For the reality of the Body of Christ, God has blended the Body together; He is adjusting, harmonizing, tempering, and mingling the members of the Body so that any distinctions would be lost, and all the believers would be ushered into the reality of the Body of Christ.
On our side, however, we need to cooperate with God’s blending work; we need to open to the Lord to be blended together through much and thorough fellowship, allowing the cross to operate in us and put our natural life and independence to death, so that we may do all things by the Spirit in order to minister Christ to others.
The Lord desires to gain the reality of the Body of Christ among us; for us to enter into this reality, we need to realize that we are members of the Body, and we need to be vitally related and connected with the fellow members in the Body.
The Lord put us together with certain members in the Body, and the supply from Him as the Head comes not only directly but also indirectly; actually, the supply from the Head many times comes through our fellow members in the Body.
So if we reject the supply from a fellow member in the Body, we actually reject the supply from Christ, but when we accept the help from our fellow members, we accept Christ’s help.
May the Lord save us from being individualistic Christians, those who think that they can make it without the fellow members in the Body!
May we learn to depend not only on Christ, the Head but also on the members of the Body which the Lord has put with us!
No matter how mature in life or how new in the Lord we may be, we need to depend on the Lord and also on the saints for our going on with the Lord.
We live because the saints stand firm in the Lord; our going on is for the saints, their going on is for us, for we need one another desperately.
When Paul was in prison, he was not so spiritual that he never accepted others’ help or prayer; rather, he encouraged the saints to pray for them, and he was assured that even the situation he was in, this will turn out to his salvation through the saints’ petition and the bountiful supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ (Phil. 1:19-21).
In a very real sense, our salvation and our going on in the Lord depends not only on the Lord and our relationship with Him but also on our interdependence in the Body together with the other members that He has placed us with.
We all have the experience that, at a certain point in our life, we were dry and had no way to go on, so we needed the brothers and the sisters to intercede for us before we can get through.
When we pray for one another, even keeping one another in our prayer daily, we go on together, we are sustained, we are supplied, and we can go on together.
God has Blended the Body Together for the Reality of the Body of Christ; we need the Blending!
In 1 Cor. 12:24 Paul says that God has blended the Body together; this blending is for the reality of the Body of Christ.
This word, blended, also means adjusted, harmonized, tempered, and mingled. To be blended implies that we lose our distinctions.
The purpose of blending is that we all would be ushered into the reality of the Body of Christ.
God has blended the Body together, giving more abundant honor to the member that lacked, that there would be no division in the Body, but that the members of the Body would have the same care for one another.
And when one member suffers, all the members suffer with it, and when one member is glorified, all the members rejoice with it.
For us to be brought into the reality of the Body of Christ, we need to be blended together.
Blending is the way to bring us into the reality of the Body of Christ; when we are blended together, we are kept in oneness and in one accord in the church life for the building up of the Body of Christ.
On one hand, what we have is the local churches, which the Lord has ordained to be the local expressions of the one universal Body of Christ.
On the other hand, the local churches are the procedure for us to be brought into the reality of the Body of Christ as the goal.
In the Lord’s recovery, the Lord has recovered the matter of being on the ground of oneness, meeting in the local churches, and keeping the oneness of the Body of Christ; the highest peak of the Lord’s recovery is for God to produce not many local churches in a physical way but an organic Body for Christ as His organism.
The highest peak of the Lord’s recovery that can really, practically, and actually carry out God’s economy is the building up of the Body in reality in the local churches.
The goal of our living the church life on the ground of oneness is so that we may build up the Body of Christ.
For this, we need to be blended together; Paul was speaking of this in 1 Cor. 10:18 where he said that the church is one bread.
In the Old Testament, we see the meal offering (Lev. 2:4), and every part of the flour of the meal-offering was mingled with the oil – this is blending.
Similarly today, in church life we need to be blended together for the reality of the Body of Christ. Hardly anyone speaks about blending because this is not only very high and deep but also very mysterious.
Blending is not a physical matter; rather, the significance of blending is the reality of the Body of Christ.
When we are blended together, we become one meal offering, the reality of the Body of Christ.
On His side, God has blended the Body together; on our side, we need to be blended together in the Body. How can we be adjusted, harmonized, tempered, and mingled together?
It is by going through the cross and being by the Spirit, dispensing Christ to others for the sake of the Body.
When we meet with the saints, we need to allow the cross to operate in us and eliminate anything that the Lord exposes in our being; anything of the self, the natural man, the flesh, and everything of our independence and individualism needs to be removed, and we should do all things by the Spirit, seeking to dispense Christ into others for the building up of the Body.
What we do and say in the meeting should not be for our interest or according to our taste, but for the church. In this way, we are blended together.
Thank You, Lord, for blending the Body together for the reality of the Body of Christ. We open to Your adjusting, harmonizing, tempering, and mingling in the Body, so that we may lose our distinction. Amen, Lord, bring us into the reality of the Body of Christ by our being blended together. We want to live the church life in the local churches in the blending so that we may be in the reality of the Body of Christ! Blend us together, Lord, so that we may enter into the reality of the Body! May we all be blended for the reality of the Body of Christ by going through the cross and being by the Spirit to dispense Christ into others for the building up of the Body of Christ!
Being Blended together by Stopping to Fellowship with Others through the Cross and by the Spirit for the Reality of the Body of Christ
We may have heard this word, blending, and especially in the church life, we may speak a lot about being blended, going to a blending conference, going on a blending trip, and blending via zoom.
But blending is much more than meeting with some saints that are not from our locality or visiting some saints that we don’t usually meet with.
Blending means that we should always stop in order to fellowship with others; before we do something or go somewhere before we’re about to engage in a certain activity, we need to stop and fellowship.
If we have the consciousness of the Body of Christ and are in the blending and reality of the Body of Christ, we will not do anything without fellowshipping with the other saints who are coordinating with us.
We are blended together by stopping to fellowship with others, and our fellowship is through the cross and by the Spirit.
As we stop to fellowship, we are tempered, adjusted, harmonized, and mingled; fellowship tempers us, fellowship adjusts us, fellowship harmonizes us, and fellowship mingles us.
The practical way for us to be blended together is to have much and thorough fellowship; the elders need to have much fellowship among themselves, the serving ones need to have fellowship, the saints need to have fellowship, and everyone in the church needs to have much fellowship.
Before a co-worker does anything, he should fellowship with the other co-workers; before an elder does anything, he should fellowship with the other elders.
All the saints need to learn to fellowship, for in our coordination in the church life, we all have to learn not to do anything without fellowship.
This doesn’t mean that we’re about to go shopping and we have to call another brother to check if our shopping list is OK or not; no, we’re not talking about such things.
We need to learn to just pray together, open in spirit to one another, and allow others to speak to us, touch us, and render us help from the Lord.
Merely meeting together again and again may not automatically imply that we are blended together; to be blended means that we’re touch by others and that we’re touching others by going through the cross, doing things by the Spirit, and doing everything to dispense Christ for the sake of the Body.
Having fellowship and being blended doesn’t mean that we call someone to tell him about our problems; it means that we allow the cross to operate in us, we open to others in spirit, and we do all things by the Spirit for the building up of the church.
We leaven our soul-life aside, we let our self go, we take up our cross, we forsake our preferences, desires, opinions, likes, and dislikes, and we allow the Lord to touch us through our fellowship with others.
At the same time, we learn to dispense Christ to one another for the sake of the Body.
If we all do this, there will be a sweet fragrance of the cross, the oneness, the sweetness, the harmony, and the one accord, and we will be in reality the Body of Christ.
Such a blending is not something social but the blending of the very Christ whom the individual members, the district churches, the co-workers, and the elders enjoy, experience, and partake of.
We need to realize that blend is the Body; blending is the oneness; blending is the one accord. It is by our being blended together that we build up the Body of Christ to consummate the New Jerusalem as the final goal of God’s economy according to His good pleasure (Eph. 1:23; Rev. 21:2; Eph. 3:8-10; 1:9-10). Amen!
The reality of the Body of Christ as the continuation and reproduction of the living of Jesus on earth in His corporate Body is not lived by one member, a brother, or anyone else, but by a group of saints living corporately by being blended together into one!
Amen, this blending is the reality of the Body, and where there is this reality, there is the Zion, the strengthening, the peak, the strength, the beauty, and the blessing in that local church. Amen! May this be the case with us in the church life in the Lord’s recovery!
Lord Jesus, we want to be blended together by stopping to fellowship with one another in the Body of Christ. May we have the consciousness of the Body and be in the blending and reality of the Body of Christ, doing nothing without fellowship with the other saints who are coordinating with us! Amen, Lord, may we all learn not to do anything without fellowship, and may our fellowship be through the cross, by the Spirit, so that we may minister Christ to one another. Save us from merely having social meetings with some Bible reading or prayer; bring us into the reality of the Body of Christ by our being blended together so that we may have the oneness and the one accord! Amen, Lord Jesus, gain this with us in the church life!
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Sources of inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message by Minoru Chen for this week, and portions from, Collected Works of Witness Lee, 1994-1997, vol. 1, “The Practical Points concerning Blending,” chs. 1-3, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, The Christian Life, the Church Life, the Consummation of the Age, and the Coming of the Lord (2020 fall ITERO), week 6, Entering into the Intrinsic Significance of the Reality of the Body of Christ — the Highest Peak in God’s Economy and the Top Revelation of the Bible.
- Hymns on this topic:
– God would have a group of people / Built together in His plan, / Blended, knit, coordinated / As His vessel—one new man. / God would come into this vessel / With His nature, life and ways, / Mingling Spirit with our spirits / For His joy and to His praise. (Hymns #1325)
– For the sake of Your Body, Lord, unveil our eyes, / Deal with self, all the ground to You we give. / Save us from independence and all natural ties. / Blend us all in Your Body to live. / One with Christ in His Body, in the rich supply, / Every part causing growth in love each day. / Thus God’s purpose eternal will be realized— / Christ expressed through His Body for aye. (Song on, From the Head to the Body)
– Blend us, Lord, blend us, Lord, ’til we are in one accord. / Hallelujah—the saints going on! / Blend us, Lord, blend us, Lord, open hearts we can afford. / Hallelujah—the churches go on! / As the members of / His organic Body, / We need the others to go on. / As local churches, / We do also need / One another for our going on. (Song on, Blend us, Lord, Blend us, Lord)
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