We need to realize that ministry is the issue of revelation plus suffering, for what we see has to be wrought into us through suffering so that what we minister is what we are; for this, tribulation is the sweet visitation and incarnation of grace, and it can work out ministry for us.
Related to our being, to what we are, we need to be reconstituted by having God wrought into us; related to our work, ministry is nothing but the issue of what we are, the result and flowing out of what has been wrought into us.
God’s purpose with Job was not to put him down or destroy him; God didn’t have any negative thought or anger toward Job but rather, He wanted Job to gain God so that he may be transformed by God for the purpose of God.
It is the same with us; we should never think that God has any desire merely to strip us and consume us but rather, He wants us to come to Him and gain Him for His purpose.
How can we gain God if we are still natural, still full of ourselves, and still so contented with what we have, what we are, and what we have obtained?
Before we can gain God, we need to see the heavenly vision and live in the reality of God’s economy; everything that God does and works is according to His economy, and for this our living and our work has to be under this divine vision.
In His economy, God takes step after step to accomplish what He is after; one of these steps is to carry out the consuming and the stripping of His contented believers so that He may have a way to rebuild them with God Himself and usher them into a deeper seeking of God.
Through the environment and people around us, through all the sovereignly arranged things, matters, situations, and persons that the Lord put with us and around us, He wants to usher us into a deeper seeking after God so that we may gain God and not focus merely on His blessings or on our attainments in our perfection and integrity.
He wants us to seek Him, desire Him, and gain Him, but we may seek Him with a divided heart, we may desire Him and also desire other things, and we may not consider Him as our only gain.
So He may arrange things around us to press us, consume us, and strip us in our natural man so that we may turn to Him, enjoy Him, and consider Him as our unique gain. God’s intention is that we, His loving seekers, would find everything in Him and not be distracted from the absolute enjoyment of Himself.
According to His purpose, He deals with us in a certain way so that we may be emptied of everything and receive only God as our gain; as we open to Him in all His dealings, we will gain Him in full as life and as everything.
This opens the way for Him to build Himself into us and reconstitute us with Himself. As He builds Himself into us and us into Himself, we are transformed into the same image as Christ for the glorious expression of God.
It is good to bring these matters to the Lord and open to Him concerning His intention, asking Him to do it in us according to His Word, and He will do it.
It is not us who does something: it is He who does both the willing and the working; we merely agree, give Him the consent, and let Him work in us to transform us and conform us to His image.
What we See is Wrought into us through Suffering, and Ministry is the Issue of Revelation plus Suffering
We have been shown mercy by God to have this ministry, and we do not lose heart (2 Cor. 4:1); rather, we realize that there is only one ministry in the Body, but each of us has his own ministry as part of the ministry.
Our ministry is what has been wrought into us by first seeing something of God’s economy and then passing through sufferings to have it burned and wrought into our being.
What we see of God’s economy and His purpose is wrought into our inward constitution by suffering.
First, we need to have the revelation, for, without revelation, we have nothing to ministry; then, the Lord is faithful to bring in suffering to work that revelation into our being.
It is one thing to have, understand, and teach a certain teaching from the Bible, and it is something else to have the ministry; ministry is weighty and costly.
If we have received revelation from God, He will put us into suffering in order that this revelation would be wrought into us and would become our ministry.
This is what happened with the apostle Paul; he received revelation, and he didn’t just go to share it to others or pass it on as knowledge but rather, the Lord put him into some suffering.
The issue was the Epistles of Paul, where we clearly see that there’s first revelation, then suffering, and then the ministry comes out; ministry is the issue of revelation plus suffering.
It is like the vase which a potter makes, then he paints something on it, and puts it in the oven so that the picture is “baked” on the vase; the result is that the picture, the painting, has been wrought into the vase.
When we get revelation, right after that the Lord puts us into a particular oven, for what He wants is to burn what we see into our being so that what we see becomes part of us and even us. The result is ministry; ministry is the result or issue of revelation plus suffering.
The measure of life that we can minister to others depends entirely upon on how much revelation we have received and how much suffering we have undergone regarding that which has been revealed to us.
The measure of the riches of Christ we can dispense to others and the amount of reality of God that we gain and can minister to others depends on revelation plus suffering, which issues in ministry.
We should not seek more suffering but rather, we should seek the Lord, love Him, enjoy Him, and receive revelation from Him; then, we should simply accept the suffering He ordains for us in order to work that revelation into us.
Brother Watchman Nee was a pattern in this matter; he received great revelations from the Lord and much light in His word, and at the same time he passed through a lot of sufferings; he received the working of the cross in order for the revelation to be wrought into him.
What he ministered was not just doctrine or Bible teaching; what he taught was from the ministry, which was revelation plus suffering issuing in the ministry of the word of God.
Although the ministers are many, they all have only one ministry – the ministry of the new covenant for the accomplishing of God’s New Testament economy; we need to work together with Christ to carry out this unique ministry (Acts 1:17; Eph. 4:11-12; 1 Tim. 1:12; 2 Cor. 4:1; 6:1a).
The unique ministry in the New Testament is the ministering of Christ to people for the building up of His Body for God to have a corporate expression on earth.
As a whole, the Body has one unique ministry, but because this ministry is the service of the Body of Christ – and the Body has many members – all the members of the Body have their own ministry in carrying out the unique ministry (Acts 20:24; 21:19; 2 Tim. 4:5; Col. 4:17).
Each one of us has a ministry, which is the issue of revelation plus suffering; our own ministry is for the carrying out of the unique ministry.
Lord Jesus, we open to You to receive the revelation of Your economy and have it wrought into our being through the sufferings that You arrange for us. Save us from merely having doctrines or teachings; save us from merely seeking to be a gifted member of the Body. Lord, we choose to have ministry, the issue of revelation plus suffering. May what we see from You be wrought into our being to become the ministry of life for us to minister Christ to others for the building up of the Body. Increase the measure of life and the amount of reality in us so that we may minister more of Christ to others. We want to carry out our own ministry as a part of the unique ministry of the Body of Christ, that is, to minister Christ to others for the building up of the church as the Body of Christ!
Our Ministry is the Ministry of the Spirit, of Righteousness, and of Reconciliation to bring in a New Revival
The ministry is for ministering the Christ whom we have experienced and enjoyed; the ministry is constituted with and produced and formed by the experiences of the riches of Christ gained through sufferings, consuming pressures, and the killing work of the cross (Acts 9:15-16; Col. 1:24; Phil. 3:10; 1 Tim. 4:6; 2 Cor. 1:4-6, 8-9, 12; 3:3, 6). Wow!
We have to experience and gain the riches of Christ; as we do this, we realize that these riches are gained through sufferings, consuming pressures, and the killing work of the cross.
The ministry which we have, the unique ministry in the New Testament, has three main aspects: it is the ministry of the Spirit, the ministry of righteousness, and the ministry of reconciliation; these three aspects of the ministry are to bring in a new revival into the churches on the earth.
The ministry of the Spirit is for us to arrive at the high peak of the divine revelation by our ministering Christ as the Spirit, who gives life (2 Cor. 3:8-9, 6, 3; Rev. 22:17).
It is by arriving at the high peak of the divine revelation that God can bring in a new revival.
If we read Rev. 22:17 we see that the Spirit and the bride speak as one person; this means that they are one, for the Spirit has been working in us, spreading in our heart and being, until the Spirit has permeated us collectively to the point that we are one with the Spirit.
It is not merely the Spirit speaking to the churches but the Spirit and the bride becoming one person; this indicates that we are being deified, one with God – this is the arriving at the highest peak of the divine revelation, which is the ministry of the Spirit.
The ministry of righteousness is for us to enter into the God-man living by our ministering Christ not only as our objective righteousness but also as our subjective and lived-out righteousness for the genuine expression of Christ (Rom. 5:17; Phil. 3:9; Rev. 19:8).
This aspect of the ministry, the ministry of righteousness, is for us to enter into the God-man living, that is, to live Christ as our subjective righteousness; this will bring us into a new revival.
Finally, the ministry of reconciliation is for us to shepherd people according to God by our ministering Christ as the word of reconciliation.
We need to be one with Christ in His heavenly ministry of shepherding to minister Christ as the word of reconciliation so that we can bring God’s people into their spirit as the Holy of Holies for them to become persons in the spirit (2 Cor. 5:18-20; John 21:15-17; 1 Pet. 5:2-4; 2:25; Rev. 1:12-13; Heb. 10:19, 22; 1 Cor. 2:15).
As the Lord is caring for the lampstands, He is shepherding people; we need to cooperate with His shepherding ministry, allowing Him to shepherd our souls, and being one with Him in His shepherding others so that they may be brought into their spirit and be persons in spirit.
In our one-on-one contact with the Lord, we receive His burden and desire to shepherd people one-on-one even as He did.
When we minister the word to the people the Lord puts on our heart, we reconcile them to God; we preach the gospel to initially reconcile people to God, and we minister Christ to the believers so that they may be further reconciled to God.
First, we ourselves need to be reconciled to God, and then, we need to cooperate with the Lord to bring others further in being reconciled to God.
By our fully entering into such a wonderful ministry in its three aspects, the Lord will have a way to bring the churches into a new revival.
Lord Jesus, thank You for entrusting us with this ministry, the service of the Body of Christ to minister Christ for the building up of the Body. We want to pay the price to be constituted with the riches of Christ even as we pass through sufferings, consuming pressures, and the killing work of the cross. Thank You for the ministry of the Spirit, which is for us to arrive at the high peak of the divine revelation by our ministering Christ as the Spirit who gives life! Amen, work Yourself into us until we are fully one with You and we are made the same as You are! Thank You for the ministry of righteousness for us to enter into the God-man living and have Christ lived out of as our subjective righteousness. Hallelujah, we have the ministry of reconciliation for us to shepherd others according to God by ministering Christ as the word of reconciliation so that they would be brought into their spirit as the Holy of Holies! Amen, Lord, we want to enter into such a wonderful ministry in its three aspects so that You may have a way to bring the churches into a new revival!
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Sources of inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message by Ed Marks for this week, and portions from, Watchman Nee — a Seer of the Divine Revelation in the Present Age (by Witness Lee), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Crystallization-study of Job, Proverbs, and Ecclesiastes (2020 winter training), week 6, Gaining God to Be Transformed by God for the Purpose of God.
- Hymns on this topic:
– Lord, grant me the experiences / To produce such a ministry. / Through revelation and sufferings, / Lord, constitute Yourself in me. / By Your all-fitting life, / Lord, I learn to live. / By Your sufficient grace, / Lord, make home in me. (Song on, The new covenant ministers)
– In our ministry and service, / From the Body, our supply; / If detached and isolated, / Out of function we will die. / ’Tis by serving in the Body / Riches of the Head we share; / ’Tis by functioning as members / Christ’s full measure we will bear. (Hymns #913)
– All the gifts and all the functions, / All the spirit’s power shown, / All the ministries are given / For the Church and that alone. / All the preaching of the Gospel, / All the teaching ministry, / Every other kind of service / For the church alone should be. (Hymns #914)
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