THE WAY TO SUPPLY AND APPLY
THIS LIFE-DISPENSING OF CHRIST IN
THE BELIEVERS’ MEETINGS AND SERVICE
Perfecting the Saints
To practice the new way today is to apply this life-dispensing of Christ practically to our meetings and service. For this we must perfect the saints through the group meetings (Heb. 10:24-25) so that all the saints will be the same as we are, enjoying the life dispensing of Christ to become members who are the supplying joints in the Body of Christ for the perfecting of the other members (Eph. 4:16, 11-12a) that every member in the Body of Christ may be able to do the work of the New Testament ministry, which is the building up of the Body of Christ (Eph. 4:12b).
Prophesying to Build Up the Church
Next, we need to learn and to practice prophesying. Prophesying in the church meetings (1 Cor. 14:23a) is the most excelling gift for the building up of the church (1 Cor. 14:3-5). That is why Paul charged us to pursue and to desire earnestly the prophesying (1 Cor. 14:1, 39a) and to learn to prophesy (1 Cor. 14:31). How can we reach the stage where we can speak for the Lord in the meetings? It is by opening to the Lord to fellowship with Him constantly in our daily life and to abide in Him unceasingly (John 15:5, 7). We also need to be soaked in the Lord’s word, to receive Him as the living water and the spiritual food, so that we receive His rich dispensing daily through His word. In this way we will have a deposit, a saving, of the Lord’s word (1 Tim. 6:20 and note 1; 2 Tim 1:14) and will have the spiritual sight to discern all things (1 Cor. 2:15a, 16b).
This is the dispensing of God in us as described in 1 Corinthians. This dispensing will uphold us in our meetings and service. The result is that we will have the divine dispensing within and the organic activities without. It is by this way that our meetings and service can be one with our inner life and can have Christ as their content and reality.
(A message given by Brother Witness Lee in San Jose, California, on August 29, 1990)
(The Economy and Dispensing of God, Chapter 6, by Witness Lee)
