Second Corinthians 3:18 says: “And we all with unveiled face, beholding and reflecting as a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, even as from the Lord Spirit.” When we behold the glory of the Lord with unveiled face, the Lord will also unveil Himself and will transfuse us with what He is. We all have this kind of experience. Particularly in the morning, when we open ourselves to the Lord and fellowship with Him face to face, the riches of the Lord will be dispensed into us, and we will be transformed gradually into His glorious image. In this way, we will be constituted the ministers of the New Testament for the building up of the Body of Christ (2 Cor. 3:6). We will be able to help others to salvation and help them to grow and be perfected. We will also be able to have the New Testament ministry which bears the glorious image of Christ and which dispenses Christ (2 Cor. 4:1).
As we are being gradually constituted to be the ministers of the New Testament, we will be able to take up the New Testament ministry. Only then will we be able to bring our acquaintances to believe in the Lord and to be saved. Only then will we be able to nourish the newly saved believers and to teach and perfect the saints one by one. In this way, we will become a person with the New Testament ministry. Among us, if more are like this, the condition of the church will be greatly changed. Not only should we have some spiritual service in the meetings, but we should have spiritual service anywhere and everywhere in our daily life outside the meetings. For us to have a job is simply to make a living. Our real profession is to serve the Lord. The opportunity to serve in the meetings is limited. But in the daily life, there are many opportunities for us to dispense Christ to others.
Second Corinthians 4:7 says: “But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us.” The treasure here is the glorious Christ who is the embodiment of God becoming our life and everything to us. He is living within us, the believers, and He is full of operations. He supplies us continually with the excelling power through His dispensing, constituting us, the worthless and weak vessels, as ministers of the New Testament (2 Cor. 3:6), so that we can fulfill our New Testament ministry, which is the preaching of the gospel for the building up of the church (2 Cor. 4:7b, 2-4).
Second Corinthians 12:9a says: “And He has said to me, My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is perfected in weakness.” The grace here is Christ Himself who has passed through death and resurrection, dispensed into us in resurrection and becoming our supply and enjoyment. It is by this grace that Paul labored more than the other apostles. He labored much for God, yet he said that it was not him, but the grace of God being with him (1 Cor. 15:10). Hence, for the living and service of the church, we need to daily contact and fellowship with Christ as God’s grace, so that His riches can be continually dispensed into us as the grace we enjoy. In this way, we will have the power of Christ tabernacling over us; we will be able to labor more for God and to do what the Lord wants us to do. In the end, the all-inclusive Christ will become our rich enjoyment in our labor for God, and we will reap an abounding harvest (1 Cor. 15:58), which is the perfecting of the saints and the building up of the church.
(A message given by Brother Witness Lee in Kuching, Malaysia on November 2, 1990)
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