Prayer: Lord, how we thank You for this precious hour that we may come to learn the way of Your recovery. O Lord, You know that our heart is full of gratitude for Your mercy and grace. We bow before You to confess that we are still sinful, that we are still in the old nature, and that we are still so much in the self. How much we still have self-seeking, self-interest, self-righteousness, and self-consciousness. Lord, how much we need Your cleansing! Lord, we have no merit, no good, for us to stand on. But, Lord, we have Your blood as our covering and as our standing. Lord, grant us a living word to speak something about Your mystery, the Body of Christ. Lord, grant us the inner grace that we need for this matter. How much we need You as the inner grace! O Lord, draw us to love You. Lord, draw us to go with You that we may be one with You and may be built up as Your living Body. Lord, deliver us from so many distracting elements and frustrating things and deliver us from our self that we may be truly one in Spirit. Lord, You know that we are weak. We look to You for Your help. In Your precious name.
In this chapter we come to the third vision, the vision of the Body. Before we consider this vision, however, let us review what we have covered regarding the vision of Christ and the vision of the church.
We have seen that the real service, work, and ministry that we could render to the Lord must be something of the heavenly vision, not something traditional, religious, or natural. In the first chapter we pointed out that in the first part of his life, Paul's service was according to tradition and religion and was without vision. He had the confidence that he was serving God, but he was serving according to the letter, knowledge, teaching, and regulations of the Old Testament. But after he received the heavenly vision, his service, work, and ministry were changed from tradition to vision. He served no longer according to the traditions of his forefathers or according to knowledge and regulations but according to the heavenly vision, the present vision. In Galatians 2 Paul went up to Jerusalem not by regulation but by revelation, by vision. He had come to see something, so he went up to Jerusalem. As we read his Epistles we can see that Paul was a man full of visions.