As we learn to minister the word of God, we need to see God’s eternal economy, His plan and household economy, which is carried out by God’s dispensing so that He may obtain a corporate expression of Himself, the church as the Body of Christ in this age and the New Jerusalem for eternity.
Lord Jesus, unveil us to see a vision of Your economy. May we realise that You do all things according to Your heart’s desire, that which is in Your heart from eternity. We open to You. Remove any veils for us to see not only what our need is but also what is on Your heart. May a clear, controlling vision of God’s economy direct our heart and govern our daily living. We open to Your divine dispensing. Dispense Yourself in Your divine Trinity into us to make us part of Your corporate expression on the earth! Amen!
This week we come to the topic of Cooperating with the Lord to Carry Out His Economy by Being His Faithful Stewards Who Minister the Word with a Burden from the Lord and Who Coordinate with One Another in One Accord.
What we want to see is that the ministry of the Word of God is related to God’s dispensing for God’s economy. We enjoyed many portions on the ministry of the Word, and now we want to see more concerning God’s dispensing for God’s economy.
We may say that there’s an organic connection between these two matters – the ministry of the Word and God’s dispensing for God’s economy.
The ministry of the Word is God’s dispensing, for by ministering the Word we dispense God into others, and God’s dispensing is for God’s economy.
It is amazing to see in 1 John 5:16 that we can ask and give life to a brother who sins. Wow.
When we see a brother sinning a sin not unto death, we can ask and give life. We don’t have to criticise and spread death, nor should we talk to others about it; we can ask and give life.
Many times we may see a saint sinning and we may either criticise him or mention it to others; instead of doing this, may we ask, pray, and give life.
As we come together, not forsaking our assembling together (Heb. 10:25), we consider one another. We consider the fellow brothers and sisters.
We exhort one another, we pray for one another, and we give life to one another. We may see that a brother or a sister is down, so we pray for them, and we seek the Lord how to give life to them.
What we all need is life; we need more life. We need to pray for one another and minister life to one another so that we may experience God’s dispensing for God’s economy.
God’s Dispensing is for God’s Economy: God’s Dispensing is the Process and Means by which God Accomplishes His Eternal Economy
God’s eternal economy, which is God’s plan, is His household economy, His household administration (see 1 Tim. 1:3-4).
God’s dispensing, God’s distributing of Himself into man, is the process and means whereby He accomplishes His economy. For this reason, God’s dispensing is for God’s economy.
Paul told Timothy to charge certain ones not to teach different things nor to give heed to myths and unending genealogies, which produce questionings rather than God’s economy, which is in faith.
What is God’s economy? In Greek, the word for economy is oikonomia, composed of two words – oikos, meaning house, and nomos, meaning law. Oikonomia is a house law, a household administration.
God has a household administration to dispense Himself into our entire tripartite being so that He may gain and build up the church as the Body of Christ, to prepare us as the bride of Christ, to bring in the kingdom of God, and to consummate the New Jerusalem.
The base of the word oikonomia or economy is of the same origin as that for pasture, as seen in John 10:9; it implies a distribution of the pasture to the flock.
God’s divine dispensing is His divine distributing to all of us who are sheep in God’s flock. He wants to speak nothing else but this, the unique teaching in the Bible, the teaching of God’s eternal economy.
The end of the charge is love; if we teach the unique teaching of God’s eternal economy, the saints are stirred up to love the Lord to the uttermost.
As Paul said in 1 Corinthians 11:2, the ministry of the apostles betroths us to one husband to present us as a pure virgin to Christ. The New Testament ministry is a betrothing ministry, and this ministry is the ministry of God’s eternal economy.
When we are genuinely teaching the unique teaching of God’s eternal economy, those who hear will love the Lord; they will be stirred up in their first love for the Lord, and there will be no more charge: they will simply enjoy God’s dispensing for God’s economy.
The end of the church means the aim of the charge, the object and purpose of the charge, even the issue of the charge.
The issue of the charge is love out of a pure heart, a good conscience, and unfeigned faith.
May we remain under God’s dispensing for God’s economy today. Christ is the center, circumference, element, sphere, means, goal, and aim of God’s economy; in fact, all the contents of God’s eternal economy are simply Christ (Matt. 17:5; Luke 24:44).
In Matthew 17:5 we see that, on the Mount of Transfiguration, as Peter was still speaking something, a bright cloud overshadowed them, and a voice out of the cloud said, This is My Son, the Beloved, in whom I have found My delight: Hear Him!
What God wants us to do is to hear Christ; we should not pay that great of an attention to other things but to Christ!
When we look at Him, we realise that He is all-inclusive, and He is the center, the circumference, the element, the sphere, the means, the goal, and the aim of God’s economy.
The whole Bible, including the Old and the New Testament, speaks about Christ. We need to know Christ, enjoy Christ, experience Christ, and take Christ as our everything.
Unless we know God’s economy, we will not understand the Bible, for the central subject of the Bible is the economy of God, and the entire Bible is concerned with the economy of God (Luke 24:45; Job 10:13; cf. Eph. 3:9).
We need the Lord to open our mind to understand the Scriptures so that we may realise that God’s dispensing is for God’s economy, and that the central subject of the Bible is God’s economy.
When the Lord opens our mind to understand, we will see God’s economy. We need to be enlightened by the Lord to see what is in God’s heart.
We may be like Job, quite perfect and upright in what we do and say, but there is something hidden in God’s heart – His economy.
Unless we see God’s economy, we do not know what is the purpose of our human existence and we do not understand why we go through all the sufferings.
Why are we here on earth? Why do we need to suffer so much? The answer is God’s economy.
We need to exercise our spirit, for God’s economy is revealed in spirit, and touch the Lord in His word.
When we exercise our spirit and come to the Lord’s word, we will be unveiled to see the eternal economy of God and we will experience God’s dispensing for God’s economy.
We will realise that we are created in God’s image to express Him and represent Him, and we will see that God deals with us by means of suffering so that He may strip us and consume us in our outer man so that we may be renewed in our inner man for Christ to be everything to us.
we be enlightened to see what the economy of the mystery is, which throughout the ages has been hidden in God. May we remain under the divine dispensing for the divine economy day by day.
Lord Jesus, we open to You today. We exercise our spirit. Grant us to see a vision of God’s economy. May we see what the economy of the mystery is, which throughout the ages has been hidden in God. Amen, Lord, may we lift up our eyes from ourselves, our situation, and our problems and may we focus only on Christ! Hallelujah, Christ is the center, circumference, element, sphere, means, goal, and aim of God’s economy! Praise the Lord, Christ is everything to God and He is everything to us! Amen, Lord, may we see that all the contents of God’s economy are simply Christ. We want to hear Christ only! Speak to us, Lord! Unveil us to see Christ, enjoy Christ, experience Christ, and express Christ! May we remain under God’s dispensing for God’s economy to be carried out today. Amen, Lord Jesus, we simply open to You! We open to Your divine dispensing. Dispense Yourself with all that You are and have accomplished into us so that we may become Your corporate expression for the fulfilment of Your eternal economy! Amen!
God’s Economy is to Dispense Himself into our Being as Life to Constitute us with Himself as Life and make us Part of His Corporate Expression
What the Bible shows us is the economy of God, which is to dispense Himself into our being so that we may be constituted with His being (John 10:10; 14:6a; 1 Cor. 15:45b; Rom. 8:2, 6, 10-11).
God is life; He is the divine life, the uncreated, eternal life, and He wants to dispense Himself as life into our whole being so that He may gain a corporate expression of Himself in humanity.
This can be accomplished only by God dispensing Himself into us as the divine life.
In Greek there are three words for life: bios (referring to the physical life of the body), psuche (referring to the psychological life of the soul), and zoe (referring to the divine life of God).
God came in Christ as life to dispense Himself as the divine life into our being.
First, He comes into our spirit to regenerate our spirit with His life; when we heard the gospel and repented and called on the Lord, we received the divine dispensing of God’s life into our spirit, and our spirit became life. Wow, our spirit is life (Rom. 8:11)!
By means of God’s dispensing, which takes place all the time in our spirit, our spirit is life. Wonderful!
Then, when we set our mind on our spirit, when we open to God’s dispensing for God’s economy in our soul, our mind becomes life. The mind set on the spirit is life (v. 6). Our mind can become life! Hallelujah!
Even more, our body will be swallowed up by life, for God will impart the divine life even to our mortal body to fill it with His life.
On His side, God went through a process so that He as life can enter into us. He wants to dispense Himself into us as life, be enjoyed by us as life, and be expressed through us as life.
So He was processed through incarnation, human living, crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension. Now He is the zoe life, the divine life of God, to be dispensed into us so that we may enjoy Him and partake of Him.
By means of His divine dispensing of God in His Trinity, we receive God as life, and we are produced to be the church as the Body of Christ.
We simply need to day by day allow God to carry out His divine dispensing. As we live our daily life, we need to not centre or focus on ourselves but focus on the Lord.
We need to come to the Lord and contact Him throughout the day so that His element may increase in us.
As He grows in us, as the element of God increases in us. we are being transformed and prepared to be the bride of Christ, the counterpart of Christ.
We will eventually become the New Jerusalem as the ultimate consummation of Christ and the church.
As Revelation 21:1 – 22:5 shows us, we will be part of the mutual dwelling place of God and man, the ultimate and full expression of the processed Triune God!
Today we open to His dispensing, and God’s dispensing is for God’s economy. He is heading us up in Himself, and there is peace and harmony in the church. Then, through the church, God will head up all things in Christ. Hallelujah!
This is God’s economy. God’s economy is not for our achievement but for us as God’s people to be filled by the Spirit to the extent that the Lord becomes everything in us so that we may be delivered from the old man and may be built up with all the saints to be God’s habitation.
He dispenses Himself into us to obtain a corporate expression of Himself, the church!
The goal of God’s economy is this corporate expression in a group of people. He created us for this (Gen. 1:26), and He does all things in us and around us for this.
He put man in front of the tree of life so that He may dispense Himself as life into man.
Today He is working in us and around us to save us, regenerate us, transform us, and build us up for Him to gain a corporate expression of Himself. We simply need to remain open to God’s dispensing for God’s economy.
Lord Jesus, we want to cooperate with You today by remaining open to God’s dispensing for God’s economy! Thank You for dispensing Yourself as life into our spirit to regenerate our spirit and make our spirit life! Hallelujah, our spirit is life because of righteousness, for God in Christ as the Spirit is life in our spirit! We exercise our spirit today, Lord, and we want to live in our spirit. We set our mind on our spirit. Spread as life from our spirit into our mind. Oh Lord, we open to Your divine dispensing in our mind so that even our mind may become life! Praise the Lord, one day God will dispense His life even to our mortal body to swallow it up in life and make our whole being life! Amen, Lord, we open to God’s dispensing for God’s economy! Dispense Yourself into us more today for You to gain Your corporate expression in humanity! Gain the church as the Body of Christ, the bride of Christ, and the kingdom of God, consummating in the New Jerusalem! Amen!
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 brothers on this topic, and portions from, Collected Works of Witness Lee, 1990, vol. 3, “The Economy and Dispensing of God,” chs. 1-2, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, The Ministry of the Word and God’s Dispensing for God’s Economy (2026 March ITERO), week 5, “Cooperating with the Lord to Carry Out His Economy by Being His Faithful Stewards Who Minister the Word with a Burden from the Lord and Who Coordinate with One Another in One Accord” – day 1.
- Hymns on this topic:
– God has worked in three directions / For His plan so marvelous: / As the Father, Son, and Spirit / To dispense Himself to us! / All creation gives the setting— / Heav’n and earth are for this plan; / ’Tis for this God made a body, / Soul and spirit—three-part man. / As the center, as the kernel, / Of God’s plan our spirit is; / Calling on the name of Jesus / Makes our spirit one with His. / From the center to circumference / God would saturate each part; / Feeling, mind, and will renewing, / Making home in all our heart. (Hymns #1325 stanzas 3-4)
– In the center of our being, past our mind, emotion, will, / Is a certain spot created to contain the Lord until / By His flowing and His flooding He will all our being fill; / Yes, mingling is the way. / Now within the Lord’s recov’ry, we’re so glad to find the way / To experience the Triune God and live by Him today— / Get into the mingled spirit, and within the spirit stay; / Yes, mingling is the way. (Hymns #1199 stanzas 2-3)
– In His Christ to head up all things / Is our God’s economy; / Taking Christ as Head and Center, / All is one in harmony. / Christ as Head will be the Center; / God within will be the Light; / Christ enthroned, with God, His substance, / Will fulfill His heart’s delight. (Hymns #981 stanzas 1-2)
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