college-age conference sharing – on our Christian Journey, Lord, make us willing to consecrate ourselves for God’s Building

Our Christian Life is a journey. It begins with our exodus from Egypt and our crossing of the Red Sea. But it doesn’t end there. Rather, our salvation and our baptism were only the beginning of a life long journey with the Lord. So let us not stop or wander forever in the wilderness but press on towards the goal – our destination, which is the tabernacle – God’s Building.

The type of the tabernacle in the Old Testament is a marvelous picture of God’s heart’s desire, showing us in detail what He wants. The first section of the tabernacle is ‘the outer court’ in which we see ‘the altar of the burnt offering’ and ‘the laver’ which we must pass through before the entrance into the tent of meeting. God desires a building and for this He needs building materials. However, we in ourselves are inadequate – we are materials unfit for God’s building. So as we come to the ‘the laver’ we are exposed to see who we really are. God brings us to the point where we realise that we are ‘hopeless cases’. This realisation will cause us to put ourselves on ‘the altar’ so that our self can be burnt away with fire from God. This experience of the cross qualifies us to proceed further so that Christ can replace us with Himself. All this can be done if we are willing. God wants to fill us but He never forces Himself on us. Are you willing to lay yourself on the altar, for the Lord’s sake, for the Lord’s building? Psalms 110:3 says ‘Your people will offer themselves willingly, In the day of your warfare, In the splendor of their consecration‘. The real significance of ‘the altar of the burnt offering’ is our consecration. The Lord wants to make His home in our hearts and He wants to transform us into spiritual stones for His building, but for this we must willingly offer ourselves to the Lord. ‘Lord make us willing’.

The fire at the altar must never go out – it continues for our entire life! This continual experience of a life on the altar is the entrance for God to come in and enter into man. After this kind of experiences at ‘the outer court’ we must go still further, into ‘the Holy Place’, and then all the way into ‘the Holy of Holies’.

The ultimate purpose of the tabernacle in our experience is that we would be ushered into ‘the Holy of Holies’ – our spirit – to become the dwelling place of God.

Within the Holy of Holies is the ark of the testimony which we experience “in the innermost way to become the enlargement and expansion of Christ“. This is what God desires. Furthermore, the ark was 2.5 cubits in length, 1.5 cubits wide, and 1.5 cubits high – the dimensions of the ark reveal God’s intention, they signify a half of five / three. What does this mean? While we in ourselves are worth nothing, we are worth something to Christ. He has an urgent need for the Body of Christ – the Church. Without the Church, Christ was no way to carry out His will. Through the subjective experiences shown in the type of the tabernacle we become part of God’s building – Christ and the Church.[sharing from the recent college-age conference in London, UK, by brother Oliver]

we need to know the crystallized significance of the Body of Christ and Lord’s urgent need for the Body of Christ

This past weekend we had a conference on Knowing the Crystallized Significance of the Body of Christ, and I was impressed with the fact that we need to KNOW the Body of Christ. When we speak of knowledge / knowing, there is a difference between knowing a doctrine and knowing the spiritual meaning of that doctrine/truth – knowing the spiritual meaning of something will change your whole being forever. The Lord does not cater to curiosity, and He doesn’t us to just mentally know and apprehend something. If we are willing to know God’s will, we shall know the teaching! Being willing to know -this is a knowing that includes our whole being and involves our obeying what we see + walking in that light! Are we willing to receive from the Lord the revelation that He wants to give us? When we see the Body, we cannot be divisive anymore, we cannot live without the members of the Body, we cannot be individualistic anymore, we will not think of ourselves more highly that of others, and we will be so content and satisfied to just be members of Christ’s universal Body! This is a precious, costly, and crucial knowing – a knowing that will give us a consciousness of the Body and of the Lord Himself in His feeling for the Body!

God today is longing for something, He has a heart’s desire, an intense longing – it is the Body of Christ, the universal built-up organism through which Christ as the Head can be expressed freely and can fully express God! God wants the Body of Christ because the Body is the real living expression of Christ – for this we are regenerated and for this we are being transformed into the same image as Christ! The Body of Christ is the intrinsic significance of the church – the real meaning of the church is mystical – it is the Body of Christ. This is what God desires: to gain a Body for His Beloved Son, in which and through which He can be fully expressed in the universe.

So today the Lord has a need – even though in Himself God is perfect and complete, He has decided that for the carrying out of His eternal purpose He would have a group of people to be with Him – and He wants to be in such a relationship with this group of people that to some extent they can determine how far God can go and how much God can do! When God created man and everything in the universe, He didn’t need us to “help Him”, but for His corporate expression and for the fulfilling of His economy, God has decided He needs us – He wants us to cooperate by prayer! You may say, God knows everything, He can do everything, why does He need us to tell Him in prayer something that He already knows & can already do? The principle of prayer is that God has a will which He wants to accomplish, but He chooses NOT to carry out His will unilaterally – He wants the church, as His Body on earth, to agree with God’s will and express it in prayer! When the church on the earth as the Body of Christ agrees with God’s will, His will is being done on earth as it is in the heavens! For this to be accomplished, the Triune God works Himself into us to such an extent that He feels at home in our heart – He makes His home deep down in our heart(Eph. 3:16-19).

Amen, Lord, make us those who open to You to be shined on by You and see the Body of Christ! Show us Your need, Lord, and impress us to such an extent that Your need becomes our need! Make us the group of believers that You desire – thos eho know the Body and are willing to live and enjoy Christ for the Body! We want to live in the reality of the Body, Lord, and not to just “skate on the surface”! Bring us in Your heart and make Your home deep down into our heart! Feel at home in us both personally and corporately until we become Your expression in full!