Serving the Church of the Living God as the Organic Body of Christ (4)


	Serving the Church of the Living God as the Organic Body of Christ (4) When we really see that the church is a divine organism as the Body of Christ, we realize that certain things are necessary for such an organism to exist and function. First of all, the church must have a physical existence; it cannot merely be a phantom. Second, the church as the Body must have life; it must be alive. Third, the church as the Body must possess Christ's person and exhibit Christ's personality. The Church as the Body Must Possess the Spirit as the Reality of Christ's Person When the Spirit is with the Church, No One Can Predict What Will Take Place When we speak of the church having the person and personality of Christ, the most crucial thing to pay attention to is the Spirit, and in a good sense when the Spirit is present you do not know what is going to happen in the church life. Brother Lee told me that during the revival in Chefoo, no one knew what was going to happen when they met together. One night everyone just wept for two hours. No one knows how the Spirit will work when the Lord has His way in the church life. When the meetings are all planned out and actually always go according to plan, there is something wrong. You have to allow the Lord to move. Many times Brother Lee testified that he came forward to speak not knowing which verse he should share from until he opened his Bible. That time of revival produced something that was lasting. When the Spirit is Able to Operate Freely, the Pillars Can Be Manifested I have sometimes wondered how Chefoo, a relatively small city, could have produced so many good serving ones to stand with Brother Lee. The brothers raised up by Brother Lee in Chefoo became my serving ones in Taipei. To give an example, I eventually was assigned to serve in a hall where everyone was much older than I was. I was charged to give the message on the Lord's Day, and I did not know what to share, so I memorized material from Watchman Nee's Twelve Baskets Full. Even today I am thankful for that labor. As I read those messages, I became inspired to the point that each message became my message. One Lord's Day, one a leading elders from Taipei visited our hall. I was nervous, but he simply smiled as I shared, and that really strengthened me. He did not work with me as I work with you, directing you and interrupting you; he worked with me by his facial expression. He was one of the brothers raised up in Chefoo by Witness Lee. The Spirit became prevailing in that city, and therefore the operation of many brothers could become manifested. Nearly every brother who raised up the church life on Taiwan came out of that Chefoo revival, and was a fruit of Brother Lee's ministry, for Brother Lee was able to open a way for the Spirit to operate in a free and strong way. In the Body life what the Lord is after are pillars - those who can support, uphold, lead, and carry on the Lord's testimony. Such people exercise to work, operate, abide, live, and exercise according to the Spirit. A pillar is a person who has become somewhat clear before the Lord. Many things may come up in an attempt to disrupt and distract over time, but a pillar is someone who will not be put off from the Spirit. When the Spirit is Able to Operate Freely, We Are Captured By the Lord's Touch, And Guarded Against Satan's Accusations Regarding Christ and the Church In a family, no one can hide from the other family members' view. Your children, for example, know what you eat when you get up, and they know whether you pray or not, and how much you really read the Bible. But in a family there is enough love to cover everyone's weaknesses. Love is why children are somewhat blind to their parents' shortcomings. In mainland China, however, the communists found a way to help children become "clear" about the shortcomings of their parents. Once someone is led to believe that their parents are improper, in principle all the accusations can be substantiated by things the children have experienced while under their parents' care, for in a family opportunities for failure are rife. For some reason, however, in a healthy situation, we are blind to our parents' weaknesses and failures. My daughter, for example, still comes to me when she has a question about the Bible or when she is having a difficulty knowing the Lord's leading, even though she knows I do not always succeed in practicing everything I preach. The parent has a certain touch with his or her child that cannot be easily broken. Your relationship with the Lord must be like this. If the Lord has you under this kind of touch, you cannot deny Him and you cannot get away from Him, regardless of how the enemy might accuse the Lord to you, for within you there is a firm conviction, "I know my Lord, and I know He is the Person of the church." In my many years in the church life, I have seen many things, but I have never lost my confidence towards the church. Why? Because I have enjoyed and experienced the living Christ as the church's Person. When Christ as the Spirit has been enjoyed by you and experienced by you in this way, it becomes very hard for you to leave the church life. If a brother is able to easily leave, it may be because he never allowed the Lord to bring him under His touch in the church life. In Whatever Spiritual Exercises We Take Part In, We Must Experience Christ as the Spirit If We Are To Bring About the Reality of the Body Through Those Exercises Brothers, do not think that the church needs things to be planned out in order to be healthy. The Spirit may lead you to plan things, and when the Spirit has led someone to do something on your behalf, you need to receive it through the Spirit. For instance, when your team is given an assignment, can you receive it as something from the Lord's hand for you? Or would you feel either, "Thanks be to God we got a good chapter," or if you are assigned a somewhat obscure chapter, would you think, "How unfortunate we are"? As those in the Body, we must realize that Christ's Person is needed for everything we do. If you desire to experience this Person, you must have the Spirit. All the spiritual things are realized only by the Spirit, in the Spirit, and through the Spirit. Every spiritual exercise becomes simply a thing to do if the Spirit as the Person of Christ is not involved. If you are in the mode of taking things simply as activities, you will have very little experience of the Body. In Spirit there is such a life giving Person to be the reality of the Body. To Experience the Spirit as the Person of Christ, You Must Experience His Divinity, Humanity, and Resurrection His Divinity is Full of Divine Attributes, Including Eternity The operation of the Spirit causes you to realize what kind of Person Christ is. Then as you are experiencing the Spirit, you experience His divinity, humanity, and resurrection. These three items conclude in resurrection. Who is in your spirit as a Person? His name is Resurrection. Resurrection generates all that you need. What produce that resurrection? His divinity plus His humanity. Once we touch this Person, we touch His divinity, which means we touch His divine attributes, such as love, light, holiness and righteousness, and many other things, even including eternity. The older you become, the more you realize that many things you cared about when you were younger weren't really worthy of much concern. The way you dress, for example, is not really that important after you somewhat lose your fear of what others think of you. When you become old, you become more aware of the hypocrisy and falseness of many things. You gain a fuller appreciation for how foolish you have been in the past, and how foolish you continue to be, and it can scare you. I ask myself, "How is it that I can still be here in the Lord's recovery, knowing now what I know about myself?" For example, from my youth I was naughty and lazy. When I applied to enter junior high school, I could not even write my name properly. I never had any interest in studying. I doubt I even read one book during my primary school years. But there is a divine attribute that doesn't seem to care whether you know how to write your name or not at a certain point in your life. I finished high school at nineteen. Since I began seventh grade at age nine, it took me ten years to get through those six grades. Of course, we were running from city to city from the communists, but that is not a good excuse, since I never studied when I had the opportunity anyway. Then one day I laid hold of a copy of the Brothers Grimm fairytales. That book really opened my eyes. After that I read the Three Musketeers, and then one classic after another. Through those works I became aware that there was something to human life beyond what I had ever realized. I was fifteen at the time, and up until that time I only knew how to play around. Sometimes I look at myself and marvel at the Lord's love for me. Many of you here are much more worthy of the Lord's love than I am. Anyway, whether you are so good or so bad, eventually you all need to realize that in the divine attributes, besides love, holiness, light and righteousness, there is an attribute called eternity. When you really touch the Lord, you touch eternity. When you touch eternity, you touch something unspeakable. Even after you botch things up terribly, if you touch the Lord you touch something divine called eternity, and in this divine attribute you find something unshakeable. Once you touch eternity in God you experience real restfulness and are able to pray, "Lord, there is no reason you should save me. Yet you not only saved me, you also caused me to love You, and to consecrate myself to You. I change and even sometimes slide backwards, but there is something with You called eternity. You never change. When I am so prevailing, You are like this, and when I am defeated, and feeling hopeless and frustrated, You are still the same. You are not only light, love, righteousness, and holiness; You are also eternity." Creativity is a also a Divine Attribute In His divinity, Christ possesses innumerable divine attributes. For instance, can true creativity be anything but a divine attribute? People have some ability to put things together in a limited fashion, but in the divine attributes, however, there is a profound creativity. Let me ask you, when you touch the Lord's person, what have you touched besides love, light, holiness, and righteousness? Have you touched eternity? Have you touched the God's creativity? When we touch Him, we touch His eternal unchangingness, and we also touch Him as the One who is continuously arranging and creating for us whatever we lack. Go Through the Things in the Church Life With Christ In one sense, we do not need programs in the church life. In another sense, we do need many things such as summer school of truth, the Labor Day conference, and so on, but are you able to say that when you do all these things that you have not deviated from the living Person of Christ? You must have the Person of Christ. Anything that has been planned can be dropped, but we can never drop Christ. Some people who go through the things simply go through that thing. Others who go through the same things go through Christ. This living Person is the reality of the church life. When I touch Him, love is here. When I touch Him, light is here. When I touch Him, holiness is here. When I touch Him, righteousness is here. When I touch Him, eternity is here. When I touch Him, creativity is here. Without the Person, the Body Would Only Be a Burden to Be Maintained: We Must Have Christ as the Person of the Body If you take the person away from a living body, there is little difference between that body and a vegetable. And actually, to maintain such a body becomes merely a burden to be borne, a headache. When the person is gone, what is the difference between this human body remaining alive or dying? The person is gone. If in the church life you are aiming at and struggling to do many things, you must be doing these things with Christ, or else your labor is not producing anything that will build up the Body. If Christ as the Person is not present, you are off. May the Lord have mercy on us. Can we all go and tell the Lord, "Lord, I don't ask for a great revival. But I surely desire that, after this one year, something concrete can take place in me so that nothing can come and take me away from You. I may go through trials and difficulties, but I ask to be kept in You as I bear what You have committed to me. May my life never deviate from You or Your commitment." Amen.