«　WEEK 2　DAY 2　»

　　1 Cor. 3:6 I planted, Apollos watered, but God caused the growth.

　　Col. 3:16 Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to God.

　　As members of the Body of Christ, we should drink the guileless milk of the word that we may grow. Then we must eat the solid food of the word so that we may grow even more. Our eating of the word causes us to grow in a strong way. The Word is full of food, but some get only knowledge according to the letter when they read the Bible.…Christ is our real food, and every page of the Bible is a description of this rich Christ. He is either expressed or implied throughout the whole Bible.…When we come to the Bible, we should come with a seeking heart after Christ. We should pray, “Lord, I come to Your Word. I do not care for teachings alone, but I care for You. Lord, feed me with Yourself through this Word.” (CWWL, 1989, vol. 4, “The Organic Building Up of the Church as the Body of Christ to Be the Organism of the Processed and Dispensing Triune God,” p. 279)

　　The intrinsic growth of the church is through the giving of growth in life to the members of Christ by God (1 Cor. 3:6c). The gifted ones may do the planting and the watering, but it is God who gives the growth in life. This is why I must always take some time to pray before I come to speak in a meeting. I pray that the Lord would be one with me and infuse me with Himself so that whatever I speak would be in Him. I believe that He has richly answered these prayers because quite often, as I am speaking, I feel supplied within to speak with new light and instant utterance.

　　We need the feeding from the Bible directly, and we need the watering from the ones who know the Bible more. God goes along with our reading of the Word and with the speaking of the gifted members to give us the growth.…When we get into the Word, we are feeding. When we get under the speaking of the word, we receive the watering. Then God gives the growth.

　　The intrinsic growth of the church is by God’s growing in the believers (Col. 2:19). We were reborn by the divine life, which is God Himself. Now we are being fed and watered, and God is causing us to grow. This growth is God Himself growing in us (v. 19). When God gives us the growth in life, this means that He is increasing Himself within us. As we are feeding on the Word, and as we are being watered by the gifted ones, God Himself is moving and growing within us.

　　The last part of Colossians 2:19 tells us that the Body “grows with the growth of God.” We grow by God’s growing within us. Of course, God in Himself is not growing, because He is complete and perfect. His growing is within us, and how much He grows within us depends on how much room we will give to Him to grow. We may be full of the world, of ourselves, of our own interests, but by reading the Bible, little by little the word of the Bible takes away some part of our worldliness, some part of our self-interest, and some part of our love for things other than God Himself. Then within us more room is given to God; He takes this room and expands and increases within us. This increase is His growth in us. His growth becomes our growth because we and He are one. The growth of the church is God’s growth in the church. By our feeding on the Word and being watered by the gifted members, the negative things within us are taken away, and there is more room for the very God who dwells in us. When He gets more room, He grows within us. This issues in the church’s organic growth. (CWWL, 1989, vol. 4, “The Organic Building Up of the Church as the Body of Christ to Be the Organism of the Processed and Dispensing Triune God,” pp. 284-286)

　　Further Reading: CWWL, 1989, vol. 4, “The Organic Building Up of the Church as the Body of Christ to Be the Organism of the Processed and Dispensing Triune God,” ch. 2