We urgently need to Grow and Mature in the Divine Life for the Maturity of the Bride

As believers in Christ, we urgently need to grow and mature in the divine life for the maturity of the bride of Christ to bring Him back.

The Lord Jesus will marry a mature bride; we need to go on, be brought on to maturity, and pursue growth and maturity in the life of Christ, seeking the growth in the divine life unto maturity day by day until we become the mature bride of Christ.

Amen, Lord Jesus, grow in us more today for the building up of the church and the maturity of the bride!

Today we as believers in Christ need to accept God’s wedding invitation, which He gave to Adam in the garden of Eden by coming to Him as life and partaking of Him as the tree of life.

We need to be the normal Christians today who overcome by eating the Lord Jesus as the tree of life.

May the Lord ignite in us something so that we may not continue in some kind of religious church life but we would be daily engaged in the preparation of the bride of Christ.

For this, we need to be the Lord’s overcoming believers. An overcomer is a normal Christian, a normal believer; there’s nothing extraordinary about being an overcomer.

An overcomer is one who is growing day by day with the increase of Christ so that eventually they reach maturity and become part of the mature bride of Christ.

We should not look at our limitations in our human life, thinking we can’t do much for the Lord because of our family with little children, our health, which is not good, or our lack of skills; we should simply enjoy the Lord and grow in life unto maturity so that He may make us His overcoming believers.

We should not be discouraged or disappointed when we look at our situation and our condition; this is not the time of introspection but the time for us to grow steadily, day by day, with the increase of Christ in our being.

Satan works in us and around us to cause us to fail, and we often pay too much attention to our failures. Our self is still with us but needs to be denied, our flesh is still here and can never improve, and the natural man needs to be kept on the cross.

May we just give ourselves to the Lord day by day to daily have a fresh consecration before the Lord for Him to gain us as His bride.

May we give ourselves to the Lord in a fresh way so that He may grow in us, expand in our being, and bring us on to maturity for us to be part of the mature bride of Christ.

We should not count ourselves out or think that we are too weak and unable to be an overcoming believer.

Rather, we need to reject the lies of the accuser, whose job is to accuse us before our God and in our conscience day and night, and simply come to the Lord to enjoy Him!

Each one of us can be an overcoming believer by cooperating with the Lord to grow in life unto maturity!

Being Brought on to Maturity by Forgetting the Things behind and Stretching Forward to Pursue Growth and Maturity in the Life of Christ

In the New Testament the word “mature” refers to us, the believers in Christ, being full-grown and perfected in the life of Christ, which we have received at the time of our regeneration (Titus 3:5; 1 Pet. 1:3, 23; Matt. 5:48).

We have received the divine life when we believed into the Lord Jesus and were regenerated; now we need to grow in life unto maturity day by day. We should never be content with ourselves but pursue growth and maturity in the life of Christ (Phil. 3:12, 14).

On the one hand, we should not be introspective, analysing ourselves to see what we have done wrong and trying to be better. On the other hand, we should not be content; we should simply pursue to gain Christ, enjoy Christ, and grow in Christ.

The church in Laodicea suffers from contentment, and she is lukewarm; so the Lord wants her to pay the price to see what her real situation is and pursue growth in life.

We need to pursue growth and maturity in the life of Christ. Introspection will cause us to give up; we should refuse to be introspective but pursue growth in life.

We don’t give up; we come to the Lord to be gained by Him and to gain Him day by day! We ask Him to grow in us, make His home in us, and grant us today’s portion of grace so that we may advance in the spiritual life. M

ay we all be brought on to maturity by forgetting the things which are behind and stretching forward to the things which are before so that we may gain more Christ!

Amen, we need to go on, to be brought on, to maturity by forgetting the things which are behind and stretching forward to the things which are before!

May we pursue toward the fullest enjoyment and gaining of Christ for the uttermost enjoyment of Christ in the millennial kingdom!

Our Christian life is a life of failures and suffering, and at the same time, it is a life of forgetting the things which are behind and stretching forward to pursue and gain Christ!

Oh, may we forget about the mistakes we have made in the past and stretch forward to gain Christ! May we forget about our past failures and shortcomings and simply stretch forward to pursue growth and maturity in the life of Christ.

Traditional organised religion doesn’t help God’s people to grow; therefore, there’s the need for the Lord’s recovery. God has a need for the recovery also, for so many truths and practices have been lost throughout the ages.

Thank the Lord that He has brought us into the church life in the Lord’s recovery for us to not only know the truth but also grow in life unto maturity, pursuing the growth and maturity in the life of Christ.

The Lord brought us here in His recovery for the new creation; this requires transformation from the old into the new.

In addition to being transformed, we also need to be built up together so that we may be the Body of Christ and the bride of Christ, the counterpart of Christ.

Before Christ returns, He needs to obtain the built-up Body of Christ and the prepared and mature bride of Christ.

He continues to work today in the church in a mysterious way to make us a new creation. When this new creation has been transformed and has become mature in life, it will be attached to Christ and will become one with Him to be His bride!

For the bride, what is needed is maturity; we need maturity in life. We must admit that we have not yet reached maturity in life; we are still too young and immature to be presented to Christ as His bride.

So we urgently need to forget the things behind and pursue Christ so that we can reach the stage of maturity! The prerequisite for maturity in the spiritual life is to grow continually in the divine life (Eph. 4:15).

The ultimate issue of the believer’s growth and maturity in the life of Christ is the full-grown man – the church as the Body of Christ growing into a mature man (v. 13).

Lord Jesus, we give ourselves afresh to You today to pursue growth and maturity in life. We come to You as we are, Lord, and we look to You, not to our past. We apply Your precious blood to be cleansed of all our sins, trespasses, iniquities, and blemishes. We forget the things which are behind and we stretch forward to the things which are before, for we want to gain more of Christ and grow more in life! Amen, Lord, show us our urgent need to grow in life unto maturity for the building up of the Body of Christ and the preparation of the bride! May we be those who are brought on to maturity today by freshly pursuing toward the fullest enjoyment and gaining of Christ today. Amen, Lord, we refuse to be introspective and analyse ourselves to see what is wrong and what we did wrong; we simply forget what’s behind and stretch forward to gain You! Amen, strengthen us into our inner man to pursue growth and maturity in the life of Christ today and every day until we become the mature bride of Christ!

We Urgently Need to Grow and Mature in the Spiritual Life for the Preparation of the Bride

When a baby is born, what he needs is to eat properly and grow; day by day we need to eat and grow physically, for this is what causes us to live properly as human beings.

As spiritual men, as men born of God, we need to eat the Lord day by day and grow in life.

We urgently need to grow and mature in the spiritual life for the building up of the church as the Body of Christ and for the preparation of the Bride.

In Philippians 3:12-15, the apostle Paul tells us how he pursued growth and maturity in the life of Christ.

He was not content with himself; rather, he always pursued, first forgetting the things which were behind and then stretching forward to the things which were before.

He pursued Christ, pressed toward Christ, for he wanted to gain Christ, be found in Christ, and be fully one with Christ.

We need to grow and mature in the spiritual life today by forgetting what is behind and freshly stretching forward to the Christ before to gain Him!

May we learn from the pattern of the apostle Paul to go on with the Lord day by day, pursuing the growth in the divine life of Christ.

And if we think that we are relatively full-grown, may we have this mind and set this as a goal – the goal of growing in life unto maturity in the life of Christ for the preparation of the bride of Christ.

In Matthew 5:48 the Lord Jesus commands us to be perfect even as our heavenly Father is perfect. If He said that we should be perfect, that would be unattainable; but He said we should be perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect.

We can be perfect in life by growing in life unto maturity.

When we allow the Lord to grow in us day by day, when we grow daily by eating the Lord in His word and by allowing Him to spread in our inner being, we will be perfect in life as our heavenly Father is perfect.

The divine life we received at the time of our regeneration is able to make us perfect in the life of our Father, even as our Father is perfect. Amen!

It is the divine life of the Father in our spirit growing in us, spreading in us, and bringing us on to maturity, that causes us to be perfect in life.

The Lord commands us and expects us to be perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect; therefore, we need to urgently grow in life unto maturity.

May we leave the word of the beginning of Christ and be brought on to maturity (Heb. 6:1).

This word of the beginning of Christ refers to the word in the gospel concerning Christ’s saving us and regenerating us; this word initiates us in our spiritual life, but we cannot remain here – we need to be brought on unto maturity!

May we be brought on to perfection in the spiritual life by growing and maturing in the spiritual life. For us to reach maturity in the spiritual life, we need to continually grow in this life.

Each new believer is like a newborn babe spiritually, and he should long for the guileless milk of the Word so that by it he may grow unto salvation (1 Pet. 2:2).

We need to drink our milk daily by coming to the Lord in His word, tasting His goodness, drinking Him as our life supply, and allowing Him to grow in us unto salvation.

On the one hand, we are a person with a spiritual life; on the other hand, we are like a plant cultivated on God’s farm, and for this we need to grow (1 Cor. 3:5-9).

We need to open to the planting and watering from the saints, and we need to allow God to give us the growth. Day by day we need to grow in life unto maturity.

As plants in God’s farm, we need to grow and mature in the spiritual life so that we may also be built up as God’s building! Amen!

Ephesians 4:15 further tells us that we grow in the spiritual life by holding in love to Christ as the truth and growing up into Christ as the Head in all things.

Amen, may we hold the truth, which is Christ, in love, so that we may grow up into Christ in all things, who is the Head! He’s the Head; we hold Him as the Head, and He is also the truth, and we hold Him as the truth in love.

We love the Lord as the truth, we come to Him in the word, and we receive the growth that comes from Him. As we hold in love to Christ as the truth, we grow up into Christ as the Head in all things.

This is the prerequisite for our becoming full grown and mature. May we all pursue growth and maturity in life for the preparation of the bride of Christ. The Body of Christ grows with the growth of God (Col. 2:19).

God in Himself does not grow, but He grows in us. As we hold Christ the Head, we receive the rich supply from Him through the joints of the Body, and we are knit together and joined together, growing together with the growth of God. Hallelujah!

The entire New Testament tells us of our need to grow and mature in the spiritual life, for our growth unto maturity is for the building up of the Body of Christ and the preparation of the bride of Christ!

Lord Jesus, impress us with our urgent need to grow and mature in the divine life for the building up of the church as the Body of Christ and the bride of Christ. Amen, Lord, we choose to forget the things behind and stretch forward to the things before so that we may gain more of Christ today! Give today’s portion of grace so that we may grow in life unto maturity in a normal way. May Your life in us grow and perfect us to make us perfect in life, even as our heavenly Father is perfect. Lord, may we be brought on to maturity! We come to You in Your word to drink the guileless milk of the word so that we may grow unto salvation! We hold You as the Head, holding to truth in love to grow up into Christ in all things. Amen, Lord, grow in us. Bring us on to maturity in the life of Christ. May we grow with the growth of God for the preparation of the bride of Christ! Amen, Lord, cause the growth in us and in all the saints for You to gain a mature bride!

References and Hymns on this Topic

• Inspiration for this article/sharing comes from the Word of God, the enjoyment in the ministry, a sharing by the brother Ray Mulligan in this conference, and portions from, Life Lessons, vol. 4, lesson 46 (by Witness Lee), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, The Maturity of the Bride (2025 Memorial Day Blending Conference), week 3, The Building of the Bride – day 2.
• Similar articles on this topic:
  – The church being the bride of Christ, a portion from, Five Great Mysteries in the Bible, Chapter 5, by Witness Lee.
  – Today we must prepare ourselves to be the Bride [of Christ] by taking in the element of Christ’s riches as our nourishment. Via, Living to Him.
  – Life-study of Ephesians, Message 30: The Way to Grow in Life, via, LSM Youtube.
  – Preparing Christ’s Bride – The Living of His Overcomers, via, Holding to Truth in Love.
  – Christ producing His bride in the new creation by growth and transformation, a portion from, Life-Study of Daniel, Chapter 13, by Witness Lee.
  – Hebrews (Program #29) – The Word of Righteousness and the Word of the Beginning of Christ, via, Bible study radio.
  – The Matured Bride Who Loves the Lord’s Appearing, article in, Affirmation and Critique.
  – Freed from Self for God’s Building Work, via, New Jerusalem blog.
  – Gaining Christ by pursuing Him, a portion from Life-Study of Philippians, Chapter 23.
• Hymns on this topic:
  – By divine regeneration / We the sons of God became, / But we must mature to fullness, / Thus the birthright to obtain. / Born and fully grown to manhood, / God’s adoption we may share; / By the measure of full stature, / We God’s sonship will declare. (Hymns #741 stanza 2)
  – The virgins are mature in life, / They grow so normally. / They daily eat and drink the Lord, / Their lot eternally. / Our need today is growth in life, / Christ’s inward work indeed; / Not knowledge, teachings, gifts, nor pow’r— / But life is all we need. (Hymns #1212 stanza 3)
  – Amen!—The growth in life! / There’s nothing that Your life can’t do; / Our every part renew. / We’ll make it, we’ll make it just by You. / Lord Jesus, grow in us. (Hymns #1132 stanza 8)