To Serve God in the Gospel is to Worship God; our God is Living to us and in us!

According to the divine revelation in the Bible, all those who believe in Christ and receive Him as their Savior and life are priests to God, and they are ministers of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles, laboring priests of the gospel (Rom. 15:16).

We need to see a clear vision of who we are and what our function as priests is: we are priests of the gospel. But how are we priests of the gospel in practicality, and how do we practice our priesthood of the gospel? Paul gives us an indication in Rom. 1:9 where he said, God is my witness, whom I serve in my spirit in the gospel of His Son.

How do we practice being priests of the gospel? By serving God in the gospel of His Son; to serve God is to worship God (see John 4; Matt. 4:9-10). We need to see that our service to God in the gospel is our worship to God, and we need to daily be supplied with the bountiful grace of God so that we may preach the gospel and live out the gospel for others to see Christ in us.

Just like the Thessalonians, we have turned to God from the idols to serve a true and living God (1 Thes. 1:9); our God is living, and we serve Him in our spirit by fellowshipping with Him and allowing Him to correct us, adjust us, and restrict us from within whenever we are about to do or say something. Hallelujah for our living God who now lives in us and speaks through us as we apply the blood of Christ to purify our conscience so that we may serve God in a living way!

Always remember: for all the requirements related to the believers (as revealed in the New Testament) – especially that of announcing the gospel of God – we need to receive the divine supply of the Body through the dispensing of the processed Triune God!

We cannot do it on our own: we need the prayers of the saints and the bountiful supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ to daily supply us (Phil. 1:5-6, 19-25). We have been given a stewardship of grace to us for others; as we enjoy Christ as grace, we have the inward supply to flow out the processed Triune God to others for their enjoyment (Eph. 3:2).

We simply need to come forward to the throne of grace that we may receive mercy and find grace for timely help, and the flow of grace will flow through us to others as the gospel (Heb. 4:16). The Lord today is the Spirit flowing into us and becoming in us a fountain of living water gushing up into eternal life as many rivers of water of life; the preaching of the gospel is in the flow of the river of water of life from within (John 7:37-38).

The way to be a priest of the gospel is to exercise our spirit to enjoy Christ as the Spirit who is the supply within; He is the wonderful Priest of the Gospel, and He can supply us with Himself and fulfill in us our priestly function.

No matter what circumstantial “prison” we may be in, as long as we are open to the Lord to receive His bountiful supply and we’re connected to the Body to have the saints’ prayers, any confinement, restriction, and limitation will turn out to salvation – both to us and to those around us!

Lord Jesus, we cannot live for the gospel unless we are supplied by Your grace; keep us enjoying You day by day so that we may be inwardly bountifully supplied by the Spirit of Jesus Christ! Lord, we want to exercise our spirit to enjoy You as the Spirit with our spirit and be supplied with much grace, be saved in life, reign in life, and have many rivers of water of life flowing out of our innermost being as the gospel for others to touch God and enjoy God! Lord, we need the divine supply so that we may meet what the New Testament requires of us as believes, as priests to God!

To Serve God in the Gospel is to Worship God; our God is Living to us and in us!

Our service to God in the Gospel is our worship to God; in the New Testament, serving God is actually the same as worshipping God.

When Satan came to the Lord Jesus and asked Him to worship him, the Lord told Satan, ….worship God, and Him only shall you serve (Matt. 4:9-10). The Lord equates the worship of God with serving God.

In Rom. 1:9 Paul said that he serves God in the gospel of His Son; here “serve” in Greek means to serve in worship of God; the same word is used in Matt. 4:10, 2 Tim. 1:3, Phil. 3:3, and Luke 2:37. Paul served God by worshipping God; he served God in the worship of God.

In 1 Thes. 1:9 the believers in Thessalonica “turned from the idols to serve a living and true God”; the word “serve” here means “serve as a slave”, it is an all-inclusive word denoting everything we do in our daily living. As believers in Christ we should not serve God from time to time or “only on Sunday”; our serving God is our worship to God, and this has to be daily, even moment-by-moment.

The real service to God is an enjoyment, even a love affair; we serve God by letting Him kiss us with the kisses of His mouth, for His love is much better than wine (Song of Songs 1:2), and we kiss the Son, lest He be angry (Psa. 2:11-12).

To serve God is to be intimately one with the Lord who Himself is the priest of the gospel; we cling to Him, are supplied by Him, enjoy Him, and we serve Him in worshipping God.

As seen in 1 Thes. 1:9, our God is living – God must be living to us and in us in every aspect of our daily life! He should be real and living in us and to us as we speak, do things, go places, and rest. As believers in Christ we are priests to God serving a living God, and by our daily life we prove that God is living.

God is living in us, and He controls us, directs us, and deals with us; in our organic union with Him in spirit we are intimately related to Him, and He as a living Person speaks to us, supplies us, and adjusts us. Even in such small things are our thoughts, intentions, and motives we are being corrected and adjusted by God, and we live a life that bears the testimony that the God we worship and serve is living in the details of our life.

The reason we don’t go to certain places, engage in certain activities, watch certain things, speak in a certain way, and do certain things is because the God whom we worship and serve is living in us (Phil. 1:8; 2:5, 13; 1:20). How wonderful it is to realize that our serving God in the gospel is actually the same as worshipping the living God, and this God is living in us right now and all the time!

Whenever we set our mind on the spirit, we enjoy life and peace, and the Lord as the Spirit witnesses with our spirit that we are children of God; as we live in spirit and touch the Lord again and again throughout the day, our worshipping God is our serving God in the gospel, and the gospel flows out of us wherever we go and whatever we do and say.

Lord Jesus, thank You for being a living and true God who right now lives in us, supplies us, adjusts us, corrects us, and strengthens us to live as priests of the gospel. Lord, may You be a living God to us in all the aspects of our daily living! We want to live a life in our spirit to bear the testimony that the God we worship and serve is living in the details of our life. Lord, we open to You, we love You, and we want to live one spirit with You so that You may inwardly supply us, correct us, adjust us, and overflow through us as the gospel for others to enjoy God!

Having a Blood-Purified Conscience and Serving God in the All-Inclusive Christ

When we come to serve God (or worship God), we first need to have a blood-purified conscience. Our defiled conscience needs to be purified by the blood of the Lord Jesus so that we may serve God in a living way (Heb. 9:14). In order for us to touch the living God and serve Him, we need to exercise our spirit (Heb. 4:12) and have a blood-purified conscience in our spirit.

To “worship God” in the dead religion or to “serve God” in a dead way according to the religious concepts doesn’t require our conscience to be purified.

Our conscience is the leading part of our spirit, and as we do this and that our conscience becomes impure; when we touch the Lord, the first thing He touches is our conscience, and since He’s holy, righteous, and living we will just apply the blood of Christ to serve Him with a purified conscience (1 John 1:7, 9; Acts 24:16; 1 Tim. 4:7).

We serve God in the gospel of His Son, that is, in the gospel which is His Son, the all-inclusive Christ. Our gospel is not concerning a religion, a teaching, or anything else but the living and all-inclusive person of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

To serve God in the gospel is to serve Him in the all-inclusive Christ, that is, to announce the gospel of Jesus as the Christ and the unsearchable riches of Christ as the gospel (Acts 5:42); Rom. 1:3-4; 8:29). We need to always exercise ourselves to have a conscience void of offense toward God and man, and we need to announce the unsearchable riches of Christ as the gospel to others; this is our service to God as priests of the gospel.

Our service is in the all-inclusive Christ; by contacting the Lord and enjoying Him we get ourselves into Christ, and in Christ we speak Christ as the gospel for others to see Christ, be touched by Christ, enjoy Christ, and be saved by Christ!

Lord Jesus, we come to You and confess anything Your light exposes that is not according to Your righteousness, holiness, and glory. We want to have a blood-purified conscience, a conscience void of offense toward God and man. Lord, cleanse us, purify us, and fill us with Yourself as the all-inclusive One so that we may announce Your unsearchable riches as the gospel to others. May our service to God, our worship of God, be in Christ and with Christ as the gospel!

References and Hymns on this Topic

• Inspiration: the Word of God, my Christian experience, bro. Dick Taylor’s sharing in the message for this week, and portions from, The Conclusion of the New Testament, msgs. 168-169, by Witness Lee, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, The Recovery of the Priesthood or God’s Building, week 6 / msg 6, Being Laboring Priests of the Gospel of God by Serving God in our Spirit in the Gospel of His Son.
• All Bible verses are taken from, Holy Bible Recovery Version.
• Hymns on this topic to strengthen this burden:
  # Oh! Vast Unmeasured Portion, / Oh! Bountiful Supply, / In light the saints enjoy Thee, / And Thou dost reign thereby. / Within the Father’s bosom / Beloved Son Thou art; / The sweetness of the Godhead / To us Thou dost impart. (Song on Enjoying Christ)
  # How mysterious, O Lord, / That Thy Spirit dwells in mine; / O how marvelous it is, / Into one, two spirits twine. / By the spirit I can walk, / Spiritual in spirit be; / By the spirit I can serve, / And in spirit worship Thee. (Hymns #782)
  # Not objectively to worship, / But to serve Him inwardly; / Not to preach a Christ objective, / But Himself subjectively. / Not just by the Scripture serving, / But in spirit and in life; / Not by flesh, but by the Spirit / Filling, freeing from all strife. (Hymns #908)