. Grant us to be matured in life so that our capacity to be filled with God may be increased!

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 the brothers in the message for this week, and portions from, Life-study of Genesis (pp. 1193-1201), by Witness Lee, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Making Ourselves Ready for the Lord’s Coming (2023 ICSC), week 2, entitled, Making ourselves Ready for the Lord’s Coming by Growing in Life unto Maturity.
• Further reading on this topic:
  – The purpose of the discipline of the Holy Spirit, a portion from, The Experience of Life, Chapter 12, by Witness Lee.
  – A new song on, God will sovereignly / Use persons, things and events to empty us / Of everything that has filled us / And to take away every preoccupation / So that we may have / An increased capacity / To be filled with God, / To be filled with God. Sing it / listen to it here.
  – Testimonies about Watchman Nee, how he was under the discipline of the Holy Spirit.
  – Week 2 day 3 in the HWMR, via the church in Auckland.
  – The position of the discipline of the Holy Spirit, a portion from, The Experience of Life, Chapter 12, by Witness Lee.
  – As offenses inevitably accumulate in the church life, how and to what extent should we forgive one another? Read more via, Living to Him.
• Hymns on this topic:
  – Cleanse and comfort, bless and save me; / Fill my broken spirit now! / Thou art comforting and saving, / Thou art sweetly filling now. / Fill me now! Fill me now! / Fill me with Thy Spirit now! / Strip me wholly, empty throughly, / Fill me with Thy Spirit now! (Hymns #267 stanza 4 and chorus)
  – Deepest springs of life dispensing, / Like the hart I thirst for Thee; / Desp’rate, may I drink Thy fullness, / ’Till Thy river flows through me. / May my self be put to death, Lord, / Under Thy control I’d be, / Transformed to Thy living image, / I’d forever flow out Thee. (Hymns #1360 stanzas 3-4)
  – Not by gain our life is measured, / But by what we’ve lost ‘tis scored; / ’Tis not how much wine is drunken, / But how much has been outpoured. / For the strength of love e’er standeth / In the sacrifice we bear; / He who has the greatest suff’ring / Ever has the most to share. (Hymns #635 stanza 15)