The Organic Building up of the Church is through the Process of Spiritual Metabolism

It is amazing to realize that the organic building up of the Body of Christ is through the process of spiritual metabolism.

In His economy, God works Himself into us so that we may experience a metabolic process of spiritual digestion and assimilation that produces transformation as a gradual and intrinsic metabolic change in our natural life; this is for the building up of the church as the Body of Christ to consummate the New Jerusalem. Hallelujah!

The Lord Jesus mentioned the church for the first time in Matt. 16:18 when He said, I will build My church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.

What is the church? Before the Lord’s death and resurrection, the church was not there, but through His death, His divine life was released and in His resurrection, His divine life was imparted into His believers to make them the members of the organic Body of Christ, the church.

Fifty days after His resurrection, the Lord descended as the Holy Spirit upon the disciples, and the church came into being.

Now He is the Head of the church, His Body, and we are the members of the Body of Christ.

In John 12:24 the Lord said that, unless the grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it abides alone, but if it dies, it bears much fruit.

He was the unique grain who came to sow Himself through death and in resurrection He bore much fruit – He produced us as the many sons of God, the many brothers of Christ, and the many believers in Christ.

He became a life-giving Spirit in His resurrection to dispense, impart, and distribute Himself as life into His believers; whoever receives Christ as life becomes a member of Christ, part of the church, to express Him.

Now Christ is building His church not merely by organizing outward things in meetings or reaching out to preach the gospel and get more believers; He builds His church by building Himself into us.

He sowed Himself as the seed of life into our heart, and His growth in us equals the building up of the church as the Body of Christ.

The building up of the church takes place by the growth of the divine seed within us. We need to afford the Lord the human nutrients that He as the seed of life requires so that He may grow in us for the building up of the Body.

Our human spirit contains certain nutrients created in us by God to help the seed grow, and the soil of our heart needs to be dealt with so that it is a good soil for Christ to grow and develop.

In our Christian life and church life, the building up of the church depends on how much we cooperate with the Lord’s growth within us, how much ground we give Him in our being, and how much we decrease so that He may increase.

May we exercise our spirit and turn our heart to Him so that He as the seed of life may continually grow and develop in us for the building up of the church as the Body of Christ.

God Works Himself into us so that we may Experience a Metabolic Process of Spiritual Digestion and Assimilation Producing Transformation for the Building up of the Body

2 Cor. 3:18 is a wonderful and mysterious verse unveiling an intrinsic principle in God’s economy, which is that God is working Himself into us so that we may experience a metabolic process resulting in transformation and conformation to the glorious image of Christ.

God’s economy is to work Himself into us so that we may experience a metabolic process of spiritual digestion and assimilation that produces transformation as a gradual and intrinsic metabolic change in our natural life; this is for the building up of the Body of Christ to consummate the New Jerusalem.

God is building Himself in Christ into our being through the metabolic process of transformation. He comes into us as the Spirit to dwell in us, and we can fellowship with Him in spirit.

As we look to Him, behold Him, and reflect Him, we are transformed into His glorious image from glory to glory.

May we open to Him our spirit, our heart, and our mouth so that we may behold Him and reflect Him.

Our Christian life is a life of being transformed, and transformation is a metabolic process that changes us intrinsically and essentially by adding some new element into our being and discharging the old element.

This can be illustrated by a person having a healthy complexion and being because he has a proper, daily eating, digesting, and assimilation of food.

One way to have a healthy complexion is to apply makeup and cosmetics; the best way, however, is to receive the proper nourishment and have a good metabolism to be healthy inside and out.

Spiritually speaking, we need to be daily supplied with the fresh, new, healthy element of Christ, and there has to be a discharge of the old element.

As we enjoy Christ, eat Him, and digest Him, there’s a process of assimilation happening, and the old elements are eliminated while Christ as the new element is added to us.

May we enjoy the now Christ, the Christ that appears to us in our time with Him, by eating Him, drinking Him, and breathing Him, so that the metabolic process of transformation would take place to conform us to the image of Christ and build up the church.

A human being grows through a metabolic process of digestion and assimilation; spiritually speaking, we grow by the metabolic process of spiritual digestion and assimilation which produce transformation for the building up of the Body of Christ.

Christ has released and dispensed His life into us, and now we simply need to enjoy Him, receive Him, digest Him, and assimilate Him, so that He may be added to our being and our old element would be discharged.

Growth in the divine life is not by knowing more teachings, gaining more spiritual knowledge, and accumulating more doctrines, just as human growth is not merely by teaching.

Rather, we grow in the divine life by being transformed, by remaining in the metabolic process including spiritual digestion and assimilation.

On His side, God is faithful to supply us with spiritual food; on our side, we need to open to the Lord, read His word, pray, and digest and assimilate Christ into our being.

Every time we come to the meetings or to the word of God, we pray, we open to the Lord, and we receive something; however, after we receive the Lord’s word, what do we do?

Do we allow the word to be digested and assimilated into our being? Do we allow the Lord’s supply to be properly digested and infused into every part of our inner being? Or do we just accumulate teachings and doctrines?

There has to be spiritual digestion and assimilation in our experience.

There has to be an absorbing of the spiritual nourishment so that we may be transformed metabolically into the image of Christ for the building up of the Body.

May we allow the Triune God in Christ to carry out the building work in us by working Himself into us and reconstituting Himself into us.

In order for God’s building to take place, we need to receive, digest, and assimilate the organic, pneumatic Christ, who is the life-giving Spirit, as our spiritual food, drink, and breath (John 6:51, 57; 7:37-39; 20:22).

When we enjoy Christ by eating, drinking, and breathing Him, a metabolic process, a spiritual digestion and metabolism, takes place within us, and Christ is constituted into our being; this inner metabolism is transformation, and transformation is the building (Rom. 12:2; Phil. 1:20-21; cf. Rev. 21:18; 4:3). Amen!

Lord Jesus, we open to You: work Yourself into us by means of the metabolic process of digestion and assimilation. We exercise our spirit and come to Your word to receive, digest, and assimilate You as the life-giving Spirit. Amen, Lord, we take You in as our spiritual food, our spiritual food, and our spiritual breath! We say Amen to Your speaking. May we not only gain more spiritual knowledge but even more, may we gain more of Christ! Spread into our mind, emotion, and will. Be digested and assimilated into our inner being. Amen, Lord, may there be an organic process of digesting and assimilating Christ into our being so that we may be transformed into His image from glory to glory for the building up of the Body of Christ!

The Organic Building up of the Church is through the Process of Spiritual Metabolism

The Lord prophesied in 2 Sam. 7:12-14 concerning the spiritual metabolism that takes place in the believers in Christ today as seen in 2 Cor. 3:18.

The organic building up of the church as the Body of Christ is through the process of spiritual metabolism.

God’s building Himself into our being and us into Him is altogether an organic matter – it is through this process of spiritual metabolism.

He is building Himself into us by our receiving, eating, digesting, and assimilating Him in His word. God in Christ has been processed and consummated to become the life-giving Spirit to come into us in the form of spiritual food, drink, and breath.

Christ today builds up His church by supplying us with spiritual drink, feeding us with spiritual food, and breathing into us as the spiritual breath for our organic growth in the divine life.

We need to realize that the building up of the church is not something physical or outward, nor is it just our coming to the meetings in a regular way and being involved in the services of the church.

The organic building up of the church as the Body of Christ is through the process of spiritual metabolism.

It is something in life and by life; it is something organic and inward.

The church is built up organically by our growth in life, by our remaining in the process of digesting and assimilating Christ to grow in Christ.

We need to daily spend time with the Lord to turn our heart to Him and exercise our spirit so that we may receive His new element.

Then, we need to give His word a thoroughfare in our being so that He may be digested and assimilated into our being.

If we don’t have a proper spiritual digestion and assimilation, we cannot grow in life and build up the Body of Christ.

But if we daily receive the spiritual nourishment through contacting the Lord, and if we say Amen to the Lord’s word inwardly, allowing it to operate in us and eliminate the old element, we experience the process of spiritual metabolism and we’re transformed into His image for the church.

This is what the Lord prophesied through Nathan to David in 2 Sam. 7:12-14 when He said that the seed of David will become the Son of God.

This seed was Jesus, the God-man, Jehovah the Savior, who was the Son of God by virtue of His divinity alone, and through resurrection, He as the human seed became the Son of God in His humanity as well.

In this way God was constituted into man and man was constituted into God.

Now as the Spirit, God enters into us to make us sons of God, God-men.

In this way we, the human seeds, become the sons of God with divinity through the metabolic process of transformation.

Through the spiritual metabolism, the metabolic process of transformation, the church as the Body of Christ is built up.

It is through the building of God into man and of man into God, of the divine element into the human element and the human element into the divine element, that the church as the organic Body of Christ is built up. This is what we are experiencing today in our Christian life.

We believers in Christ are a very particular kind of people; we are a precious treasure in the eyes of God, for we have the element of God wrought into us and we are being built into God.

Through this building of God into man and of man into God, through the process of spiritual metabolism, the church as the organic Body of Christ is built up, and the consummation of this building is the New Jerusalem, the great corporate God-man as the aggregate, the totality of all the sons of God!

Lord Jesus, keep us in the process of spiritual metabolism by our enjoying, receiving, eating, digesting, and assimilating Christ. Amen Lord, we open to You every avenue of our inner being: work Yourself into us. Keep us eating You as our spiritual food, drinking the Spirit as our real beverage, and breathing You in as our spiritual breath. Keep us in the metabolic process of transformation for us to grow in life for the building up of the church as the Body of Christ. Amen, Lord, may we realize that the organic building up of the church as the Body of Christ is through the process of spiritual metabolism. Build up Your church by building Yourself into us.

References and Hymns on this Topic

• Sources of inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, a sharing by brother James Lee, and portions from, Life-study of 1&2 Samuel, pp. 172-174 (by Witness Lee), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Crystallization Study of 1 and 2 Samuel (2021 winter training), week 9, entitled, The Organic Building Up of the Church as the Body of Christ through the Process of Spiritual Metabolism according to the Believers’ Inner Experience of the Indwelling Christ.
• Further fellowship on this topic:
  – Listen and watch on a sharing on the topic of, The Organic Building Up of the Church as the Body of Christ through the Process of Spiritual Metabolism according to the Believers’ Inner Experience of the Indwelling Christ (via youtube here).
  – Enjoy the sharing of brother Lee on the topic of, The Organic Building Up of the Church as the Body of Christ to be the Organism of the Processed and Dispensing Triune God (via ministrybooks.org here).
• Hymns on this topic:
  – God’s economy is to work Himself, work Himself into us / so that we may experience a metabolic process / of spiritual digestion and assimilation / that produces, produces transformation / as a gradual and intrinsic metabolic change / in our natural life with the divine life; / this is for the building up of the Body of Christ / to consummate the New Jerusalem. (Song on, God’s Economy Is to Work Himself into Us)
  – The seed is planted, wheat is grown / And meal is the sum / Of all the growth upon God’s farm, / Where Christians grow as one; / But all the growth in life is for / The building of the church, / That God and man may have a home / And both may end their search. / The farm is for the building, / for God and man a home, / Where both may dwell among / His people gathered into one. (Hymns #1242)
  – Oh, Christ became the Spirit to speak inside of me, / And as the speaking Spirit He speaks unceasingly. / His speaking is the water that washes me within, / Discharging all my oldness, imparting Him. / O Lord, O Lord, speak all You want to me. / Your speaking is Your presence—I must have it constantly. / O Lord, O Lord, speak-wash my every part / And by this metabolic change, make home in all my heart. (Hymns #1177)