As those who love the Lord and desire to be part of His overcoming bride, we need to pursue the growth and maturity in life, we need to know the Body, and we need to be built together with the saints in the Triune God as the Body of Christ.
The bride of Christ is composed of the overcomers, those who today pay the price to overcome any negative thing and who grow in life unto maturity, being built up together to be the Body of Christ and being prepared to be the bride of Christ.
It’s been more than 2000 years since the Lord has left, and He has not yet returned because His bride is not ready yet; the readiness of the bride depends on the maturity in life of the overcomers.
The Lord will not return for an immature, infant, young girl – He will return when His bride has been prepared and made ready for the wedding feast, which will be during the millennium. We need to grow in life very day, stage by stage, until we reach maturity in life; we have some growth in life, but we need to pursue to grow more by letting Christ grow in us and make His home in all our heart.
Just as it is normal for a young child to grow and become a mature person, so it should be normal for a believer to grow in the divine life and become part of the full-grown man who the Lord wants to gain.
It is a dream to talk about the Lord’s coming as the Bridegroom if we are not actively being prepared as the bride by growing in life unto maturity.
We should aspire to be the Lord’s overcomers today, those who grow in life and reach maturity in their lifetime, so that we may contribute something to the building up of the organic Body of Christ and the preparation of the bride of Christ.
In the church life we need to encourage and help one another to be brought on to maturity, that is, to grow in life unto maturity and be perfected in the life of God.
The life of our heavenly Father is in us; we need to let this life grow, cooperate with the Lord for His life to spread in all our being, and pursue the growth in life unto maturity so that we be the overcomers as part of the bride of Christ.
Pursuing the Growth and Maturity in Life, and Knowing and Caring for the Body
We need to learn from the apostle Paul to pursue the growth and maturity in the life of Christ. Even at the end of his life, when he was already advanced in age and in spiritual maturity, Paul pursued Christ to gain Him, know Him, and know the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings (Phil. 3:12-15).
We need to pursue the Lord every single day, seeking to grow in life unto maturity in the life of Christ. When we stop pursuing the Lord, degradation comes in, just as the church in Philadelphia became degraded when they considered they are rich and have need of nothing, thus becoming Laodicea.
May the Lord save us from becoming complacent or content with where we are, and may we pursue the growth and maturity in life every day of our life!
And when we care for others, we need to follow Paul’s pattern in seeking to present those we care for full-grown in Christ, mature in the Lord (Col. 1:28).
As we exercise and endeavor to practice the God-ordained way to preach the gospel and beget sinners to make them sons of God, we also need to nourish them, cherish them, and perfect them, all the way until these sons of God are full-grown in Christ, part of the built-up Body of Christ and the prepared bride of Christ, to be the Lord’s overcomers.
We shouldn’t worry too much about ourselves or be introspective regarding being an overcomer, but we should eat the Lord, pursue the growth in life unto maturity, and seek to help others grow in life and mature; if we can produce some overcomers, we have a chance of being an overcomer ourselves.
We should give ourselves for the building up of the Body of Christ and the preparation of His bride, and we should pay attention to our growth in life unto maturity and help others grow in life.
Whether in admonishing or teaching others, whether visiting or meeting the saints, we need to minister Christ to them so that they may become perfect and complete by maturing with Christ as the element of the divine life unto full growth.
We need to see the Body, care for the Body, honor the Body, and do everything in and for the Body. Our growth in life is not for our personal spiritual edification, and our pursuit of maturity in life is not for ourselves but for the building up of the Body of Christ.
Sometimes the Body is strong, while at other times the Body is weak – but we still need to care for the Body and keep the proper order in the Body.
A mature believer knows the Body, cares for the Body, and honors the Body; as we pursue the growth and maturity in life, we will become Body-conscious and Body-centered (1 Cor. 12:8-19, 21, 24; Col. 3:15). The ultimate test of our maturity and growth in life is whether we know the Body and care for the Body.
Lord Jesus, we want to pursue the growth and maturity in the life of Christ. Save us from being content with where we are and what we are; keep us pursuing You to gain You, know You, and experience You. We want to forget all the things behind and stretch forward to the fresh and new Christ before us so that we may know Him, the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings. Lord, we want to pursue the growth in life unto maturity for the building up of Your Body and the preparation of Your bride. May we be those who know the Body, care for the Body, and honor the Body!
God is Seeking a Building: He Builds Himself into us and us into Himself!
As we seek the Lord daily so that we may grow in life unto maturity, we need to realize that the overcomers who constitute the bride are NOT separate individuals but a corporate bride.
It is not a mature believer who marries Christ as His bride but we all, as we arrive at the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, are built up together to be the bride of Christ, and this corporate entity will marry Christ.
The overcomers are not only mature in life but they are also built together as one bride; in order for us to become the bride of Christ we need to be built together in God and by God (Matt. 16:18; Eph. 4:15-16).
The principle of God’s building is that God builds Himself into us and builds us into Him; that is, God mingles Himself with us, divinity with humanity, as one building. To create is to bring something into existence out of nothing. Building, on the other hand, means that two things that are already here are put together. God is here, and man is here, but now there is the need of some work to bring God together with man as one and to bring so many persons together as one in God and with God. This is the work of building. W. Lee, The Building of God
What God is doing today is not merely perfecting individual believers and causing them to grow in life; He is after a building composed of many believers into whom He has been wrought and built. Day by day God is working Himself into us and building us into God so that we – God and man – would be built together to be God’s building, His bride.
For example, concrete is made of cement, water, and sand with stones; when the sand, stones, and cement are mixed together with water, they become something built up and strong – concrete. God is like the cement, the Spirit is like the water, and we are the sand and the stones; when God is added to us and when we exercise our spirit to touch and enjoy the Spirit, we are mingled together and built together to be the building of God.
The central and divine thought in the entire Bible is that God is seeking a divine building, which is the mingling of Himself with humanity; God is seeking a living composition of living persons redeemed by Him and mingled with Him (see Matt. 16:18; John 14:20; Eph. 4:16; 1 John 4:15; Rev. 21:2).
God’s definition of building is different from ours; He uses a “different dictionary” thank ours. In His eyes building is not physical but a living composition of living persons with God Himself. Just as Eve was built with Adam’s element, so the church as the bride of Christ is being built with the element of Christ.
God in His economy is building up a counterpart composed of His believers who have been redeemed by Him and who are now being mingled with Him to be incorporated with Him and become one corporate person.
The principle of God’s building is that God builds Himself into us and He builds us into Himself (Eph. 3:17). God builds Himself into our inner being as Christ is making His home in our heart, and He does so by mingling Himself with us and mingling us with Himself.
In order for us to be prepared as the bride of Christ, God must be built into us and we must be built into God – and then we can be built up with one another. Only the extent that God has been built into us can we be built up with one another.
In a very real sense, the frustration to the building up of the Body is ME: I have not allowed God to build Himself into me enough, I have not been built into Him enough, and therefore I have not been built up with other saints enough. We need to allow God to build Himself into us and simply tell Him,
Lord, You are seeking a building – therefore build Yourself into us and build us into Yourself. Keep us in the process of being mingled with God today. Amen, Lord, mingle Yourself more with us so that You may be built into us, and mingle us more with You so that we may be built more into You. We want to no longer frustrate or hinder Your building work. Lord, we allow You to build Yourself into us by making Your home in our heart and to build us up with the saints to be Your bride, Your counterpart!
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message by brother Mark R. for this week, and portions from, Collected Works of Witness Lee, 1963, vol. 3, “The Building of God,” pp. 176-177, 197-198, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, The Direction of the Lord’s Move (2016 Thanksgiving Conference), msg. 3 (week 3), To Prepare the Bride as the Counterpart of the Bridegroom (1) – The Readiness of the Bride.
- Hymns on this topic:
# Forget the things behind! / Stretch for the things before! / Press onward with this mind: / Always want more! / Seeking in Him to grow, / Increasingly to know / Him that I daily might / Be found in Christ. (Song on pursuing the Lord)
# We’d experience Christ daily, / Him we would constantly pursue. / Our pursuing has a purpose / To build His Body is our view. / Occupy us for Your Body. / Grace supplying, You afford. / Always bearing, always caring, / By Your grace we’d be outpoured. (Song on pursuing Christ)
# God’s economy and goal / According to His heart’s desire / Are to build Himself into our being / And to build us into His being / In order to mingle His divinity with our humanity / Into one entity (one entity)— / The Body of Christ, / Which consummates the New Jerusalem. (Song on God’s economy)
Now we know the principle of God’s building, and we know what God’s work is in these days, the period, the age, of building. What God always has been doing, and what He still is doing, is working Himself into us, working us into God, and bringing all of us together as one in God and through God. We may illustrate this with concrete. God is the cement, the Spirit is the water, and we are the stones. When the cement is put into the water and the stones are put into the cement, the stones are bound together by the cement and water. The result is a building of concrete.
God first carried out His building work by coming as the divine person to be incarnated into humanity to build a man with God, that is, to build a God-man. In the four thousand years from the time of Adam to the time of Christ, there were many millions of people, but not one of them was a building of God with man. Before the incarnation, God was God, and man was man. God and man, man and God, were never mingled as one until the day that God Himself was incarnated to be born in a manger as a man. This man was a unique man, God mingled with man, a man with God, a God-man. What God did to work Himself into man and work man into Himself was the beginning of the divine building. (Collected Works of Witness Lee, 1963, vol. 3, “The Building of God,” pp. 197-198)
Amen!!!
Amen, oh Lord Jesus!
Amen Lord Jesus. Cause us to honor Your Body.
Amen.. Oh lord jesus!
Amen! OLJ!
Ephesians 3 reveals that the Body of Christ is the fullness of the Triune God by our being supplied with the riches of Christ and by Christ making His home in our hearts, Amen
Amen! Thanks
Amen! Lord, let us be those who know the Body, care for the Body, and honor the Body!
Amen. Praise the Lord
Amen…One Body
Amen Lord. This is my earnest plea