Our service for the building up of the church is a life-ministering service, a service that ministers life to the saints.
We have seen that we need to serve God by knowing the age, by realizing the way Christ fulfills His economy, by seeing the world situation as the indicator of the Lord’s move, and by spreading the truths of the Lord’s recovery for His coming back.
Our service needs to be with a vision, according to revelation, and in the Body for the building up of the house of God. Furthermore, we need to serve God in our spirit in the gospel of His Son, and our service must be from God.
We have also seen the humanity of one who serves the Lord, and the basis of the service – the fire from the altar. Lastly, we have seen that we need to serve God by prayer according to His heart and will.
This week, our last week on the matter of, Service for the Building up of the Church, we want to see that our service to God in the church must be a life-ministering service. In the sight of God if we serve doing various things that have to be done – but we don’t minister life, our service counts as nothing.
Any person can do a lot of things “for God” in his natural life; there are a lot of clubs, social groups, and charities that all do many beneficial things. If our service is our “spiritual version” of doing good things, and diligently carrying out necessary things in the church, then we are a society and not the church of God.
But if we can see the essential connection between practical necessary outward acts of work and service with the ministering of life, we are truly serving for the building up of the church.
May the Lord save us from mere outward serving and turn us to enjoying life, living Christ, and ministering Christ as life in our daily life and service to God, so that our service would be pleasing and acceptable to Him!
We have Life, we may Experience Life, and we can Minister the Divine Life to others
As believers in Christ and children of God, we not only have eternal life and may experience eternal life, but we can minister this life to other members of the Body of Christ. As seen in 1 John 5:11-16, we have eternal life, which is God Himself in Christ as the Spirit.
Hallelujah, we have the eternal, indestructible, uncreated life of God in our spirit! Because we have this life, we all can experience this life to minister this life to others.
How can we minister life to others? If we see a brother or a sister sinning, this is a clear indication that he or she is short of the divine life; in such a situation, we should open to the Lord and ask Him concerning this one, and life will be ministered to him/her.
However, when it comes to ministering life, we first need to have an extra portion of supply of life in order for us to minister life. Our need is to have a bigger portion of the Lord Jesus, and then we will have a surplus to minister to others – a surplus not of knowledge or doctrine but of God.
Simply having the divine life is not sufficient for us to minister life; only the Lord knows how many millions of regenerated believers there are on earth, but in most cases this life is buried, suppressed, and put down as they live according to the power of their natural life, their soul life.
Life is the processed and consummated Triune God dispensed into us; as believers in Christ, we have the divine life, and when we experience Christ as our life, we experience the dispensing of this life into us with its effects. Furthermore, life is the Triune God living in us; this is the experience of life.
Having the divine life does not automatically mean that we experience this life, just as simply being married doesn’t automatically mean that you have a sweet and precious relationship with your spouse. We cannot minister to others what we ourselves don’t experience.
Day by day we ned to open to the Lord to receive the divine dispensing, and then we need to allow the Lord to actually live in us. We simply need to ALLOW the Lord – just LET Him live in us.
For the span of our life on earth, in a certain sense, we can determine how much the Lord can do in us. Paul encourages us, Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly (Col. 3:16), and, Let the peace of Christ arbitrate in your hearts through faith.
We need to cooperate with the Lord and let Him life in us; when He lives in us, He who is life becomes our experience, and this experienced life is what we minister to others.
To minister life is to impart life; when we have a surplus of the divine life we experience, we can minister from this supply to others (see 1 John 1:1-2; 2:25; 5:11-13, 16). Ministering life to others is not something we do deliberately; the real thing is spontaneous and effortless, and we are not aware of it.
If we just have enough life supply for us to get by and advance a little, we don’t have anything to minister to others. We need to experience Christ as life for the church and the saints, and we need to seek the Lord to have more life supply than we ourselves need right now, so that we may be able to minister life to others.
Lord Jesus, thank You for regenerating us with Your divine life: now we have the eternal life, we may experience this life, and we can minister this life to other members of the Body of Christ! Lord, we want to enjoy and experience You as life more so that we may gain a surplus of life, a bigger portion of Christ as life supply which we can also minister to others! We want to not only have the divine life but also experience life and have Christ live in us. Amen! Lord, we want to seek You daily for a further supply of life for anyone and everyone whom we meet!
Our Service in the Church should Minister Life to Others to Supply them with Life
Those who serve the Lord must be clear that every service should supply life. The elders should not think that their responsibility in the church is merely to handle business affairs and manage matters. The elders should not say that as long as they manage matters and handle business affairs properly, their service is adequate. The deacons should not say that their service is complete after they finish taking care of the business affairs. The church service is to supply life, for it is a service of life. If we merely handle business affairs or manage matters but do not supply others with the life of God, our service is a failure and is vain. We should never think that only those who minister the word are the ones who supply life but that the service of the elders or deacons is merely to handle business affairs and to manage matters. Such a concept is wrong and needs to be corrected. (Witness Lee, The Service for Building Up the House of God, pp. 39-40)
The service which we should render to God for the building up of the church as the house of God should be a life-ministering service, that is, a service of supplying others with the divine life. We may experience death to ourselves and the denying of our self, but others will experience life (2 Cor. 4:12).
God doesn’t need us to DO things for Him; He wants us to enjoy Him, experience Him, and minister Him as life in everything we do. The church service is to supply life – the church service is a service of life (Rom. 8:2, 6, 10-11).
The goal of all our service in the church life – whether it is ministering with the word or maintenance, cleaning, children meeting, etc – is to minister life to others. But if we merely handle business affairs or manage matters in the church but do not supply others with the life of God, our service is a failure and in vain.
If we open to the Lord concerning our service, He will indicate to us through the inner sense of life whether our service in the church ministers life or not. When we sense the fulness of life, brightness, rest, peace, and satisfaction after service, this is an indicator that the service was not in vain.
While we are serving with the children, cleaning, arranging chairs, visiting the saints, coordinating with practical things, etc. we need to have the sense that the divine life is flowing. But if we sense death, we realize that we serve in a natural way, and we need to open to the Lord about this.
No matter what our service may be, we should be clear that our service is a means to supply life to others (see 1 John 5:16; 2 Cor. 4:12). It is necessary for us to serve in many practical things in the church life, but all these services should be a means to supply life.
The service may start as an assignment, but as we contact the Lord and serve, we enjoy the supply of life and minister Christ to others. Again and again as we serve in many aspects in the church life we need to have much enjoyment, experience, and supply of life.
Everything in the church life is for the supply of life, whether it is spiritual or administrative; our preaching the gospel, ministering the word, visitation, cleaning, arranging chairs, coordinating concerning practical things, and sweeping the floor, all are for us to learn to minister Christ as life.
We are not here to accomplish something: we are here to enjoy Christ as life, experience Christ, and minister Christ to others as life.
Lord Jesus, cause us to realize that the service for the building up of the house of God is a life-ministering service, a service of supplying others with the divine life! Save us from merely serving You in many practical things that are necessary in the church life, yet without the ministry of life. Lord, train us inwardly by the sense of life and the fellowship of life to serve in the way of ministering life to others. May it become clear to us that, no matter what our service may be in the church life, our service should be a means to supply life to others!
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message by brother Ron Kangas for this week, and portions from The Service for Building Up the House of God, pp. 39-40 (by Witness Lee), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Service for the Building up of the Church (2016 Spring ITERO), week 8 / msg. 8, A Life-ministering Service.
- All Bible verses are taken from, Holy Bible Recovery Version.
- Hymns on this topic:
# Christ to minister is service / Both to God and others too, / Christ, the surplus, e’er supplying, / Off’ring Him as service true. (Hymns #912)
# Rise up! Grow in life! / Minister Christ to the nations, / Arrive at oneness— / Lord, have mercy, / We would see Your eternal purpose. / Keep us faithful / To recover and build up Your church. (Song on ministering Christ)
# Outward work God never reckons, / But what’s from the inmost part; / It is not to serve in letter, / But life’s newness to impart. (Hymns #908)
About aGodMan
Every service, whether preaching the gospel, giving messages, managing business affairs, or visitation, that is, whether the service is spiritual or administrative, should be a means for us to supply the life that we have received. Preaching the gospel is for the supply of life. Ministering the word is for the supply of life. Visitation is for the supply of life, and serving in the church business office is for the supply of life. Even ordinary things, such as sweeping and cleaning the windows, are a means to supply life. Apparently, there are many items in the church service, but spiritually, these many items have one purpose, which is to supply life.
Although the saints have heard the principles concerning service, I am fellowshipping concerning this again because we need to consider our service. No matter what our service may be, we should be clear that our service is a means to supply life to others. The elders and the deacons must uphold this point.
Whether or not we are adequate in our service, our focus is on supplying life, not on accomplishing something. (W. Lee, The Service for Building Up the House of God, pp. 39-40)
May the Lord have mercy on us so that we would be devoured by a zeal for house of God and so that we would be concern for all the Churches….Amen