If we truly and genuinely drink the flow of living water and are in the flow of the river of water of life, we are ministers of life as sowers, planters, waterers, begetters, feeders, and builders with the ministry of life for God’s building.
Our enjoyment of Christ as the flow of life is for us to be those who sow the seeds of life, plant Christ as life into others, water them to grow in life, beget spiritual children in the Lord, feed others with the riches of Christ, and build up the church and help others be built up.
In other words, drinking of Christ as the life-giving Spirit causes us to be ministers of the new covenant, those whose sufficiency is from God for them to minister life to others in many ways at the appointed time so that they would grow in life and build up the church, the Body of Christ.
As ministers of life, we are sowers who sow spiritual seeds; first Christ as the seed of life comes into us and grows in us, and then we cooperate with the Lord to impart Christ as the seed of life into others.
Imparting the seed of life into others doesn’t mean that we need to teach them more and speak more doctrines from the Bible to them; being a sower means first that we need to have the seeds of life, we need to be filled with the divine life in our spirit, so that we may also impart it to others.
We need to be sowers who impart life to grow and produce Christ in others.
The ministers of life are also planters, those who plant Christ into people. The church is God’s cultivated land, and the believers are God’s farm in God’s new creation.
Christ was planted in the soil of our heart, and we can cooperate with Christ to plant Christ into their heart also. For us to plant Christ into others, we need to have the genuine experience of Christ as life in our spirit.
We need to experience Christ as life, and we need to cooperate with Him to impart Christ into others.
Ministers of life are waterers – those who water people with Christ as the life-giving Spirit, the living water.
On the one hand we need to plant Christ into others, and on the other, we need to be an irrigation system with a rich reservoir of Christ as life to supply them with living water, for them to grow in life.
We need to have the genuine experience of Christ as the water of life, and we need to be in a living contact with Him to be channels of living waters for those around us.
Ministers of Life are Begetters, Fathers, who Impart Life to the Spiritual Children They Beget
When Paul preached the gospel to people, he didn’t have a “gospel campaign” where hundreds received the Lord….rather, as he testified in 1 Cor. 4:15, he begot the Corinthians as his spiritual children through the gospel.
Ministers of life are begetters, fathers, those who impart life to the children whom they beget. To beget is to generate spiritual children, to bring forth spiritual children, through the impartation of life.
How can we impart the divine life to others? Again, it is not by teaching or by speaking the word of God to others, but by first having ourselves the “divine germ”, that is, the divine life, which we can impart to others.
First we need to have the divine life, enjoy the divine life, experience the divine life, and then let this life flow through us to reach others and be imparted into them to regenerate them and make them children of God.
God the Father wants to have many sons born of Him to be His children to express Him corporately. He does this not in or by Himself, but by means of many ministers of life who are “begetters” like Paul, that is, those who preach the gospel to impart the divine life into others and beget them as their spiritual children.
Our responsibility as ministers of life in the church life is to beget genuine spiritual children in the Lord, whom we should care for, nourish, feed, water, and help grow in life to be built up into the church as the Body of Christ.
We need to ask ourselves, Who are my spiritual children? Whom did I beget in the Lord, and who did I help to be saved and grow in life in the Lord?
This is something of life – it is not a teaching, a doctrine, or a practice, but it is something of the divine life. We need to tell the Lord,
Lord, we want to be the ministers of life who are begetters, those who beget spiritual children through the gospel. Save us from merely speaking teachings to others. We want to experience, enjoy, and flow out the divine life in us, so that others would receive the divine life and become God’s children. Lord, we love You, we love enjoying You, and we love flowing You out to others for them to be regenerated and become our “spiritual children” begotten through the gospel.
Ministers of Life are Feeders who Nourish others with the Supply of Life
On the one hand we need to cooperate with the Lord to preach the gospel to others and beget them in the Lord as our spiritual children; on the other hand, we need to continue to care for these ones by feeding them.
Ministers of life are feeders who nourish others with the supply of life. Feeding is not a matter of teaching, doctrine, knowledge, or practice; feeding is a matter of life. We need to feed the spiritual children whom we have begotten through the gospel.
First we need to be begetters, and then we need to be feeders.
How do we feed others? What is the food that we should give them for their advance and growth in life? We cannot give others what we don’t have, so first we need to eat Christ ourselves and be nourished with Him as our spiritual food.
We need to eat the Lord in the word, drink the milk of the word, and be nourished with the solid food in the word of God. Then, as we are fed and nourished with Christ, we need to pray much and learn to feed others with something of Christ, even the Christ that we enjoyed and experienced.
The more we eat the Lord in His word, the more we will have something to feed others with. We will become like a nursing mother who eats and then produces milk to feed the little ones; when we beget others through the gospel, we will eat the Lord in His word, and something will be produced in us to feed them for their growth in life.
We need to be spiritually strong and healthy so that, like Paul, we may be begetters and feeders, that is, beget spiritual children and adequately produce the spiritual milk to feed them.
Paul fed the Corinthians milk (1 Cor. 3:2) and yearned to feed them with solid food. May we be those who care for the ones we begot through the gospel to the extent that we give them food for their growth in life.
What the apostle ministered to the Corinthian believers seemed to be “knowledge”, but it was actually “milk” to nourish them. We need to be sufficiently supplied and nourished with the teaching of the apostles’ ministry, the healthy teaching, to minister the supply of life to people to nourish them and heal them (see 1 Tim. 1:10; 6:3; 2 Tim. 1:13; Titus 1:9).
Lord Jesus, we want to be the ministers of life who feed others with spiritual milk and with solid food for their growth in life unto the building up of the Body of Christ. We come to You, Lord, in Your word and in the ministry, to be supplied and nourished by You, so that something may be produced in us to feed others as spiritual food. Make us feeders, Lord; make us those who feed others with the Christ whom we have enjoyed and experienced in the word for their growth in life.
Ministers of Life are Builders who Build with Gold, Silver, and Precious Stones
Our enjoyment of Christ as the flow of life is for us not only to sow the seed of life, plant Christ into people, water them with the living water, beget spiritual children, and feed others with Christ, but to build up the church with gold, silver, and precious stones.
Ministers of life are builders who build with precious materials. What is the significance of these precious materials: gold, silver, and precious stones, mentioned in 1 Cor. 3:12?
Gold symbolizes God the Father in His divine nature; silver symbolizes Christ in His redemptive work; and precious stones signify God the Spirit in His transforming work. These precious materials are versus wood (signifying the human nature), grass (signifying man in the flesh), and stubble (signifying lifelessness).
We as believers in Christ need to be perfected by the Lord and learn to coordinate with the transforming Spirit to perfect other believers by ministering the Triune God to them for their transformation by the Triune God’s attributes being wrought into them to become their virtues (as seen in type in Song of Songs 12:10-11).
This means that first we need to have God with all His attributes wrought into us by experiencing Him daily, so that through us He may dispense Himself into others for their growth and transformation in life, for their becoming building materials for God’s building.
This all is for the building up of the church as the organic Body of Christ to consummate the New Jerusalem for the accomplishing of God’s eternal economy (1 Cor. 3:12; Rev. 21:18-21).
As we carry out the work of sowing, planting, watering, begetting, and feeding, Christ will grow both in us and in the other believers; this growth will be accompanied by a measure of transformation in us and in them.
As both we and others grow in life day by day, we and they will be transformed (2 Cor. 3:18; Rom. 12:2). As we grow as plants in God’s farm, we are being transformed, and we become full-grown men in Christ and precious materials for God’s building.
We need to be both builders and building materials for God’s building, the church as the house of God.
First we need to experience transformation, then we need to cooperate with the Lord for others to be perfected and transformed to become building materials for the church. It is good to tell the Lord along this line,
Lord Jesus, we want to be the ministers of life who are builders, building the church as the house of God with gold, silver, and precious stones. Grant us the experiences we need to be transformed and produced as precious materials for Your building. Lord, grant us to be the perfected believers who coordinate with the transforming Spirit to perfect Christ’s loving seekers by ministering the Triune God to them for their transformation into precious materials for God’s building, the church consummating in the New Jerusalem!
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message by Minoru Chen for this week, and portions from, Collected Works of Witness Lee, 1970, vol. 1, “The Spirit and the Church,” ch. 7, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Crystallization-study of Ezekiel (2), msg. 10 (week 22 in the HWMR), The Flow of Life with the Ministry of Life out from and for the Magnificent House of God.
- Hymns on this topic:
# When you speak the Word, / He fills you within / And clothes you without; / Then words full of power, / Authority, impact flow out. / Channels of life are we, / Allowing God to flow! / Through us and out of us / That others life may know! (Song on flowing out with life in the gospel)
# We must ever preach the gospel, / Cherishing and nourishing; / Loving them as our dear children, / As our priestly offering. (Song on preaching the gospel)
# May Thou in life transform our souls / That we as precious stones may be, / Meet for Thy house to build and in / Thy Kingdom’s full reality. (Hymns #945)
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If we would be builders who build with gold, silver, and precious stones, we need to be these precious materials. Gold signifies the divine nature of the Father, silver signifies the redemptive work of Christ, and precious stones signify the transforming work of the Spirit. In building the house of God, the builders are not separate from the materials of the building. In order to be builders, we ourselves need to be the transformed materials by being constituted with the Triune God. We should be both the builders and the building material of the house of God. If we ourselves have not been transformed into precious materials, we cannot help others be transformed into such materials. We ourselves first need to be the precious materials and be built into the house of God. Then we will be qualified to build the house of God with other believers as the transformed materials. (Collected Works of Witness Lee, 1970, vol. 1, “The Spirit and the Church,” pp. 579-580)