Our experience of building up the church today is deeply tied to how much we live as a true family with one another in our daily lives. Through our marriage to Christ, we’ve been brought into His household to steward it, to nourish those in it, and to guard it from attack. This responsibility requires not only a sensitivity to life and a discernment of the condition of those in the household, but also a vigilance and execution to prevent darkness and death from entering into the house.
Life, on the one hand, is full of motion and vigor. Our living together in the church life should be just like that — constantly progressing, maturing, growing, and full of energy. On the other hand, when we find a brother or sister spiritually sleepy or sick — not moving — these are signs of death creeping in. In these moments, we need to have a very clear, precise, and swift action to preserve life in one another. In Exodus 4, after Moses had been called by God and was on his way back to Egypt, “at the lodging place on the way, Jehovah came upon him and sought to put him to death” (Exo. 4:24). Why, suddenly, did God want to kill Moses? This “lodging place on the way” represents a condition that is lingering and stagnant, not moving forward. Yet as soon as Zipporah got a sniff of the scent of death, she took immediate and swift action to circumcise — to cut off the flesh (v. 25).
This is the kind of sensitivity to life God wants His wife to execute in His house. When we observe something in the church life that deviates from life, what is our attitude? What is our sense? Do we think everything is fine, so long as it doesn’t get worse? Or do we, like Zipporah, take action based on a very clear discernment of what is life and what is death? Today, we need more concern for one another’s welfare (18:7) in the church and how each member is doing in life (Eph. 6:21). When we care for one another’s welfare — our true living out of the life given to us in the church — we are caring for the very thing that God desires: the building up of His house. As stewards of this household, we take the initiative to guard the life and welfare of our brothers and sisters in the family of God!
(Above are notes of fellowship taken from gatherings on 11/3/2024 and 11/17/2024, not reviewed by the speaker.)