Prayer: Lord, we worship You that You are still moving on this earth. How we thank You that Your moving is going on among us in Your recovery. We remind You that whenever we come together into Your name, there is an oracle ready for You to speak to us. Lord, we are here opening to You. Come, Lord Jesus. Speak to us. We want to hear, and we want to listen to Your word. Lord Jesus, we have no trust in ourselves. We put our trust in You, in Your mercy, in Your blessing, in Your presence, in Your anointing, and in Your reaching each one of us. We consecrate and offer this conference to You. Even tonight we present this meeting to You as a burnt offering. Lord, visit each one of us. We want to be touched by You that we may touch You. Sanctify these four days of this conference. Sanctify all of us wholly unto You. We are here not for our interest but for Your interest, especially in these last days as You are moving on this earth to cut short Your word, to accomplish Your prophecy and Your promises. Lord Jesus, we want to be fully for You. Gain us, possess us, occupy us, and use us. Lord Jesus, we thank You for Yourself. We thank You for what You are. Defeat the enemy. We accuse him in front of You. We are touching Your throne of authority. O Lord Jesus, put Your enemy to the corner. Do something further and further and further until You arrive at Your goal. Thank You, Lord Jesus, in Your mighty name.
The burden of these messages concerning the Body of Christ can be expressed in the following four statements:
1) The Body of Christ is the fullness of the One who fills all in all—Eph. 1:23.
2) Christ created the two, Jews and Gentiles, in Himself into one new man as the poem of God, that God might display the surpassing riches of His grace toward us in Christ—Eph. 2:15, 10, 7.
3) To be strengthened into the inner man, that Christ may make His home in our hearts, that we may be filled unto all the fullness of God—Eph. 3:16-17, 19.
4) One Body, one Spirit, one Lord, one God, an indivisible mingling of the Triune God with the believers in Christ—Eph. 4:4-6, 12-16.
Our burden for this conference is on the Body of Christ. The book of Ephesians is not merely concerning the church. It is a book on the church as the Body of Christ. No other book of the New Testament refers to the Body of Christ as much as Ephesians does. Ephesians 1 says that the church is the Body of Christ, the fullness of the One who fills all in all (vv. 22-23). Chapter two says that Christ created the two, the Jewish and Gentile believers, into one new man that He might reconcile both in one Body to God (vv. 15-16). What a mystery and what a gospel this is! Even our reconciliation to God is not an individual matter. It is corporate. All the believers have been reconciled to God in one Body. Chapter three tells us that in Christ Jesus the saved Gentiles and the saved Jews are fellow members of the Body (v. 6) and that this Body is the fullness of God (v. 19) for the ultimate corporate expression of the consummated Triune God. Chapter four speaks of one Body, one Lord, one God and Father, (vv. 4-6) and of all the saints needing to be perfected that they may be able to do the work of the New Testament ministry to build up the Body of Christ (vv. 11-12). This chapter also says that out from the Head, Christ, all the Body grows by the members growing so that the Body can be built up by itself through all the functioning members in love (v. 16). This is the Body of Christ in Ephesians.