Week of 23 May 2021

HWMR

The Intrinsic Growth of the Church for Its Organic Increase

The intrinsic growth, the organic growth, of the church is the growth in the divine life. This life is the processed and dispensing Triune God.The church grows in this life, by this life, with this life, and through this life. We were born of the divine life, which is God Himself and now God is causing us to grow.

Colossians 2:19 speaks of the growth of the Body, which is the growth of God within us. The growth of the Body depends on what comes out of Christ as the Head. The growth of the Body depends on the growth of God, the addition of God, the increase of God within us. God is not growing in Himself because He is complete and perfect; He is growing within us. Only God can give growth; only God can give us Himself and without Him we cannot have growth. How much room God grows within us depends on how much room we give Him to grow.

The church grows until it reaches “the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ”. The fullness of Christ, which is His Body, has a stature; the stature of the fullness of Christ is the stature of the Body of Christ. Because the stature of the church, the Body of Christ, grows, Paul speaks of its measure; this measure is the full-grown man. We need to press on until we all arrive at the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; this is our goal, and we must diligently press toward it until we all reach it

together.

John 3 mentions, “He who has the bride is the bridegroom... He must increase” . The increase in John 3:30a is the bride in verse 29 and the bride is a composition of all the regenerated people. Regeneration not only brings the divine life into the believers, but it also makes them the corporate bride for Christ’s increase. Chapter 3 of the Gospel of John also reveals the increasing Christ, the One who speaks the words of God and who gives the Spirit not by measure. The bride as the increase of Christ is Christ Himself because the Body of Christ — “the Christ” — is the corporate Christ, composed of Christ as the Head and the church as His Body with all the believers as members.

(Source: https://www.churchintaipei.org/bible-truth/conference-training.html)

Experience of Christ as Life

Corporate Pray-reading Focusing on a few Points

There are several points that require our attention when we pray-read corporately. First, our spirit needs to be stirred up. Just as every member in a basketball team is stirred up and ready to play, our spirit must be stirred up and ready to move when we come to a meeting. We are not merely attending a meeting. We must practice coming to the meeting with a spirit that is stirred up. When a basketball game begins, the players do not know to whom the ball will be passed; hence, everyone must be prepared to receive the ball at any time.

Second, we need the instant utterance. Our utterance should be living, not old. We do not pray-read from our memory or from our knowledge. We need new utterances with new inspiration. The more we practice pray-reading the Word, the more we will receive new things.

Brother Nee said that in order to speak for the Lord, we need two kinds of material: stored material, which is what we have prepared, and instant material. When we speak, the instant material is more powerful than the stored material. Some believers have only what is stored, that is, what they have prepared; they do not have the instant material. Some believers are ready to receive new material. They may have prepared enough material so that they can speak for an hour, but as they begin to speak, they have the feeling that they cannot depend on what is stored within them. Hence, they are open to receive new utterances and use new material. This should be our practice. While we are learning to meet according to the Spirit, we should not depend on old material.

We should be prepared to receive new light, make new discoveries, and have new utterances. A brother may be able to recite many verses, but no matter how familiar the verses are to him, every verse that he pray-reads should be fresh and new. Instead of praying old prayers, he should be open to receive new light. Third, we need the skill of functioning with one another. This is the skill of cooperating with one another. On a basketball team the members play as one person. In our meetings there should be one ball. Sometimes our meetings can be likened to a basketball team that plays with many balls. One player dribbles the ball and drops it; he does not care for the next player, and the other players dribble the ball and then drop it. They do not pass the ball to one another, and there is no cooperation. We need a spirit of cooperation and the skill to cooperate. No matter how many saints there are in a meeting, we need an attitude of cooperation, and we should closely follow the Spirit. When a brother prays, he should allow others to follow. We must practice the skills needed for meeting together.

Fourth, we should not stray from the main subject but should fellowship according to the verses given in the meeting. This does not mean that we should be legal. We are free in our spirit, but we should not disregard the subject of the meeting. For example, if the subject of the verses is the Spirit of life, our testimonies should follow this central line. When our speaking is related to the subject, the meeting is not scattered. We must lay a good foundation in our practice so that we meet in spirit, coordinate with one another, and follow the flow of the meeting. The Lord is bringing us into a new flow. We must practice to lay a good foundation and set up a good pattern.

– (Being Desperate to be Delivered from Religious Rituals and Walking According to the Spirit, chap. 16).

Gospel

Speaking for Four Practical Things

Our speaking with prayer, the Spirit, and boldness is for four things. These four things are practical. The first is the preaching of the gospel. The second is the releasing of the truth. The ministering of life is third. The fourth is the recovering of the saints. We speak the holy Word for these four things: to preach the gospel, to release the truth, to minister life, and to recover the weaker ones.

Preaching the Gospel

Let us first consider the preaching of the gospel. On a recent weekend in Taipei 1,104 were baptized. These 1,104 newly baptized saints were all gained not through preaching but through speaking. The 1,104 were brought in by just about ten percent of the church in Taipei. Only a little over three hundred practiced my instruction to speak the gospel. By speaking the gospel every day, they brought in so many. This was by speaking, not by preaching. Learn to speak. We all have to pick up the habit of speaking.

As Christians, we are witnesses of Christ. We should speak Him, making this kind of speaking a habit. When you go to visit your aunt, forget about current events in the news and speak Christ to her. Build up such a habit. You have to believe that when you speak, the Holy Spirit always follows your speaking and honors your speaking, and people will be saved Learn to speak the living word, and learn to speak the rich word. When you speak to your aunt, do not say, “You have to believe in the Lord Jesus; otherwise, you will go to hell.” This kind of speaking will offend people. You have to learn to speak the rich Christ. Tell your aunt that five years ago you never knew how much the Lord Jesus was to you. Tell her by listing all the rich items of Christ. You may tell her, “Now I know that Christ is God's power and wisdom to me. He is also my righteousness, my sanctification, and my redemption.”

If you are going to speak such a rich word, you have to study 1 Corinthians 1. Learn to pick up the riches in the Word. First Corinthians 1 also tells us that we are the called saints, that Christ is ours, which means that Christ is our portion and that we have been called by the faithful God into the fellowship, the enjoyment or the participation, of this portion. Now for us to enjoy this portion, God gives us Christ as power and as wisdom that we may receive Him as our righteousness, our justification; as our sanctification, our holiness; and also as our redemption. You have to pick up all these points from this one chapter.

Actually, today this is easy for you to do because you have the Recovery Version. All these rich items of Christ in 1 Corinthians 1 are pointed out in the footnotes. If you say that you do not understand some of these points, then you can go to the Life-study messages. Some messages purposely explain what it means for Christ to be our sanctification and why He is first our righteousness, then second our sanctification, and last our redemption. The Life-study messages explain these points clearly. For this reason I strongly recommend the Life-studies and the Recovery Version with the footnotes. From these two sources you can find the answers to all your questions, and you can receive the living and rich word.

Human beings are always interested in knowing new things. In this top Christian country, the ears of the people are filled with going to heaven and going to hell. They do not like to hear any more of this. To them you need to speak something concerning the all-inclusive Christ. Pick up some rich word and speak to your relatives. Do not preach, just speak. To preach you may need to study at a seminary, but to speak you just need to pick up the habit. Learn to speak by speaking. Do not dream of a short cut way, saying, “I will fast for three weeks, and then a great revival will come.” Sixty years ago I studied about revivals, and since then I have been watching. Honestly, within these past sixty years I have not seen or heard of one prevailing revival anywhere. God does not take the revival way. God just plants small potatoes like you and me. Then we all speak. If every Christian in this country would speak Christ, this would turn the American continent around. If you had a hundred great evangelists, I do not think that you could accomplish this. We all must learn to speak. Do you not believe that through speaking Christ daily for one year someone would be saved? If we would speak, the number of saints would surely double. The doubling of our number is assured by our habitual speaking of the gospel. Just practice speaking; whether they believe or not is up to them.

(The Home Meetings—The Unique Way for the Increase and the Building Up of the Church, Chapter 7, Section 3)

Baptizing People into the Triune God –Into the Organic Union with the Triune God

In order to baptize people into the Triune God, we must have the impact. We must baptize others with much assurance and confidence that we are not merely putting them into the water but that we are putting them into the Triune God. The water represents, signifies, symbolizes, the Triune God. According to Matthew 28:19, to baptize people into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit means to put them into the organic union with the Triune God.

(The Scriptural Way to Meet and to Serve for the Building Up of the Body of Christ, Chapter 23, Section 3)