We have seen that Christ lived a sacrificing life for producing new wine to cheer God and man, and that today we as His believers should live the same kind of life for God’s satisfaction and man’s joy. We need to live a sacrificing life today, and this life is in the Body and for the Body, so that we may minister life to the Body of Christ.
All our experiences of Christ are experiences in the Body and for the Body, and the way we minister life is not primarily by “giving messages” or “speaking long sermons” to edify others but mainly by experiencing Christ in the Body and for the Body. This is the costly way – it will cost us our soul-life, but it will produce the ministry of life for the Body.
We need to present ourselves to the Lord so that He may deal with us and save us from having our self increased, our disposition strengthened, and our peculiarities flourished….May today make a fundamental decision before God in our being, in a personal way and in all honesty before God, presenting ourselves to God by His grace and telling Him,
Lord, I give myself to You: make me a minister of life. Give me the experiences I need for life to flow out of me. Lord, do not spare me. I don’t know what I need and I have no idea where I am in my growth in life and experience of Christ, but under Your enlightening, I want to be made the same as You are. Lord, make me a vine, a drink offering! Make me Your reproduction!
And after you pray such a prayer, don’t “try your best to pray it again and again” or “remember it all the time by putting it on the wall” – simply go on enjoying the Lord and pursuing Him. He will take care of everything, and He is faithful to arrange all things, all people, and all circumstances to produce the ministry of life in you for the building up of His Body!
Everything We Have is In the Body and For the Body
When we were regenerated with God’s life, whether we realize this or not, we became members of the Body of Christ.
Now our Christian life is the life of the Body, and every experience of Christ we have is in the Body, through the Body, and for the Body (see Eph. 4:16). We simply need to hold to Christ as the Head and receive His constant supply, and we will experience Him for the building up of the Body. Our living and our work, together with all we are and do and experience, should be in the Body and for the Body.
As members of the Body of Christ, everything we do and all the experiences we have affect other members of the Body. Our spending time with the Lord intimately and personally every day is an experience in the Body of Christ, and it builds up the Body organically (whether we share it with others by speaking about it or not).
When one member suffers in the Body, all the members suffer (1 Cor. 12:26), and when one member rejoices, all the members rejoice with him. Sometimes we may feel strengthened within for no apparent reason – it is because strength from other members of the Body has been transmitted to us.
If we see that everything we are, do, say, and experience is in the Body, we will no longer live by ourselves but hold Christ as the Head and seek to have more fellowship with the members of the Body! We will realize that God gives life to us and strengthens us through every member of His Body!
The Measure of our Ministry is the Measure of Christ in Us
The measure of our ministry in the Body of Christ is determined by the measure of Christ in us. We cannot minister to others something we don’t have. We need to receive something of Christ every day to be constituted with Him and experience Him.
The more Christ we gain, the more ministry we have. The ministry is the imparting of the Christ we have experienced and enjoyed into the Body of Christ for the building up of the Body.
Every member of the Body has a particular function, a special ministry, which is his particular experience of Christ. As we enjoy Christ and experience Him, as we seek to receive the supply from Him and experience Him daily, we will receive a portion of Christ, a growth of Christ, which is for the building up of the Body.
If we only know Christ in a general way, we have nothing to supply the Body of Christ with. We need to daily seek the Lord specifically for a particular portion which will build up the Body!
This has nothing to do with our natural man – the Body of Christ rejects anything that is natural, because Satan’s element is in the natural man and the natural things. The only thing that is useful to the Body of Christ is the Christ who has been experienced by us and has been wrought into us (see Eph. 3:16-21).
Experiencing Christ for the Building up of the Body
How can we build up the Body? What is our ministry in the Body? What is our particular function in the Body of Christ? What if we are not eloquent or good with words – can we still build up the Body? We all have asked ourselves these questions at one point in our Christian life.
Because we are organically joined to Christ as the Head and we are members in the Body of Christ, every experience of Christ that we have becomes an experience in the Body and for the Body.
Whether we share that experience with others doesn’t affect this: as soon as we touch Christ as life experientially, the Body of Christ receives that experience. Whatever we experience of Christ in our daily life is received by the Body of Christ (Col. 3:4, 10-11, 15-16).
This is also true when we fail, when we are backsliding, when we sin, and when we do things to grieve the Spirit – these experiences also affect the Body, but in a negative way.
As soon as the experience of Christ is yours, as soon as you experience Christ, that experience is also OURS – it belongs to the Body (see Eph. 3:2; 2 Cor. 12:9; 1 Cor. 15:10)! The Lord longs to see this lived-out reality of the Body of Christ, in which every member experiences Christ and supplies the Body and one another with the Christ they have experienced and enjoyed.
Remember: we don’t impart “our gifts” and “our abilities” to the church; we may use our gifts and abilities as means to impart Christ! What builds up the Body is Christ, what we minister to the Body should be Christ, and what the Body receives from us is only Christ!
Lord Jesus, we give ourselves to You to experience You and minister You to the Body for the building up of the Body. May our daily life and experience count in Your eyes, and may we be those who experience Christ for the Body daily. Save us from negatively affecting the Body of Christ by not experiencing and enjoying Christ. Lord, may we exercise our special function in the Body to minister life to the Body. We want to seek You daily to obtain an experience of Christ that would meet the need of the Body and would build up the Body!
References and Further Reading
- This sharing is inspired from brother Ron Kangas’ sharing and portions in, Collected Works of Watchman Nee (vol. 44, pp. 843-848), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, ITERO spring 2013 “The Experience, Growth, and Ministry of Life for the Body“, week 8 entitled, Living a Sacrificing Life in the Body and Ministering Life to the Body for the Growth of the Body.
- Further reading on this topic: Truth Messages (by Witness Lee, ch. 4).
- Hymns on this topic:
# As members of the Body / Christ we would manifest, / Each learning how to function / His fulness to express; / We would not be spectators / But each as members move, / None bringing death or damage / But each our profit prove.
# Grow in me; grow in me; / For the Body grow in me, / Through the rich dispensing of Your life supply; / For the Body grow in me.
# Christ to minister is service / Both to God and others too, / Christ, the surplus, e’er supplying, / Off’ring Him as service true.
# For the Church should be our service, / ’Tis the perfect will of God; / ’Tis the only way of working / Which the Lord’s apostles trod.
Lord, grant each one of us special experiences (not in a general way) of You so that we have something of Christ wrought into us to minister to Your Body for the building up of Your Body.