the highest expression of our Christian life is prophesying for building up

Have you ever thought what is the highest expression of our Christian life? It is not doing a lot of great works for the Lord or even our living before men – it is our speaking for God, speaking forth God, and speaking God into people. The highest expression of one who represents the King over the entire universe is to speak in the name of the King and to express the King through his high speaking.

This is why when we stand up to speak for the Lord in the meeting we need to exercise our spirit, deny our self, and speak boldly the word of God which has been constituted into us through our enjoyment and experience of Christ. Hallelujah, we human beings can speak for God and even speak God into others!

Desiring earnestly to prophesy

To prophesy is not an easy matter, but we need to take 1 Corinthians 14 to the Lord and pray over it, asking the Lord to make it our reality in the church life! If we don’t prophesy, the church is not built up and the Lord cannot return! This is why the apostle Paul encourages us to earnestly desire above all other things to prophesy.

To be able to prophesy we need to take the biblical way – live a revived life and a renewed life every day! Every morning we need to be revived with the Lord in our spirit, and every day we need to be renewed again and again! This means that we need to deny ourselves, trust in the Lord, and depend on His resurrection power, His authority in ascension, His Spirit, and His word!

To have some teaching in the meetings is good, and to hear some testimonies is very encouraging – but we need to have much more prophesying, much more functioning of all the saints by Speaking For God and Speaking Forth God! For this, we need a certain kind of living, a certain kind of life with the Lord, so that we may have a high expression for our Christian life.

The highest expression of our Christian life is to speak for God and speak God forth – to prophesy! If we live a revived and renewed life every day we will be able to prophesy for others to be enlightened, cleansed, nourished in life, helped in the truth, and even spiritually perfected to be built up in the Body of Christ.

Using spiritual words to build up the Body

What should be the content of our prophecy? What do we speak when we prophesy? In prophesying for the building up of the church we need spiritual words – these spiritual words actually come from God’s Spirit of life (see Rom. 8:2; 1 Cor. 12:8). We don’t speak our own words and we don’t utter our own opinions and ideas – we depend on the Lord so that we may speak something from Him for the building (1 Cor. 14:31; Eph. 4:12).

As we exercise our spirit to be one with the Lord, the Spirit of life gives us the words, the utterance, and even the boldness to prophesy (1 Cor. 2:11-13). As we daily get into the Word and the Word gets into us, the Spirit can remind us and enlighten us what to speak.

In the Gospels we see the example of Mary (the mother of the Lord Jesus), Elizabeth, and Zechariah (the parents of John the Baptist) – they spoke something full of inspiration, quoting from memory entire portions of the Old Testament. From their speaking you can see that they had a broad view and they had a fresh choice of expression, with much revelation.

First of all, they all had the Word of God deposited into them through many years of reading and praying over the Word, and then, when the time came and the Lord chose them to bring forth the Messiah or the Forerunner of Messiah, they spoke the Word of God in a clear way, with a fresh utterance, and with much spiritual revelation!

Vital points to care for in order to prophesy adequately

In speaking for God and in speaking God forth, we need to take care of many things in our Christian life. We can’t just “wait for the inspiration of the Spirit” and then speak, fully neglecting our daily living. Rather, the consummation and the highest point of our Christian life is prophesying.

For this, we need to take care of many things in our relationship with the Lord, with others, with ourselves, with the Word of God, etc. Brother Lee points out at least five vital additional points that must be cared for if we would be able to prophesy adequately and properly:

1. We need to love the Lord, have fellowship with Him, live in the Lord’s presence, be joined to the Lord, and be one with the Lord (Mark 12:30; 1 Cor. 1:9; 6:17).
2. We need to labor to learn the truth by studying the Bible and the spiritual books which expound the Bible, like the life-study of the Bible (a book-by-book expounding of the Bible), the Recovery Version with the footnotes, etc. – so that we may be saturated and constituted with the Word of God (see Col. 3:16).
3. We need to have a living spirit and walk according to our spirit, being God-men who live not by themselves but by the divine life in their mingled spirit, so that we may receive the instant inspiration of the Spirit when we speak (Rom. 8:4; Gal. 5:16, 25).
4. We need to have a heavenly view – a broadened view, a clear view – that knows Christ and the church, not having our own opinions and viewpoints but rather God’s viewpoint concerning His interest on the earth, His Body, the church, the local churches, the individual saints, ourselves, the world situation, the sinners’ condition, and God’s economy (see Eph. 1:17; 3:5).
5. We need to speak with revelation, using fresh expressions and utterance, not old terminology and our own words, but the timely utterance with the instant view, the instant seeing, the instant inspiration (see 1 Cor. 2:11-13).

Lord Jesus, we simply say, AMEN, make us normal Christians who live such a life and have such a high expression! Keep us coming to Your Word every day that we may labor on the Word to receive light and life! We want to spend much time with You that we may be one with You. Lord, make us those who live according to the spirit so that we may have Your instant inspiration and leading. How we need a heavenly view and vision of Your economy, that we may speak with fresh expressions and utterances the high things of Your economy!

References and Further Reading

• This sharing is very much inspired from brother Witness Lee’s speaking in, The Organic Practice of the New Way (chapters 5-6), and, Prophesying in the Church Meetings for the Organic Building Up of the Church as the Body of Christ (pages. 56-57), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Taking the Lead as Elders and Responsible Ones, week 4.
• Further reading: recommending 1 Corinthians 14 with the footnotes in the Recovery Version;
• Hymns on this topic:
  # Reading the Bible — / I love the Word of God!
  # We in prayer behold Him face to face, / In the Word and meetings know His grace;
  # Lord keep me growing and functioning. / Don’t ever let me out of Your sight. / Grant me a spirit of boldness. / Open my mouth, Lord, to prophesy.
• Picture source: the sun shining.