As those who serve the Lord in spirit and in the church, we need to be deeply impressed with the necessity of being able to minister life (see 1 John 5:11-16), that is, to have an outflow of life.
What we need in the church life is not more great gifts, talented people, or greater numbers; our real need is more life – more of God added to us, growing in us, developing in us, and flowing from us as life into others for the building up of the church.
The church is a matter of life; the church is not an organisation, an enterprise, a social club, or a society, but the Body of Christ, an organic entity, and the basic element in the church is life. Whether we fellowship with others or do practical things related to the service in the church, the focus and main emphasis should be on ministering life to one another.
In a society or charity you have to do your best to achieve a certain goal and accomplish certain things, but in the church life our focus is life. God’s desire is that the emphasis in our service would be on ministering life instead of producing a work or enterprise.
And when it comes to the matter of life, this is not something we do “once in a while”; life is 24/7, every minute of the day – we need to enjoy and experience Christ, live Him, allow Him to make His home in our heart, and seek to be filled with Him, so that there would be a surplus of life for us to overflow to others.
How can we minister life to others if we are not joined to Christ, we don’t abide in Christ, and we don’t daily give Him the ground to fill us with His life? For us to minister Christ as life to others in everything we do and say, we need to be joined to Christ, abide in Him, and give Him the full ground in us to fill us so that His life, nature, likes, and inclination would become our life, nature, likes, and inclination.
Day by day, as we spend time with the Lord personally and secretly, and as we live our daily life pursuing Him and seeking to be found in Him, abiding in Him, He is infused into us, we are filled with Him, and there will be something of His life that will overflow to others for the building up of the Body of Christ.
Remember: the Service of the Church is God’s Flowing out to Supply Others with Life
We must always remember that the service of the church is God’s flowing out to supply others with the divine life. It is not a matter of how many things we accomplish or how many works we do. Instead, it is a matter of how much God we flow out and how much of God’s life we minister to others. This is where all the issues lie. God never uses other things to judge our work. He only uses His life to judge our work. The more our work has God Himself and the element of His life, the weightier and more valuable it is. If we do not have this, then our work is empty and a failure. (Witness Lee, The Spirit and Service in Spirit, p. 115)
May the Lord have mercy on us that all our service to God and work in the church life would be from Him – it would come out of our fellowship with Him and in the Body, and we would be able to overflow with Him and His life as a supply to others.
In His house there’s His presence, fulness of joy, and in His light we see light; in the church life we are in God’s house, and we are saturated with the fatness of His house as He causes us to drink of the river of His pleasures (Psa. 36:8-9).
We must always remember that the service of the church is God’s flowing out to supply others with the divine life (John 7:37-39). Are we willing to become a God-flowing out brother or sister? We need to be willing to come to the Lord and enjoy Him, be filled with Him, and have an overflow of life.
Gift, eloquence, administrative ability, and human relationship skills are helpful in the church life only in an initial stage, but only the ministry of life supplies the saints with life. We all go through many things, and the only thing that comfort us is God flowing out from a fellow member in the Body of Christ.
We need to be those out of whom the divine life can flow at any time.
Lord Jesus, give us the experiences we need for us to be God-flowing persons! We want to be saturated with the fatness of Your house in the church life, and we want to drink of the river of Your pleasures, for with You is the fountain of life! Amen! May all our service and work be from You, coming out of our fellowship with You, to overflow You as life supply to others! Lord, fill us with Yourself. Make us God-flowing members of the Body of Christ!
To Minister Life is to have the Outflow of Life through the Exercise of our Spirit
What is LIFE? Only the life of God is life; no other life is real, only God’s life is real, eternal, and divine. And this life is a flowing life: there’s a river of water of life flowing from the throne of God, and the tree of life grows on both sides of the river (Rev. 22:1-2).
The life we receive when we are born again is the flowing out of God Himself; He comes into us as living water, He flows within us, and He wants to gush out as many rivers of living water unto eternal life (John 7:37-39). To minister life is to have the outflow of life, the pure flow of the divine life.
The Lord promised that, if we come to Him and drink of Him, there will be rivers of living water flowing out of our innermost being. We need to allow the Lord to operate in us so that there would be an outflow of life; whether we are at home or at work, on the street or in the car, we need to abide in the Lord, contact Him, and allow Him to flow in us and out of us.
Life is the content of God and the flowing out of God; God’s content is His being, and God’s flowing out is the impartation of Himself as life to us (Eph. 4:18; Rev. 22:1).
There is no problem with God’s life; the problem is on our side: even though we have God’s life in our spirit, we have many problems in our heart and soul. In order for God’s life to be released from our spirit, our outer man needs to be dealt with and broken (see 2 Cor. 4:16; Heb. 4:12).
We need to allow the word of God to pierce and cut in us as we prayerfully read it, and we need to just cooperate with the Lord’s breaking by enjoying Him and letting Him do in us what He wants to do.
Death needs to operate in us so that life would flow in others (2 Cor. 4:12); we need to let the Lord do the breaking and dealing in us, so that the life of God would flow out. Only those who are broken can supply life to others.
This is easy to understand but not so easy to practice, because we don’t really want to be broken or dealt with. But the Lord is sovereign in all our environment and situations to deal with us and break us so that the Spirit of life who is in our spirit would spread into our mind, emotion, and will, and then flow out through us.
If our outer man is not broken, there cannot be a pure flow of the divine life; there may be a flow of life tainted with things of the soul, but the flow will not be pure.
If we want the divine life to be released from within us, we must be subdued in our soul and let our spirit dominate and rule every matter. We need to exercise our spirit in every matter, contact the Lord in every matter, and let our spirit dominate our decisions and speaking in everything, so that our soul may be subdued and our spirit would take the lead.
Sometimes our soul may suffer, be perplexed, and be troubled, but we have God Himself as the Spirit in our spirit, and we need to exercise our spirit to receive the supply of life and minister life to others. We may be suffering in our soul, but our spirit needs to always be flowing.
Whether we do practical things in the church life or we are at home taking care of our family, whether we visit the saints or we preach the gospel, we need to exercise our spirit, use our spirit, and let our spirit dominate, so that we may have an outflow of life, and there would be a pure flow of life.
We don’t necessarily need to ask for more dealings and breaking; we simply need to be spirit-exercising and Spirit-led persons so that God’s life which is in our spirit would spread into all our inner being, and there would be rivers of living water flowing out of our innermost being for the building up of the church as the house of God.
The outflow of life doesn’t depend on doing things properly but on exercising our spirit and allowing the spirit to be the leading part in our being.
Lord Jesus, gain an outflow of life from our being – gain a pure flow of the divine life from within our inner being! We give ourselves to You to experience what You consider we should experience for there to be a breaking of the outer man for the release of the spirit with the pure flow of life. Lord, we want to be spirit-exercising and Spirit-led people, those who do everything in the mingled spirit and who let the spirit be the dominating part of our being! Oh Lord, even though our soul may be suffering, may our spirit be always flowing! May there be an outflow of life in our being in our service to God!
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message by brother Ron Kangas for this week, and portions from The Service for Building up the House of God, pp. 44-45 (by Witness Lee), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Service for the Building up of the Church (2016 Spring ITERO), week 8 / msg. 8, A Life-ministering Service.
- All Bible verses are taken from, Holy Bible Recovery Version.
- Hymns on this topic:
# The outflow of life divine— / Manifested in His Son; / In Him is the life divine, / Saviour He’s of everyone. / Life of all lives—unique is He, / And He released His life to me / That this life I ever may gain— / Yes, His life divine! (Song on the flowing of life)
# The overflow of life is work, / The work should be our living! / What we experience e’er should be / The message we are giving….Our plans, our aims, our energy / We must abandon wholly, / That He may work His plan thru us, / His aim and object solely. / Ourselves, with all we are and have, / To death we must surrender, / That Christ may live Himself thru us / With riches and with splendor. (Hymns #910)
# Flow through me, Lord, a weak and earthly vessel, / Cleansed by Thy blood, and quickened at Thy call. / Flow through me, Lord, all utterly abandoned, / To Thy dear service, great, or high, or small. (Hymns #249)
About aGodMan
A brother who is broken can supply life. We may understand this doctrinally, but we still need to put it into practice. The Spirit of life abides in our spirit. However, besides our human spirit, we also have a soul and a body. Our soul and body encase our spirit. Therefore, in order for life to be released from our spirit, our soul and body must be dealt with and broken. The body does not pose much of a problem, but our soul poses a great problem. The things of the soul, which is composed of our mind, emotion, and will, are difficult to deal with. The soul surrounds and encases the spirit. Hence, our soul must be dealt with and broken in order for our spirit to be released. Otherwise, there cannot be a pure flow of the divine life.
In order for the Lord’s life to be released from within us, we must learn to fellowship with the Lord, be subdued in our soul, and let our spirit dominate and rule over every matter. Whether we are elders or deacons or are involved in visitation or preaching the gospel, we must learn to use our spirit and to subdue our mind, emotion, and will so that we touch things with our spirit. Then the Lord’s life will be able to flow out. Our supplying others with life does not depend on our doing things properly but on our exercising our spirit. (The Service for Building Up the House of God, pp. 44-45, by Witness Lee)