We need to Think the one Thing: Enjoy and Experience Christ for the Church Life

In order for us to be one in soul, we need to think the one thing, which is the subjective knowledge, experience, and enjoyment of Christ; we need to think the one thing – pursuing Christ, gaining Christ, laying hold of Christ, and possessing Christ.

It is quite impossible for all men to think one thing, and therefore they are all divided based on their thinking.

It is also impossible for believers to think one thing, so there are a lot of divisions among Christians today.

But Paul encourages us in Phil. 2:2 to think the one thing, think the same thing, have the same love, and be joined in soul.

This is related not only to the church life but even more, to our enjoyment and experience of Christ.

For us to enjoy Christ in our soul and experience Christ in our spirit, we need to be joined in soul by thinking the one thing.

There are many things around us, and many things are trying to get our attention and grab the focus of our mind.

But we need to think the one thing, having the same love, being joined in soul.

Like Paul in Phil. 3:8, we need to count all things loss on account of the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus our Lord.

He is the supremely precious One. We have nothing else besides Him, and we want nothing else apart from Him.

We consider the knowledge of the wonderful, all-inclusive Christ to be excellent, and on account of this excellency, we are willing to suffer the loss of all things, counting them as refuse that we may gain Christ.

May the Lord unveil us to see His supreme preciousness.

May we be diligent in spending time with the Lord and enjoy Him so that we may touch, taste, and be infused with His preciousness until we drop all things to just enjoy Him.

Our goal should be the fullest gaining of Christ. Our goal should be the fullest enjoyment of Christ, the enjoyment of Christ to the uttermost.

This is what Paul desired and this is what we should all desire.

When the alarm goes off in the morning to wake us up, we need to realize that we have one more day to enjoy the Lord.

Early in the morning, we can turn our heart to the Lord and just enjoy Him.

Yes, we do experience Christ in our spirit, but what about the enjoyment of Christ in our soul?

May we learn to make our heart happy in the Lord and open our soul to Him so that He may shepherd our soul and make our soul comfortable, happy, and delighted in the Lord.

May we learn to deal with our mind, emotion, and will so that we can enjoy Christ and have the fullest enjoyment of Christ day by day.

Focusing our Thinking on the One Thing: the Excellency of the Knowledge of Christ and the Experience and Enjoyment of Christ, God’s Eternal Economy with Christ as the Centrality and Universality

In order for us as believers in Christ to live in the reality of the Body of Christ, we must enjoy Christ by loving Him to the uttermost.

In order for us to love the Lord to the uttermost, our thoughts need to be rescued from being hardened (2 Cor. 3:14), blinded (4:4), rebellious (10:4-5), and corrupted (11:2-3).

May we return to the purity and simplicity of enjoying Christ and focus on nothing else but Christ Himself.

We need to focus our thinking on the one thing: the excellency of the knowledge of Christ and the experience and enjoyment of Christ.

If we look around us, the world has so much to offer; if we look around us in Christianity, the supermarket of “churches” and “ministries” have such a diverse and complex offering.

May we return to the simplicity of enjoying Christ.

May the subjective knowledge, enjoyment, and experience of Christ occupy our mind, emotion, and will, so that we may think the one thing.

Paul was jealous toward the believers with the jealousy of God, for he betrothed them to Christ, the one husband, and he wanted their thoughts to remain simple, not corrupted.

If our thoughts are corrupted, we cannot think the one thing and our love for the Lord is affected.

It is possible for our thoughts to be hardened, for our heart can become hard; this affects our love toward the Lord.

We need to ask the Lord to keep our heart soft toward Him; we need to ask Him to keep our mind soft and open to Him.

Our thoughts can also be blinded; it is possible for us to even be reading the Bible or be in the meeting with the saints, but our thoughts are blinded, and we do not see a fresh vista of Christ.

When our thoughts are blinded, we think that we know everything and have need of nothing.

It is possible for our thoughts to be rebellious; we need to come to the Lord’s word and allow it to overthrow reasonings and every high thing that rises up against the knowledge of God, taking captive every thought unto the obedience of Christ.

Our thinking needs to be saved and rescued from being hardened, blinded, rebellious, and corrupted. Our thinking needs to be focused on the excellency of the knowledge of Christ and the experience and enjoyment of Christ (1 Cor. 1:10; Phil. 3:8-9, 15; 4:2).

When we focus on anything else apart from Christ, we think differently and there are divisions among us.

May we focus on Christ as our unique center appointed by God so that all the problems among us may be solved.

May we not concentrate or focus our attention on anything else apart from Christ.

If we have problems among ourselves or with one another, our focus should be on Christ, not on the problem.

Christ is the unique solution to all our problems, and the enjoyment of Christ – which includes the cross – is the solution to every personal problem we may have.

The one thing that we should think about and focus on is God’s economy with Christ as the centrality and universality; in God’s economy, Christ is all and in all (Col. 3:10-11).

We should not stress or emphasize anything else except Christ; the one thing that should be focused on, stressed, and ministered in the Lord’s recovery is the eternal economy of God (1 Tim. 1:3-4).

This Christ is all-inclusive, extensive, and vast; He is the content of God’s eternal economy.

Christ Himself in His full ministry of three stages is the divine economy (John 1:14; 1 Cor. 15:45b; Rev. 1:4; 3:1; 4:5; 5:6).

God’s desire is to have a recovery purely and wholly of the person of Christ (Col. 1:17b, 18b; 2 Cor. 12:2a; 2:10; 3:3).

Our focus should be on Christ. We need to think the one thing by focusing only on Christ and pursuing the enjoyment and experience of Christ.

Lord Jesus, we love You and we want to enjoy You to the uttermost. Rescue our thoughts from being hardened, blinded, rebellious, and corrupted. May our thinking be focused on the excellence of the knowledge of Christ and the experience and enjoyment of Christ. Save us from focusing on anything else besides Christ in the church life. Oh Lord, we want to think the one thing, which is the enjoyment and experience of Christ! We want to focus on the unique thing in Your heart, Christ Himself! Hallelujah, God’s eternal economy has Christ as its centrality and universality, and we need to focus only on Christ! We turn our heart to You, dear Lord. May our thoughts be focused on the enjoyment and experience of Christ. May our mind, emotion, and will be kept open and soft toward You. May Christ become everything to us as we think the one thing, focusing on Christ and only Christ!

We need to Think the One Thing: the Enjoyment and Experience of Christ for the Church Life

Among the Philippian believers, there was dissension in their thinking (Phil. 4:2), which troubled the apostle Paul.

He therefore asked them to think the same thing, even the one thing, so that they may make his joy full (2:2).

Anything else apart from Christ is like dog food, refuse (Phil. 3:8); when we think differently, when our thinking is not focused on the enjoyment and experience of Christ for the church life, we partake of dog food, refuse, and rubbish. Oh Lord!

Sometimes the brothers get into their mind and have reasonings and sometimes the sisters are in their emotions and there are a lot of murmurings; this is to partake of dog food in our mind and emotion.

The dining table with real food, the enjoyable spiritual food, is in our spirit.

We need to think the one thing: the enjoyment and experience of Christ for the church life; when we think the one thing, we partake of Christ as our food at the dining table in our mingled spirit.

Christ is not merely the objective Christ who did a great work two thousand years ago and is now in heavens on the throne; He is the subjective Christ in our spirit.

We should be constantly thinking about how can we experience Christ as our rich enjoyment so that we may have the proper church life.

To think something other than the one thing is to rebel against God’s economy, for God’s economy is that we think the one thing.

In the church life, we need to learn to help all the saints to think the one thing, focusing on the enjoyment and experience of Christ.

Our thoughts need to be focused on and filled with the enjoyment of Christ for the church life, the Body life.

Nothing else should capture our thoughts.

We all have our disposition, and we may be accustomed to murmuring, reasoning, and complaining; we may think it is OK to utter our opinion or feeling whenever something happens.

If someone offends us, we may remain in our offense, or if we don’t like someone, we may simply avoid them for a long time.

May the Lord have mercy on us and bring us to the point where we think the one thing – the enjoyment and experience of Christ for the church life.

May we be saved from our rebellion against God’s economy and focus only on one thing: Christ Himself.

May we forget about murmuring, reasoning, and complaining, and just focus on Christ.

When we murmur, reason, and complain, we are disobedient to God; yes, we need to bring our murmuring and complaints before God, but after we do this, we should focus on the enjoyment and experience of Christ.

We want our thinking would be focused on the experience and enjoyment of Christ, the gaining of Christ, the possessing of Christ.

This means that, no matter what happens, no matter what others do or say to us, we just want to enjoy Christ and gain Christ.

No matter the outward circumstances, our unique focus is the gaining of Christ.

There may be a delay in our schedule due to unforeseen circumstances, there may be some not-so-pleasant things that are happening to us or to those close to us, or suffering may come our way; no matter what, our focus is to enjoy Christ and gain Christ.

By disposition, we may be inclined to murmur and reason, and complaints rise up in our being; instead of going along with what our untransformed soul wants to do or say, we should simply turn to our spirit and contact the Lord.

When we contact the Lord and focus on Christ, we will think the one thing: the enjoyment and experience of Christ for the church life.

In the church life, we need to encourage and help one another to think one thing: the enjoyment and experience of Christ for the church life.

This one thing should occupy our mind all the time.

If we think the one thing, there’s no room in our thinking for this or that; we will only focus on Christ.

Others may gossip, speak evil things about others, or murmur and complain, but we focus only on the enjoyment and experience of Christ for the church life.

Because of the dissension in their thinking, the Philippian believers had different levels of love (Phil. 2:2), which means that they didn’t have the same love toward all the saints.

For the keeping of the oneness, we need to have the same kind of love toward all the saints, not having different levels of love for different saints.

If our love toward the saints has been regulated and dealt with, then we will enjoy Christ as we love the saints.

Being one in soul, joined in soul, is not only for the experience of Christ but even more for the enjoyment of Christ.

In order for us to enjoy Christ, we need to have a proper soul, a “co-soul” that is one with the souls of the saints.

The way we can have a co-soul with the saints, the same soul, is by thinking the one thing.

Lord Jesus, we want to think the one thing and be one in soul. We want to focus only on the enjoyment and experience of Christ for the church life, the Body life. Amen, Lord, we forget about offenses, murmuring, and reasoning, and we focus only on Christ, the supremely excellent One. We do not want to rebel in Your economy by murmuring and reasoning; we simply want to enjoy You at all times. We want to obey Your economy to think the one thing. Though others may have offended us, we don’t want to think about the offenses. Instead, we want to think only of the enjoyment and experience of Christ. Amen, Lord, may our thoughts be focused on and filled with the enjoyment of Christ for the church life! May we be one in soul, joined in soul, so that we may experience Christ and enjoy Christ!

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 brother Ed Marks in the message for this week, and portions from, Collected Works of Witness Lee, 1978, vol. 1, “The Experience of Christ,” pp. 356-363, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Knowing, Experiencing, and Enjoying Christ as Revealed in Philippians (2023 Memorial Day Weekend Conference), week 3, entitled, Being One in Soul to Enjoy Christ by Thinking the One Thing, by Being One with Christ in His Inward Parts, and by Allowing God to Operate in Us the Willing and the Working for His Good Pleasure.
• Similar articles on this topic:
  – Experiencing Christ for the church life, a portion from, The Experience of Christ, Chapter 4, by Witness Lee.
  – Plugging into the Power Supply for Our Christian Life, article via, Bibles for America blog.
  – Christ is everything, article by Ron Kangas in, Affirmation and Critique.
  – The experience of Christ and the enjoyment of Christ, a portion from, The Experience of Christ, Chapter 3, by Witness Lee.
  – Knowing, Experiencing, and Living the All-inclusive Christ for the Genuine Church Life —Week 3, via, The Church in Regina.
  – Thinking the one thing, a portion from, The Experience of Christ, Chapter 9, by Witness Lee.
• Hymns on this topic:
  – Spreading outward from our spirit / Doth the Lord transform our soul, / By the inward parts renewing, / Till within His full control. / By the power of His Spirit / In His pattern He transforms; / From His glory to His glory / To His image He conforms. (Hymns #750 stanzas 3-4)
  – He within us is the living Spirit / In our spirit, flowing out of it / Into all our heart, transforming every part / By the life which He Himself imparts. / Now He must have our cooperation. / We must set our mind upon the Son. / We must turn away from all that leads astray, / Till our mind is set on Him each day. (Hymns #1193 stanzas 3-4)
  – Every moment, every member, / Girded, waiting Thy command; / Underneath the yoke to labor / Or be laid aside as planned. / When restricted in pursuing, / No disquiet will beset; / Underneath Thy faithful dealing / Not a murmur or regret. / Ever tender, quiet, restful, / Inclinations put away, / That Thou may for me choose freely / As Thy finger points the way. / Live Thyself, Lord Jesus, through me, / For my very life art Thou; / Thee I take to all my problems / As the full solution now. (Hymns #403 stanzas 3-4)