First Corinthians reveals the enjoyment of the all-inclusive Christ. We need to enjoy Christ every day according to what is revealed of Him in 1 Corinthians. Christ is our portion in His fellowship (1:2b, 9). He is theirs and He is ours. We have been called into His fellowship, which means that we have been called into the full enjoyment of Him. Christ is God’s wisdom and power (1:24). Christ is our righteousness, sanctification, and redemption, transmitted to us from God (1:30). He is righteousness for our past, sanctification for our present, and redemption for our future. He is also our righteousness, sanctification, and redemption in our daily life for us to be right, to be holy and sanctified, and to be rescued from many fleshly things. We can enjoy Christ as our Passover, taking care of our past, and as our unleavened bread, taking care of our present, so that we can live an unleavened life today (5:7-8). Day by day we need to keep the feast of unleavened bread. Christ is also our spiritual food and spiritual drink (10:3-4; 12:13b). He has given Himself to us so that we can participate in His body and blood for our enjoyment (10:16-17). We can enjoy Christ as the life-giving Spirit (15:45b) since we have been joined to the Lord as one spirit (6:17). First Corinthians reveals that we need to enjoy Christ as everything.
What we enjoy will have an issue. The enjoyment of Christ firstly issues in the growth in life to produce materials for the building up of the church (3:6, 9-14). The precious materials produced from the growth in life are signified by gold, silver, and precious stones. Our hope is that all of us will be transformed into the precious materials for God’s building by enjoying Christ. First Corinthians 12 tells us that Christ is drinkable. Today we are drinking of Him, the one Spirit. He is our spiritual drink and our spiritual food. We need to be the enjoying people who enjoy Christ all day long and every day. This enjoyment spontaneously issues in the growth in life. We grow in life by enjoying Him, that is, by eating Him and drinking Him, partaking of Him.
All of us are growing. Even as an older Christian, I still have the feeling and the deep sensation that I am growing. Our enjoyment of Christ results in the growth in life. Some saints who are concerned for me may think that because I am old, I should retire and not labor anymore. But because I am growing in life, I am living and stronger than ever. I will endeavor to labor and struggle for the Lord’s interest until I see the Lord in rapture or I die. Because I am growing, I am not becoming old. I am becoming younger because my inward man is being renewed day by day (2 Cor. 4:16). As we enjoy Christ, we grow in life to produce precious materials for the building up of the Body of Christ.
The enjoyment of Christ also issues in the development of gifts for functioning to build up the Body of Christ, prophesying being the excelling gift (1 Cor. 14:1, 12, 39a). To build up anything you need firstly the materials and secondly the skill, the functioning. Thus, the enjoyment of Christ issues not only in the growth in life but also in the development of gifts for functioning. This development is covered in chapters twelve through fourteen of 1 Corinthians. In these three chapters, Paul gives a clear view of the development of spiritual gifts for functioning to build up the Body of Christ. Dispensing Christ by speaking Him, prophesying, is the top development of the gifts as an issue of enjoying Him. I can testify that I am still under development. All of us are growing and being developed. We are not being developed to speak in tongues or to perform miraculous things. We are being developed to prophesy, not in the sense of predicting but in the sense of speaking for the Lord.
God in His New Testament economy is after a building. Where is the building today among us? We need to forget everything and go on according to the desire of God’s heart to build up the Body of Christ. First Corinthians is a book of enjoying Christ, but what is the reason for us to enjoy Christ, and what is the issue of enjoying Christ? The enjoyment of Christ is for our growth in life to produce precious materials for God’s building. Our enjoyment of Christ is also for developing our gifts to speak for Christ to build up the Body of Christ organically. The unique need among us today is that we would learn to speak for the Lord. We must have something of the Lord to speak for the building up of the church. The top development of the gifts as an issue of the enjoyment of Christ is to prophesy, to speak for the Lord, to speak forth the Lord, to speak the Lord into people, ministering Christ, dispensing Christ, into people. When we are full of the enjoyment of Christ, we can share with others the Christ that we have enjoyed.
While I am speaking, I believe that the Lord is one spirit with me. Whenever I speak, I ask the Lord to speak in my speaking, vindicating the fact that I am one spirit with Him while I am speaking. We should try to speak Christ to others in this way every day. We should stop talking in a gossiping way or in a reasoning way. Paul tells us that we should do all things without murmuring or reasoning and that we need to work out our own salvation with fear and trembling because God is operating within us (Phil. 2:12-14). If we do not speak Christ but speak other things, we are offending the indwelling Christ. We have Christ living within us. I do not like to offend Him. I like to please Him. This is why I always exercise to speak Christ. What an enjoyment and what a joy it is to speak Christ!
As we enjoy Christ, spontaneously we are growing in life to produce ourselves as precious materials and to develop what we have received from the Head as a gift. Little children receive certain talents by birth, but they need the development of these talents. These talents are developed by the children being fed. A child’s eating helps him to grow, and his growth develops his function. First Corinthians tells us that the top development and the top function for the building up of the Body of Christ is speaking for the Lord, prophesying. We need to prophesy, not in the sense of predicting but in the sense of speaking Christ in an exhibiting way. Let us come to the meeting to exhibit Christ. We need to enjoy Christ that we may be developed in our spiritual function to speak the Christ that we have enjoyed and experienced in order to exhibit Him in the meeting for the building up of the Body organically. This is further light that I did not see in the past. I saw that the enjoyment of Christ issues in our growth in life. But I did not see so clearly that the enjoyment of Christ also issues in our being developed in our gift and function.
I have been speaking in the United States for over twenty-five years. I believe that some of the saints can realize that my functioning is increasing. My functioning in the past was not as strong as it is today. This shows that we all have to be developed. We should kneel down and pray: “Lord, have mercy upon me that I may enjoy You today, that I may share in Your riches in a practical and subjective way so that I can have the growth in life and the development in function. I like to speak You, Lord, but I need the word. I need the utterance. I need Your thought. Lord, infuse me thoroughly and fill me with Your intention, with Your feeling, with Your thought, with Your word, with Your utterance, and with Your instant expression.” We need to endeavor to be a useful one in the building up of the Body of Christ. Our Father God is after a practical and living building up of the church.