Since the Body of Christ is the issue of our experience of Christ, we need to pray desperately that we would live Christ for the Body of Christ to be a reality; the way we live Christ is by the operation of the inner law of the Spirit of life.
When we believed into Christ, He came into us and made our spirit life; our spirit is now filled with the divine life, and this life wants to spread from our spirit into all the parts of our being by our setting our mind on our spirit.
However, we may not cooperate with the Lord to allow Him to spread into all the inner parts of our being but rather, we may imprison Him in our spirit, and the mingled spirit may not have a way to flow and spread.
The apostle Paul is our pattern as one who lived Christ for the Body of Christ, and when he was in prison he testified that he took Christ as his prison. Because Paul allowed Christ to imprison him, he could live Christ for the Body.
He was even desperate that he would no longer live himself out but live Christ, that Christ may be manifested in his body, and that whatever he does Christ would be magnified.
For us to live Christ for the reality of the Body of Christ we need to love the Lord, enjoy Him, and experience Him to the extent that we are imprisoned in Christ, that is, we are imprisoned in our spirit as a prisoner of Christ Jesus.
It is here, when we’re imprisoned in our mingled spirit, that we can see a revelation of the all-inclusive Christ and experience Him in His unlimited dimensions.
When we are imprisoned by Christ and remain in our mingled spirit we see and experience Christ as the church-loving Christ, the new-man-creating Christ, the all-things-heading-up Christ, the gift-making and gift-giving Christ, and the home-making Christ for the building up of the Body of Christ.
When we set our mind on our spirit and walk according to the spirit, we no longer have our own freedom, we can no longer do things according to our own convenience, and where we go and what we do are not according to our choice but are under and according to the leading and directing hand of God.
May we be such ones; may we be those who live Christ for the Body, the captives of Christ who scatter everywhere the fragrance of the knowledge and experience of Christ for others to see Him living in us corporately on earth.
The Body is the issue of the Experience of Christ; We need to Pray to Live Christ for the Body
The Body of Christ is not an organisation but an organism; as an organism, all the members of the Body contribute to the Body, and the living of the members in the Body has to be the living of Christ.
The Body of Christ is the issue of our enjoyment and experience of Christ; as we enjoy and experience Christ, we live Christ for the Body, and the Body becomes a reality.
However, what about our daily life: can we strongly say that in our daily living we live Christ? We may live Christ here and there, on and off, but most of our daily life we do not live Christ.
We may spend time with the Lord, we may pray, we may pray over His word, we may love the Lord, we may live outside of the world, and we may not sin but rather be quite godly and pious, yet how much do we live Christ for the Body?
We may meet with the saints in the church meetings and may have a church life, but how much of Christ is there in our daily life, and how much of the building up of the Body of Christ issues out of our daily life?
We all have to confess that we are short of living Christ. We have to confess that, though we love the Lord and His word and His church, we still live so much in our self, in our natural man, and even in the flesh.
But what about the reality of the Body of Christ?
The members of our human body can’t just take a break from being members and then come back to being members; we can’t take a break from living Christ for the Body and then come back to living Christ for the Body…
The Body of Christ is the issue of our experience of Christ, so we need to pray desperately that we would live Christ for the Body of Christ to be a reality!
What we call as “the Body life” may just be a spiritual, communal, or social life; we may stand on the proper ground, meet in the name of the Lord, and handle the spiritual things, but do we live Christ for the Body?
Does our daily living express Christ by our living in the mingled spirit for Christ to be expressed through us?
It is so easy to go through the motions – we may even get into the habit of reading the Bible, meeting with the saints, and doing “church activities” yet without experiencing Christ or enjoying Christ for the Body. Oh Lord Jesus!
May the Lord have mercy on us and show us that, unless we experience Christ daily, in our daily living with its daily activities, the Body of Christ cannot be a reality on earth.
Unless all the members of the Body experience Christ and live Christ in their daily living, the Body of Christ cannot be manifested on the earth.
May we learn to desperately turn to the Lord and pray prayers of repentance for not living Christ and of opening to the Lord so that He may live in us! We may tell the Lord,
Lord Jesus, thank You for showing us that the Body of Christ is in reality the issue of our enjoyment and experience of Christ. We want to experience Christ for the Body. We want to live Christ for the Body. We need Your mercy and Your grace to be brought into this reality. Lord, we need to live You for the reality of the Body of Christ. Grant us the grace to forget everything else – all our problems and our striving, and care only for Christ and the issue of Christ, the Body. Lord, we desperately ask You that we may live Christ for the Body of Christ!
The Triune God has been Installed in us as the Law of the Spirit of Life for us to Live Christ
The secret of how to live Christ for the reality of the Body of Christ can be clearly seen in Rom. 8, which is a definition, description, explanation, and presentation of the law of the Spirit of life (Rom. 8:2).
In Rom. 8:2 we see the law of the Spirit of life, which is something so mysterious yet so wonderful; such a law is for the reality of the Body of Christ, not for our individual overcoming.
However, for most Christians today Romans 8 is a closed chapter; because they do not see the revelation in this chapter, there is very little Body life, very little living of Christ for the Body.
We must see that the law of the Spirit of life is just the processed all-inclusive God as the all-inclusive Spirit indwelling us. And this law works spontaneously and scientifically through all the ingredients that are incorporated in the processed and consummated Triune God.
As long as we activate this law by setting our mind on the spirit (Rom. 8:6), the law of the Spirit of life will spontaneously operate in us to cause us to live Christ for the Body.
The law of the Spirit of life describes how the Triune God, after having been processed and consummated to become a life-giving Spirit, has been installed into our spirit as a law, a spontaneous, automatic principle and power within us.
This is one of the biggest discoveries – even one of the biggest recoveries – in God’s economy.
If we look at our human body we realise that we do not need to tell our stomach to digest our food after we eat it; rather, the food gets into our stomach, and the digestive system has a law that spontaneously operates.
We do not need to tell our lungs to process the air we breathe and bring it to the right organs; rather, there’s the respiratory system with its law, and it automatically works.
In the Old Testament God worked through His moves in the old creation, and He did a lot of things outwardly for His people; in the New Testament, however, God works not mainly outwardly but inwardly, by means of a law called the law of the Spirit of life.
In His New Testament economy God works to dispense Himself into man to be man’s life and everything by means of the law of the Spirit of life, and this law is automatic, spontaneous.
We need to know the Triune God to such an extent that He would work in us as a law, the law of the Spirit of life, to cause us to be like Christ, to deliver us from sin and death, and to conform us to the image of the firstborn Son of God.
Today God does everything for us not by activity but always by law. This means that, when we walk by the Spirit and set our mind on the spirit, many wonderful things are going on in our being.
The way for us to live Christ for the Body is by activating the law of the Spirit of life. It is not by asking God to do things for us and Him doing outward activities for us; it is by the inner operating God, the inner operating law of the Spirit of life installed in our spirit, that we can be saved in life and live Christ for the Body.
God in Christ is the Spirit in our spirit; He has been installed in our being as the law of the Spirit of life, and whenever we activate this law by turning to our spirit, setting our mind on the spirit, and walking according to the spirit, God automatically operates in us both the willing and the working for His good pleasure.
There’s an automatic, spontaneous principle of the law of the Spirit of life operating in us as long as we set our mind on the spirit (Rom. 8:6) and live according to the spirit (v. 4). Hallelujah!
Lord Jesus, we want to learn the secret of living Christ for the Body by setting our mind on the spirit and living according to the spirit so that the law of the Spirit of life would spontaneously operate in us. Thank You Lord for being “installed” in our spirit as an organic law, a spontaneous and automatic principle operating in us. Hallelujah for the law of the Spirit of life operating in us to save us in life, deliver us from sin and the world, and conform us to the image of Christ, the firstborn Son of God!
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message by bro. Minoru Chen for this week, and portions from, Collected Works of Witness Lee, 1980, vol. 1, “Perfecting Training,” chs. 12, 32-37, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Living in the Reality of the Body of Christ by Keeping the Principles of the Body (2019 ICSC), week 5, Living Christ for the Reality of the Body of Christ.
- Hymns on this topic:
# Live through me, Lord; stop independent action; / Each breath, each step, would in Thy Body be. / Build us in Thee till we’re Thy full reflection, / Thy corporate one new man eternally. (Song on, Live Through Me, Lord)
# To the Lord belonging, / Bound I’ll never be, / For the law of life now / Sets me wholly free. / Minding flesh no longer, / I’ll the spirit mind; / Self-will never follow, / But the Spirit’s find. (Hymns #594)
# There is now then no condemnation to those / Who are in Christ Jesus. / For the law of the Spirit of life has freed me / In Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. / For the mind set on the flesh is death, / But the mind set on the spirit is life. / So I will walk in the Spirit today, / Being filled with life and peace! (Song on, The Law of the Spirit of Life)
About aGodMan
