The Enjoyment of Christ
And Our Growth in Life Unto Maturity
Message Four
Knowing the All-inclusive Christ
and Growing with the Growth of God
OPENING WORD OF THE PROPHESYING MEETING
Reading the verses in each day.
Reading the main points in the outlines.
Pray-reading the verses:
Col. 1:18 And He is the Head of the Body, the church; He is the beginning, the Firstborn from the dead, that He Himself might have the first place in all things.
27 To whom God willed to make known what are the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.
19…Holding the Head, out from whom all the Body, being richly supplied and knit together by means of the joints and sinews, grows with the growth of God.
Word of Appetizer
In the book of Colossians a number of important phrases or expressions point to our experience of Christ. What do these phrases include?
Some of these phrases are Christ in you (1:27), full-grown in Christ (v. 28), walk in Him (2:6), according to Christ (v. 8), made alive together with Him (v. 13), died with Christ (v. 20), holding the Head (v. 19), out from whom (v. 19), and grows with the growth of God (v. 19). These nine expressions give us a complete picture of the proper experience of Christ.
Spiritual Burden
“Holding the Head, out from whom all the Body, being richly supplied…, grows with the growth of God”; to grow is to have Christ added into us. When the Body is supplied by holding the Head, the Body grows with the growth of God. The Body grows out from the Head, for all the supply comes from the Head.
The growth of the Body depends on the growth of God, the addition of God, the increase of God, within us. The growth of the Body is the building up of the Body. The growth of the Body of Christ is the increase of Christ in the church, which results in the building up of the Body by the Body itself.
Concluding Word of the Prophesying Meeting
The Revelation of the Truth
It is a blessing that we can know and experience the all-inclusive Christ as revealed in Colossians; Christ is “the Head of the Body, the church;…that He Himself might have the first place in all things”; “Christ in you, the hope of glory”.
“Holding the Head, out from whom all the Body, being richly supplied…, grows with the growth of God”; to grow is to have Christ added into us; the growth of the Body depends on what comes out of Christ as the Head.
The Experience of Life
The all-inclusive Christ is, therefore, the experiential Christ. He is a Christ who can be in us, and a Christ in whom we can walk. We can live, walk, move, and have our being in Him.
When the Body is supplied by holding the Head, the Body grows with the growth of God. God gives the growth by giving Himself to us in a subjective way.
when we enter into God’s inner substance, we enjoy God as love and enjoy His presence in the sweetness
of the divine love, and thereby love others as Christ did.
Practice and Application
“If therefore you were raised together with Christ, seek the things which are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God”. God in the heavens should be the sphere of our living; with Christ we should live in God.
we should be rooted in Christ and absorb His nourishment into our being to become the element and substance with which we grow and are built up. God causes the growth by giving Himself to us in a very subjective way. Since God causes growth in this way, we need to take time to absorb Him… As we daily take time to eat food, we should daily take time to absorb the Lord, take time to assimilate the riches of Christ.
PROPHESYING TOPICS—TWELVE TOPICS PER WEEK
Day 1
T1 The Spirit is the good land (Gen. 12:1; Gal. 3:14)
(Please illustrate that the promise of Abraham, the promise of the good land, is the Spirit.）
T2 God has two creations: the old creation and the new creation (Col. 1:15-18)
(Please illustrate that both in the old creation and in the new creation, Christ is the first.)
Day 2
T1 A complete picture of the proper experience of Christ (Col. 2:6-7, 19)
(List nine important phrases or expressions in the book of Colossians.）
T2 The very Christ today is this Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45b; 2 Cor. 3:17)
(Please illustrate what does “the all-inclusive Christ is the experiential Christ”mean.)
Day 3
T1 The expression of God’s riches dwells in Christ (Col. 1:19; 2:9)
(Please illustrate that the fullness of the Godhead dwelling in Christ bodily.）
T2 With Christ we have one life, one living (Col. 3:1-4)
(Please illustrate that Colossians 3:1-4 implies what we have in common with Christ.)
Day 4
T1 We have one position with Christ (John 17:24; 1 Cor. 6:17)
(Please illustrate that what makes this real is that we are one spirit with the Lord.）
T2 When we are in spirit, we are in heaven (Col. 3:1)
(Please illustrate that whenever we are outside the spirit, we are earthly.)
Day 5
T1 Christ is the Head; He is also the soil (Col. 2:7, 19)
(Please illustrate that we grow with the increase from the soil; we also grow as the Body with the supply out from the Head.）
T2 Being rooted brings in the growing, and the growing is the building (Col. 2:7)
(Please illustrate the significance that in Collosians 2:7 Paul puts being rooted and building together.)
Day 6
T1 God causes the growth by getting into us (Eph. 4:11-12, 15-16)
(Please illustrate that since God causes growth in this way, we need to take time to absorb Him.）
T2 First, we grow individually, then corporately (Eph. 2:21; 4:15-16)
(Please illustrate that individual growth of the members becomes corporate growth of the Body.)
