Read part 1 ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑒.
For those who receive and carry this calling, there is a common condition whose thread can be traced to link the saints not just in the local churches, but also many other brothers and sisters throughout history. In the past 2000 years, many saints were hidden in monasteries, nunneries, or in certain denominations, yet they were not denominational; they were not divisive; they did not identify with those systems. They were the Lord’s, and they gave themselves to the Lord’s dispensational move. All their riches have been passed down to us. In very critical stages and eras of the church, the Lord used the purity and singleness of these saints. Like them, we need to come to this core of the ministry, to have this very high density substance — a sustaining power — to answer a very critical need. We need this sustaining power to have a dispensational condition — or, in other words, to have the maturity to live out and speak out a specific testimony for the Lord in this age. Only in this dispensational condition can we hear, see, and have the power and strength to answer the Lord’s calling. If we indeed have that dispensational understanding and dispensational condition, attitude, and mindset to turn the age, we will become the means and fulfill the goal of God’s work.
Becoming God’s means
What is the recovery today? Nobody in current Christianity teaches us to serve the Lord absolutely without consideration. We do. And this is the truth — the reality of a true believer’s life. Without this condition, no one can carry on the gospel of God — no one can say that we are the means and goal of God’s work. We need a condition, not entertaining programs or activities. This condition allows us to truly serve God’s goal and to become His means on the earth today. That is recovery. Recovery is not just attaining the highest truth as the goal, but also recovering the means, or the process, of how we do it. It’s not enough to just have an idea of how high it is or how good it is apart from and outside of us. The recovery of God is so that we are able to have a process to fulfill his means on this earth. We should have a very clear understanding of how we do this because we, as the church, are the means of God’s work.
It is with this recognition of a thorough recovery on an individual level that we came into the church of His desire. We enter into the original purpose for which we were created, and we become fit for this same purpose. God wants to spread out on the earth and he wants to have his counterpart in man. However, understanding spirituality is one thing, but being spiritual is a different thing. Talking about serving the Lord is one thing, but actually serving the Lord is a different thing. To understand what the church is is one thing, but living in the state of being of the church is a different thing. Understand: we are the process, we are the fulfilment — we are the means, we are the goal — of God’s work. We are actually God’s work.
This process of becoming God’s means requires not only that we be individually gained and transformed, but also that we become coordinated together to become His fulfillment. As we are building up His body according to His need, our internal condition is very important. It requires us to actually live by the word of the truth. We need to be on God’s essential line, not just following a system of external approval or ministerial infrastructure. These systems of theory or moral goodness are simply not enough to sustain the requirements of His church or the high nature of His calling. We can only witness what we have and who we are in reality. We need to be “real-deal” believers. We can only build up if we take off our “gloves” and don’t let each other go. The quality of our gospel depends on reality. The quality of our church life depends on reality. We need to live well in reality in order to witness. We need to live well in order to be built up, to submit to the Head, to be one in the body. We need to live a true believer’s life.
The expression of the dispensational condition
To be one in the body, and to be nimble in following His light and His leading as a corporate being in this crooked, evil age, we also are learning practically how our souls must be transformed to meet His need. We need to be beings that can carry out and personify His speaking; in other words, we need to be His literature, and to become “literature beings.” God’s work is carried out by a personified literature, which is the Lord’s speaking. The word dispensed out of us is only powerful if our mind and soul are of His standard. We must ask ourselves first if we know Him, if we have come to His mind, if we have spent time contemplating and being before His Person. If our mind and our soul are not deep, rich, and powerful, we have no way to impact the beings of our friends and colleagues, family and children, or even each other. Without His real life, word, and personhood growing richly in our spirit and mingling with and aligning our souls, we are truly weak and useless — utterly unable to retain and release God’s light to mankind.
If we understand the power behind the Lord’s speaking, then we should take this privilege to live powerfully in this dispensational condition, attitude, and mind. What life is better than this? What life is more joyful than this? If we have been numbed by the world too long, we may not see just how lovely, beautiful and enjoyable this life is. But take a pause. What human life on the earth have you ever seen so free like this, so rich like this — so lively, so vital? Only this life — the church life.
(Above is part 2 of a series compiled from notes of fellowship taken from gatherings at the end of 2018 and compiled into a booklet entitled “The calling and condition of God’s people in the church today.” Read part 3 here.)