Whatever we do in the church life as a service rendered to anyone must be done with a proper spirit. We must pray, “Lord, I am serving You. I want to minister You to these dear ones.” Apparently we are serving the saints. Actually, we are serving Christ to the saints. If so, we will not offer our own service, but the issue of our service, the parts of the corporate Christ, that is, the members of the Body of Christ. In the past we may have done a great deal of service in helping others, but the result was not so much the building of His Body because our service was by the natural life. We may have rendered much help, yet it was from the natural source of human affection and friendship.
When serving in the church we must try our best to avoid friendship. We only have brothers and sisters; we do not have friends. Building up a kind of friendship is typified by honey in the meal offering. Honey was prohibited in the meal offering because it is considered the same as leaven (Lev. 2:11). Our natural love in nature and result is the same as hatred. Hatred is typified by leaven while love from the natural life is typified by honey, which ferments into leaven. Apparently, it is sweet and good. Actually, this honey will ferment and become a kind of leaven. We help a brother just because he is a brother and we render help to a sister just because she is a sister. This kind of help is pure, not out of our natural affection which ferments. Even when we give material things to the needy ones, we may do it with a mixture or purely with Christ. May all of our services be so pure that they issue in the supply of Christ to others for the building up of the organic Body of Christ.
(A message given by Brother Witness Lee to the church in Anaheim, California on October 5, 1989)