For us to be in the reality of the Body of Christ we need to be the overcomers in the churches – the Lord urgently needs the overcomers who live in the reality of the Body of Christ.
What the Lord wants to gain today is the reality of the Body of Christ, for this reality will cause Him to return and bring in His kingdom. The reality of the Body is the highest peak of the divine revelation, and this reality is something organic.
We cannot manufacture this reality, neither can we copy it or imitate it. We either have it or we are in the process of having this reality in our life and in the church life.
We in the church life today are blessed by the Lord to be in His recovery, enjoying all the divine truths and practising the God-ordained way to meet and serve to build up the church as the Body of Christ.
As we practice the church life, however, we need to realise that the church takes the Body of Christ as its organic factor and its intrinsic significance. It is easy to be involved in many necessary activities in the church life yet without living in the reality of the Body of Christ.
It is easy to be busy in the things related to God yet not be in the organic union with the Lord by living in the mingled spirit. Oh Lord Jesus!
We all need to be adjusted by the Lord in His word so that we would no longer merely outwardly live in the sphere of the church life and enjoy the Lord in a general way yet not live in the reality of the Body of Christ.
Without the Body of Christ as its organic factor, the church has no meaning. Without the Body as its intrinsic significance, the church has no sense, and we merely gather together as a social gathering of good people who read “the good Book”.
But when we are organically joined to the Lord and learn to live in the mingled spirit so that we may abide in the Lord all the time, we will live in the reality of the Body of Christ.
The Lord wants more reality, more reality of the Body of Christ, and this can be gained only by our cooperation with Him both individually and corporately.
Individually, we need to contact the Lord every day and learn to live in the mingled spirit, allowing Him to conform us to His death through the cross.
Corporately, we need to be blended together in the Body, ministering Christ to one another through the cross and by the Spirit, so that Christ may live in us and we may have a corporate living of the perfected God-men.
We need much prayer and prayerful musing and pondering over this matter, chewing this matter before the Lord and having many conversations with Him throughout the day so that He may live in us, we may live in Him, and together we would have a corporate living, the reality of the Body of Christ.
Being Blended by Practically Loving one another and Shepherding one another
When we speak of the matter of being blended in the Body for the reality of the Body of Christ we often think that we need to go and visit other localities and fellowship together, but actually, a very practical way for us to blend is to love one another and shepherd one another in the church life.
The elders should shepherd one another and love one another to be a model of the Body life, and their wives also need to love one another and love one another’s children (see John 21:15-17; 1 Cor. 3:4-8).
The blending for the reality of the Body of Christ is not something so spiritual that cannot be achieved until you get to a certain spiritual maturity; rather, in a very practical way, we can practice the Body life in the locality where the Lord placed us by loving one another, caring for one another, and shepherding one another.
Starting from the elders, the responsible ones, and the serving saints, and to all the members of the Body, we all need to be perfected by the Lord and taught by Him to love one another and care for one another.
1 Cor. 13 is a famous chapter on love – this love is not the physical or natural love, the soulish or psychological love, but the spiritual love, the agape love of God.
This love is God Himself as love, and when we live one spirit with Him we will spontaneously love others and care for them. In ourselves we do not have this love, and we don’t have such a love even for our relatives and family members.
We can’t just go and love others, and we don’t have a heart to care for them and shepherd them according to God.
But we can ask the Lord to teach us to love, to suffer long in a forbearing way, with grace and kindness, free from jealousy or boasting.
We can ask the Lord to teach us to love others not in ways unbecoming, but by having a pure affection, not seeking our own things, not being provoked, not reckoning evil doing, but allowing the Lord as love to well up in us and love others.
The Lord as love in us can cover all things, endure all things, hope all things, and survive all things. Underlying the true blending there has to be love. We are built up together in the love of Christ, and this love is the expression of the divine life of Christ being lived out in us.
The most excellent way for us to do anything and be anything in the church life is love. Whether we prophesy or teach or speak in tongues or visit one another, we need to love one another. Love prevails.
Even when we don’t have much to say to others, as long as we love them by the Lord’s love within us, we enter the reality of the Body of Christ and the Body is built up.
If we would have the reality of the Body of Christ, we must allow Christ to make His home in our hearts; the reality of the Body is the inner experience of the indwelling Christ (see Eph. 3:16-17a; 4:16; Col. 1:27; 3:4, 15).
We need to let Christ make His home in our heart, for as He does that, we will be flooded with His love; then, true love will emanate from us.
Our words, attitude, and being will ooze out love, not as a performance but in a genuine way loving others; this love will be expressed in many beautiful and virtuous ways, and this love will bring in the reality of the Body.
The reality of the Body is the inner experience of this indwelling Christ; Christ lives in us as love, and when He makes His home in our soul and all the parts of our heart, His agape love will flow out through us.
Our love is still so selective, so comparative, so measured, so controlled, and so condescending, but Christ who is love lives in us, and as we live Him, He is magnified through us.
Lord Jesus, teach us how to love one another, care for one another, and shepherd one another in the church life. We want to live one spirit with You, Lord, so that Your life in us will well up to flow toward others as love. Oh Lord, bring us into a genuine experience of the reality of the Body through our being blended together by loving one another and by shepherding one another according to God. Amen, Lord, in ourselves we can’t love others and we have no heart to care for them, but we open to Your infilling and living in us, so that You in us would love the saints, care for them, and usher them into the reality of the Body of Christ!
The Lord urgently needs the Overcomers who Live in the Reality of the Body expressed in the Local Churches
Unless there is a substantial expression of the Body in reality, the Lord Jesus will not return; today the Lord needs the reality of the Body of Christ to be expressed in the local churches all over the earth (see Eph. 1:22-23; 4:16; 5:27, 30; Rev. 19:7).
The Lord will come back when He gains the reality of the Body of Christ in the local churches; He will return not merely when there’s a large amount of believers on earth, but when there’s a reality lived out, the reality of the Body of Christ.
But who today lives in the reality of the Body of Christ? It is the overcomers in the churches; these ones see God’s need and care for His economy, and they cooperate with God to live in the reality of the Body of Christ in the local churches.
The Lord needs the overcomers to carry out the economy of God to have the Body of Christ and to destroy His enemy; without the overcomers the Body of Christ cannot be built up, and unless the Body is built up, Christ can’t come back for His bride (see Eph. 1:10; 3:10; Rev. 12:11; 19:7-9).
The overcomers in the churches will bring the Lord back; they will constitute His bride, and they will destroy God’s enemy. The overcomers live in the reality of the Body of Christ, and collectively, they are the reality of Zion in Jerusalem, the peak in the city.
The Lord’s recovery is to build up Zion – the Lord’s recovery is to produce the overcomers as the reality of the Body of Christ consummating in the New Jerusalem; therefore, we today in the church life must endeavour to reach today’s Zion (see Eph. 1:22-23; 4:16; 1 Cor. 1:2; 12:27; Rev. 14:1; 21:2).
The Lord is building up the church life on the local ground of oneness, but His recovery work is even more to gain the overcomers, those who live in the reality of the Body of Christ.
We shouldn’t look at ourselves and be discouraged with our situation, and we should not think that the overcomers are the smart ones, the strong ones, and those who are better than us.
Rather, seeing that the Lord’s need today is for the overcomers who live in the reality of the Body expressed in the local churches, we need to pray to the Lord to make us such ones!
We need to pray that the Lord would produce us as His overcomers, for only by prayer can we reach this high peak. The spiritual reality of Jerusalem is here as a big realm of Christians, but where is Zion, the overcomers?
What the Lord wants and what He builds up is Zion, the overcomers; we need to be those who pray to become the overcomers in our life time.
Lord Jesus, it is Your urgent need to gain the reality of the Body of Christ to be expressed in the local churches; so we pray, Lord, gain us as Your overcomers! Produce us to be those who carry our Your economy and destroy Your enemy. Amen, Lord, we are one with You in Your desire to gain the overcomers who would carry out Your economy to have Your Body and destroy Your enemy! Do it, Lord! Gain the overcomers who live in the reality of the Body of Christ consummating in the New Jerusalem! May we all endeavour to reach today’s Zion!
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message by Minoru Chen for this week, and portions from, The Practical Points concerning Blending, ch. 5 (by Witness Lee), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, The Reality of the Body of Christ (2018 Thanksgiving Conference), week 4, Blending for the Reality of the Body of Christ.
- Hymns on this topic:
# How we love one another! / We are sisters! We are brothers! / How our hearts fill with love / When we think on things above! / Let’s mingle and blend… / Our hearts knit again… / In the spirit of love… / In the fam’ly of God. (Song on, Mingle and blend)
# We believers have been renewed, / Must grow in life and be matured, / Perfected as overcomers / So that we as the builded church, / The corporate Bride, will consummate / All in the New Jerusalem— / Fulfilling God’s, fulfilling God’s / Eternal plan! Eternal plan! (Song on, The Church of God—we are the church)
# Will you be an overcomer? / Will you make this choice? / Christ is calling, Christ is calling, / Listen to His voice! / Will you be an overcomer? / To the Lord be drawn! / Keep the “first love,” never leave it, / Till the break of dawn. (Hymns #894)
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