I have learned that due to certain situations, many young people in China have been deprived of a proper education. Likewise, many of today’s Christians have been deprived of the proper spiritual education. Many preachers are eloquent, knowledgeable, and capable, but they are shallow. My heart is broken over this situation. Dear saints, we all need more genuine spiritual education. Christians in this country may have a high secular education, but in spiritual things many are deprived. They may know a great deal about science, material things, and the affairs of this life, but they are limited in their knowledge of spiritual things. But I hope that all the saints in the Lord’s recovery will acquire the best spiritual education. Therefore, I encourage you to spend time in the Life-study Messages. These messages will help you to be educated spiritually.
In the meetings of the church we must have the proper content. We should not have empty shouting, shouting void of content or reality. It is not sufficient merely to function in the meetings in an active way or in a so-called living way. We need spiritual content. This content requires that daily we grow Christ and raise Christ. If you do not raise Christ as the animal life, how can you have a bull or a lamb to offer to God? If you do not till the ground, sow seed, and water the crop, how can you have a harvest of wheat? How can you have oil and wine? It is absolutely necessary that we grow Christ as the vegetable life and raise Him as the animal life.
Just as we need to raise Christ as a bull for propitiation, we need to raise Him as a lamb to be food offered directly to God. This means that we need to raise Christ as a bull and also as a lamb. When we come to the meetings, we shall then bring Christ as a bull and a lamb.
We also need to grow Christ as wheat to produce flour, as olives to produce oil, and as a grapevine to produce wine. To grow wheat is to experience Christ daily as our life supply. Wheat signifies Christ in incarnation, whereas barley signifies Christ in resurrection. (For a fuller treatment of these aspects of Christ, see The All-Inclusive Christ.) If we experience Christ as our life supply, we shall grow Him as wheat and barley. If we live Christ by the Spirit in our spirit, we shall grow Him as olives to produce oil. Furthermore, if in our experience we pour out the self that lives Christ, we shall grow the grapevine to produce wine for a drink offering. Hence, to produce the oil and the wine, we should live daily and die daily. We need a life of living and dying. Paul said that daily he was put to death. Day by day he was delivered into the death of Christ. This should also be our experience. Daily we may be put to death by others, perhaps by our family or by different things in our environment. As we live such a life of being put to death, we shall produce wine for the drink offering. I hope that this brief and simple word will give you some understanding of the spiritual groceries described in Exodus 29.
Let us all experience the riches of Christ and gain the proper spiritual education so that we may live a life on a higher plane, not on the low plane common among today’s Christians. Let us grow Christ and raise Christ. Then we shall have groceries to bring into the church meetings.