Our most desperate need in God’s eyes today is to grow in life. There are millions of believers on the earth today, but where is the built-up Body of Christ? There are so many genuine Christians, but where is the one new man? Who takes Christ as their life and person? Who is paying attention and is desperate about their growth in life?
God Himself is burdened and desirous to gain more men, shepherd the saints, enlarge His kingdom, and preach the gospel unto the ends of the earth, but what He desires most is that His children would grow in life and be matured, arriving at a full-grown man that can fulfill His purpose.
And Satan knows this, and all he does is to make sure he hinders the growth in life of generation after generation of genuine believers in Christ. He may distract us with things, doctrines, spiritual things, outward activities, etc, so that we would not pay attention to what our need really is.
On the cross Christ created in His Body one new man – the new man has been produced, and he is perfect organically (Eph. 2:15). However, this one new man needs to grow and be perfected functionally through the growth in life of all the believers in Christ.
When all believers grow in a normal way every day, the new man comes into being practically, and the function of the one new man in Christ is being manifested. We as believers in Christ put on the new man by growing into Christ in all things. How we need the growth in life today!
Lord give us our portion of growth in life for today. Grow in us. We come to You to hold You as the Head and receive our growth in life from You. Lord, grow in us. We want to gain more God today. We want to cooperate with You to deal with anything in us that would hinder our growth in life!
To Grow in Life is to Grow with the Growth of God
What does it mean to grow in life, and what is it involved in having the growth in the divine life? As Col. 2:19 tells us, our growth in life is the growth of God in us. In Himself, God is complete, perfect, and without a need to grow; in us, God needs to grow unto maturity.
True growth in life is the increase and the addition of God. How much God do you have in your being? How much of Christ is in you? Is it still you who is expressed in your living, speaking, and all the things you do?
To grow in life is not to have some sort of an ethical refinement or a personal improvement in character. To grow in life is to have the measure of God increased in us. It is necessary for us to grow in life!
The Body of Christ is built up by the growth in life of all the members as they hold the Head, and the perfecting of the new man is the growth in life of all the believers in Christ. The Lord is waiting for His believers to grow in life so that they would be one with Him for the fulfillment of His purpose.
We need to grow! We need more God! As John the Baptist said, We must decrease and He must increase (John 3:30).
The New Man is Perfected through the Growth in Life of the Believers
In Eph. 2:15 we see the creation of the new man organically, and in Eph. 4:13-16 we see the perfecting of the new man with regards to his function.
Christ created the one new man on the cross in Himself, and this new man is organically perfect – just as a baby is perfect when he is born. However, the baby needs to grow constantly for the functions in his human life to be developed. We need to grow in life so that the functions of the new man would be manifested.
The new man’s function is to express God and deal with His enemy. Christ as the second man has already defeated Satan, and now the new man in ascension shares His victory to deal with the enemy and apply the victory of Christ to the enemy! God wants a full-grown man who would express Him in full and exercise His dominion.
We need to grow in life by growing into the Head, and then we will function in the Body out from Him. How do we put on the new man? It is by growing into Christ. There’s a desperate need for us all as believers in Christ to grow into Christ in all things.
We need to learn to speak all over again – this time we need to speak with Christ as our person and life, having the proper function within our measure. We need to be perfected! If God has so many children and yet no one is grown up, Gen. 1:26 cannot be fulfilled.
Just as we as human parents are doing our best to feed the newborn baby, cherish him and nourish him so that the human life in him would grow and develop, so God is doing His best to shepherd us, cherish us, nourish us, and take care of us so that we may grow in the divine life unto maturity.
Satan’s job is primarily to hinder the growth in life, and he interferes with the growth in the divine life with generation after generation, delaying the fulfillment of God’s purpose. But we need to see our need to grow and allow God to work Himself into our being!
Let Christ Grow by Experiencing Him
As Eph. 3:16-19 tells us, we need to give the Lord the permission to spread Himself deep into our being so that He may make His home in our heart. This is God’s central work, to build Himself into us and build us into Himself. If we let Christ make His home in our heart, we will grow up into Him in thing after thing – in all things!
As we grow in life, the corporate new man is being perfected in function for the fulfillment of God’s purpose. We simply need to let Him grow in us! We can’t “pull ourselves up by the ears” so that we may grow more, but we can cooperate with Him and let Him grow in us.
For the growth of the corporate new man, we need to experience the crucified, resurrected, ascended, and descending Christ so that He would working Himself into us to be our everything (see Eph. 3:16-17; 4:13, 24)!
As we experience this all-inclusive Christ day by day, in an imperceptible way Christ will grow in us and He is being wrought into our being to be our everything. Slowly but surely, Christ is working Himself into us until He is mingled with our speaking, He lives in our living, and He is expressed through us.
This growth in life by our experience of the all-inclusive Christ is the perfecting of the new man to function for the fulfillment of God’s purpose. How we need to let Christ grow in us and work Himself into us by experiencing Him for our daily growth in life, so that He may gain the perfected one new man!
Lord Jesus, grow in us! We only ask for a normal daily growth in life. Normalize the growth in life throughout all the local churches on the earth. We want to put on the new man by letting You grow in us every day. Strengthen us with power through Your Spirit into our inner man so that Christ may make His home deep down in our heart. Work Yourself into us and build Yourself into us so that we would be rooted and grounded in love and to know the knowledge surpassing love of Christ. Lord, gain the perfected one new man soon!
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Inspiration: the Word of God, my Christian experience, bro. Ron Kangas’ speaking in the message for this week, and portions from, Life-study of Ephesians (msgs. 80, 92), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Entering into the Fourth Stage of the Experience of Life to Arrive at a Full-Grown Man for the Fulfillment of God’s Purpose, week 8 / msg 8, Arriving at a Full-grown Man (2) Growing Up into Christ in All Things, Learning Christ as the Reality Is in Jesus, and Being Renewed in the Spirit of the Mind.
- Hymns on this topic:
# For this growth, for this growth, Lord, ourselves we give, / By the faith, promises, and the pow’r to live. / Nothing more, nothing less, will our basis be / By Thy grace we will cooperate with Thee.
# Lord, gain me; Lord, gain me; / In the Body, Lord, gain me, / For the full expression of the Triune God; / In the Body, Lord, gain me.
# Growing, growing, in us He is growing, / More and more each day. / Into all our living He is flowing— / This is now His way. / For growth, O Lord, we pray; / Increase in us each day. / It’s not enough to know; / Now Thy life in us must grow.
