From the past messages, we have received a vision. Our God has a divine economy, which is to dispense Himself in Christ to His chosen ones, those who believe in Him. From the time we were saved and regenerated, the Christ who is the embodiment of God has been dispensed into us to be our life, our supply, and everything to us, so that we are righteous, we are sanctified, and we are redeemed. This is not human ethics, philosophy, or religion. Rather, it is the Triune God processed and dispensed into us, and then living out from us. Now we are children of God and members of Christ. Daily we receive the transfusion from Christ, and moment by moment we receive the nourishment of life. As a result, we grow in the life of God, and we are coordinated and built up together to be a corporate vessel, which is the church, the Body of Christ, and the habitation of God. This is the goal of God’s economy.
For this reason, after we are regenerated, we have to learn not to live by ourselves but to live by Christ, daily living a life of death and resurrection. In this way God’s element can be added into us day by day, and we can be gradually delivered from the natural self. When we live Christ this way, the church will be manifested.
Now we will pick out some important verses from 1 and 2 Corinthians to prove that Christ becomes our life within and our living without for the purpose of building up His church.
First Corinthians 3:11 says: “For other foundation no one is able to lay besides that which is being laid, which is Jesus Christ.” Christ is God’s unique foundation for the building up of the church. He is a living foundation stone that supports the church. At the same time that He is supporting the church, He is also supplying the church (1 Cor. 3:6-7). He supplies the need of our life within, so that we grow by Him. Through this, we are also being supported together.
From 1 Corinthians 3 we can see the growth and the building up of the church. On one hand, the church is God’s farm. This farm will produce plant life when there is planting, watering, and growth. On the other hand, the church is God’s building, with precious minerals such as the gold, the silver, and the precious stones as proper materials for the building. From the growth of the plants to the building up of the minerals, there is a transformation process. Hence, Christ is not only the foundation for the believers to be built up (1 Cor. 3:12a); He is also the divine dispensing by which the believers are transformed in the divine life into the precious materials of the church (1 Cor. 3:12b). The more we receive Christ’s dispensing and grow in God’s life, the more our inward nature will be transformed by God’s element to become the material for the building up of the church.
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