God uses All Things in His Sovereignty for our Transformation and Maturity in Life

In His sovereignty, God uses persons, things, and events to empty us of everything that has filled us so that we may have an increased capacity to be filled with God, thus being brought to maturity; our life is under God’s sovereignty for our transformation and maturity so that we may have the overflow of life, blessing all those around us.

Amen, may we remain open to the Lord in this process! As we open to the Lord day by day, we believers in Christ gain more of Christ, and He works Himself into our being.

The result of contacting the Lord and remaining open to His dispensing through all the situations and circumstances we’re in is that the Lord transforms us. He is metabolically changing us in our very nature to make us the same as He is, even to conform us to His image.

Inwardly, He is working to dispense all that He is into our being, adding the divine element to our intrinsic constitution and removing anything natural from us. Outwardly, the Spirit disciplines us so that we may remain open to the Lord, even to have an increased capacity to be filled with God.

We believers in Christ do not live our Christian life according to a code of conduct or even just according to the Bible; we live one with the Lord, we pray-read His word, and we have the anointing within.

The anointing teaches us concerning all things, and we just abide in the Lord. However, if we don’t obey the anointing, which is our case most of the time with us, God comes in to discipline us by the Holy Spirit through our environment and situations.

God uses everything – all circumstances, all things, all persons, and all situations to work for good for us, to conform us to the image of the Lord Jesus.

God really wants Christ, His firstborn Son, to be reproduced in many human beings, and for this He operates in us inwardly and around us outwardly to work Himself into us and increase our capacity to be filled with God.

Praise the Lord, we are in this wonderful organic process of being transformed so that we may be conformed to the image of Christ!

Thank the Lord for His love and mercy, for He is disciplining us in this age so that we may not be disciplined in the next!

May we not resist the Lord but rather, may we cooperate with Him in this age, in our lifetime, so that He may bring us to maturity in life.

He wants to obtain a mature bride, and we are here for this; we give ourselves to the Lord to obtain His bride among us today.

God Sovereignly Uses All Things to Empty us to Help us have an Increased Capacity to be Filled with God

Our God is sovereign; He is full of love, mercy, and grace, and He is also sovereign – without contradicting or denying Himself.

On the one hand, God loves us and does everything for us; He loved us so much that He gave His only begotten Son to come and die for us, so that whoever believes into Him would not perish but have eternal life (John 3:16). What a loving God we have!

Now that we are believers in Christ, God still loves us, and He causes all things to work together for our good, for we love the Lord (Rom. 8:28-29).

God sovereignly uses persons, things, and events in order to empty us of everything that has filled us so that we may have an increased capacity to be filled with God (see Luke 1:53; Matt. 5:6).

He wants us to be poor in spirit and pure in heart; we, however, accumulate things, we are filled with things, and so many preoccupations cause us to be worn out and usurped, and we don’t have any capacity for God.

People nowadays say that they are too busy for God; believers also often say that they need to do so many things and take care of so many things that they don’t have time for the Lord.

But the Lord wants to grow in us unto maturity; He wants to bring us unto maturity so that He may gain a mature bride for Christ.

So He sovereignly uses all things to empty us of everything that has filled us and to take away every preoccupation so that we may be filled with God, even to have an increased capacity to be filled with God! Amen!

There are so many things that fill us; we don’t even realise what fills us until the Lord shines on us and we see how much room in our being is taken by other things. The Lord has to do a work of emptying us and removing any preoccupation from us.

We need to come to the Lord and allow Him to shine on us to expose what the things are in our being and in our experience that limit or frustrate our growth in life unto maturity.

For example, we do not eat properly; we do not regularly eat the Lord. The food is there, we have the Bible, we have the ministry books, and the holy word for morning revival is available to us, but many times we do not eat.

And even if we eat, do we have a proper spiritual digestion? If we eat the Lord daily and regularly, we should be able to live because of Him (John 6:57).

We need to take the word of God, pray over it, eat the Lord as we masticate the word, and allow the Lord to be assimilated into our inner being; for this, we need to give Him the thoroughfare in us.

As we do this, He renews our mind and inwardly changes us. It is not enough just to hear something in the meetings or read something in the Bible; we need to assimilate the word and be constituted with the word.

May we take the Lord’s words, eat them, prayerfully consider them, and let the Lord speak to us (Jer. 15:16).

We need to ask the Lord to give us a hunger for His word; we cannot be lukewarm or remain lukewarm. Lacking a spiritual hunger is something serious; it indicates some kind of spiritual illness or a spiritual problem.

We may hear the Lord’s speaking concerning the preparation of the bride, but we may not be touched by the Lord, but rather, we may just agree and move on.

May we find the Lord’s words, eat them, and exercise to allow the Lord to operate in us and touch us. Another problem we have is the matter of opinions; we know what the ministry says, we know what the Bible says, and we have formed our own opinions.

Opinions frustrate the growth in life unto maturity. Culture also frustrates the growth in life. We need to let the Lord grow in us until He swallows up any opinions and culture.

Individualism also frustrates our growth in life unto maturity; it causes us to be unwilling to cooperate with the Lord and with the saints in the church life. May we open to the Lord’s sovereign arrangement and work to empty us of anything that fills us so that He may remove any preoccupation from us so that He may fill us with Himself and bring us to maturity.

Lord Jesus, we open to You today; work in us and around us to increase our capacity to be filled with God. Amen, Lord, have a way in our being and also have a way in our environment. Have Your way to sovereignly use persons, things, and events to empty us of everything that has filled us so that we may be filled with You! We come to You in Your word, Lord, to eat You and be filled with You. May we find the word of God and may we eat it so that it becomes the gladness and joy of our heart. Renew our mind. Constitute us with Yourself. We give ourselves to You, Lord, to be filled with You! Have a way to use all things to take away every preoccupation so that we may have an increased capacity to be filled with God! Amen, Lord, increase our capacity to be filled with You! Bring us on to maturity so that we may be filled with the divine life that transforms us! Amen, Lord, give us a hunger for You and for Your word! Fill us with Yourself and bring us on to maturity!

Everything that happens to us is under God’s Sovereignty for our Transformation and Maturity

A very good example of someone who experienced transformation and maturity is Jacob; the life of Jacob reveals that everything that happens to us is under God’s sovereignty for our transformation and maturity.

Nothing is accidental in our Christian life; God works in us and around us in order to bring us to maturity, and He wants to transform and mature us to make us part of the bride of Christ.

Jacob’s history must also become our biography. We need to see that everything in our daily life is under God’s sovereign hand for our transformation and maturity.

In Jacob’s life, we see that, even though Jacob was a supplanter, always tricking others for his own benefit, God had a way to bring him through transformation unto maturity until he simply blessed everyone.

In order to become mature, Jacob first had to suffer the loss of Joseph, the treasure of his heart (Gen. 37:31-35).

First, God took him through a long process of transformation; the natural Jacob who was always seeking to gain something from others, went through a process to be transformed.

God’s eternal purpose can only be accomplished through our transformation and maturity; nothing is accidental in our life – God is taking us through a process of being transformed and mature!

Jacob used to trust in his own ability and skill; however, after all the dealings, he was no longer able to trust in himself but in God.

His trust was no longer in his skill or ability but in God. He came to know God’s mercy and realised that it was God’s mercy, not his skill and ability, that had counted in his situations (Gen. 48:15-16).

The Lord is sovereignly using all things, persons, events, and matters around us in order to transform us and mature us. He wants us to learn that our God, who is both merciful and loving, is all-sufficient, and He meets all our needs.

As Jacob said in Genesis 43:14, May the all-sufficient God grant us mercy before the man. Our trust and rest truly need to be in the mercy of our all-sufficient God, not in our own ability, skill, or natural being.

We need to be fully transformed for maturity. This is what we see in Jacob, and this is what the Lord wants to gain in us.

A mature believer has learned that God is merciful and all-sufficient to meet his needs in every kind of situation (Gen. 43:11, 13-14; 17:1; Phil. 1:19-21a; 4:11-12; cf. 1 Tim. 6:6-8).

When we reach maturity, we do not do things in and for ourselves; we do not engage in any activity for ourselves but rather, we trust in God’s mercy and rest absolutely in God’s sovereignty.

Instead of demanding things from others or trying to gain things from them, we depend on the Lord, we trust in Him, and we simply bless others with the Triune God.

Jacob’s supplanting hands became blessing hands; the heel-holder became one who blesses everyone. His trust and rest are altogether in the mercy of his all-sufficient God, no longer in himself or in his ability (Rom. 9:16).

The Lord in His sovereignty is bringing us to the point where we no longer trust in ourselves but we fully trust in the Lord. We no longer rely on what we can do or say but we trust in the Lord. We realise that our God has shepherded us all the days of our life, and we trust in Him.

The strongest sign of Jacob’s maturity was his blessing others (Gen. 47:7, 10; 48:14-16; Heb. 7:7). He blessed Pharaoh, and he blessed all his sons; the issue of our transformation and maturity is that we bless, we simply bless others with the Triune God.

When Jacob blessed his sons and especially the two sons of Joseph, he spoke of God as the God before whom his fathers Abraham and Isaac walked, the God who has shepherded him all his life to that day, and the Angel who has redeemed him from all evil (Gen. 48:16).

Here we see a threefold mention of God, which refers to the Triune God. The God before whom Abraham and Isaac walked must be God the Father, the God who shepherded Jacob his whole life must be the Spirit, and the Angel who redeemed him from all evil must be God the Son.

This was the Triune God in Jacob’s experience; Jacob experienced the Triune God. Today we are experiencing the Triune God for our transformation and maturity, and the strongest sign of our maturity is blessing – we bless all those around us.

We bless those we work with, we bless our family members, and we bless all the saints, for we minister the Triune God into them for their blessing.

When Jacob blessed Pharaoh, he was greater than Pharaoh, for the greater blesses the lesser; after he blessed Pharaoh, he left his presence.

As we experience and enjoy the Triune God, being under God’s sovereign hand in all things and events in our Christian life, we go through transformation unto maturity.

May we cooperate with the Lord in this process in order to arrive at maturity and bless everyone; blessing is the overflow of life.

When we arrive at maturity, we overflow God through our maturity in life. Our lives will have an impact on others, for we will dispense God into them.

Today, we go through sufferings and dealings to be transformed, and the Lord is bringing us to maturity until we simply bless everyone, overflowing the life of God into others! For us to bless others, we must be filled to the brim with life so that it overflows to them.

Lord, we thank You that everything that happens to us is under God’s sovereignty for our transformation and maturity. Hallelujah, nothing is accidental in our Christian life! We open to You, Lord, and we want to be brought on with You for our transformation and maturity. Grant us the experiences we need for us to learn that God is merciful and all-sufficient. May we realise and know that God is all-sufficient to meet all our needs in every kind of situation. Amen, Lord, we trust not in ourselves or our skills but in You, for You are able to meet all our needs. We trust and rest in You, even in Your mercy, for You are our all-sufficient God. We do not trust in our ability or in ourselves. Fill us with Your divine life to overflowing. May Your life overflow through us as blessing to others. Amen, Lord, we believe You are shepherding us all the days of our life to cause us to be transformed and matured. We trust in You and we remain open to You in all the situations and events in our life: bring us on through transformation to maturity!

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-study of Genesis, msg. 93, 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 5.
• Similar articles on this topic:
  – God having granted to us all things related to life and godliness, a portion from, Messages Given to the Working Saints, Chapter 3, by Witness Lee.
  – Genesis (Program #124) – The Reigning Aspect of the Matured Israel (1), via, Bible study radio.
  – God’s desire for us to be one with Christ, filled with Christ, and occupied by Christ to live Christ, a portion from, A Young Man in God’s Plan, Chapter 3, by Witness Lee.
  – Israel in God’s Economy (7) – Our Attitude, via, Shepherding Words.
  – Jacob’s history must also become our biography. A Quote via Instagram.
  – Christ Growing in Our Heart (4): The Significance of Speaking in the Experience of Jacob and Joseph, via, Living to Him.
  – Recognising the sovereignty of God, a portion from, Our Urgent Need – Spirit and Life, Chapter 2, by Witness Lee.
  – Eagerly Wait for New Jerusalem, Looking Away Unto Jesus, via, New Jerusalem blog.
  – The strongest sign of Jacob’s maturity: his blessing of others. A quote via Instagram here.
  – 12 of My Favorite Witness Lee Quotes from the Recovery Version, via, Holding to Truth in Love.
• Hymns on this topic:
  – 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)
  – Minding just the spirit, we the cross will know, / And His resurrection pow’r thru us will flow; / Minding just the spirit, Christ will live thru me, / And His life within will reach maturity. / In the spirit Christ is life and all to me, / Strengthening and blessing all-inclusively; / Living in the spirit, holiness I prove, / And the triune God within my heart doth move. (Hymns #593 stanzas 6-7)
  – Oh to be but emptier, lowlier, / Mean, unnoticed—and unknown, / And to God a vessel holier, / Filled with Christ and Christ alone! / Naught of earth to cloud the glory, / Naught of self the light to dim, / Telling forth His wondrous story, / Emptied to be filled with Him. (Hymns #589 stanza 4)