«　WEEK 3　DAY 3　»

　　Eph. 4:15 But holding to truth in love, we may grow up into Him in all things, who is the Head, Christ.

　　21 If indeed you have heard Him and have been taught in Him as the reality is in Jesus.

　　Concerning the truth, we need to understand and explain it. Concerning Christ, we need to experience Him and minister to others what we have experienced. The Christ we are referring to here is not the objective Christ who is sitting in the heavens but the subjective Christ who is our life. Hence, to experience Christ is to experience life, and to minister Christ is to minister life. (CWWL, 1984, vol. 5, “Truth, Life, the Church, and the Gospel—the Four Great Pillars in the Lord’s Recovery,” p. 403)

　　Merely having the truth without experience is vanity; hence, we all need to have experience….The truth is God, and God is Christ. Hence, concerning the truth, we cannot have just the doctrinal knowledge; we must also have the experience. In other words, we must experience Christ.

　　After we have learned the truth, we still have to experience Christ so that He may become our reality. In this way, when we speak to people, we will not give them knowledge or doctrines, but we will minister Christ to them….The proper practice is that we would all learn to speak Christ and minister Christ to others.

　　Acts 5:42 tells us that the early disciples announced the gospel of Jesus as the Christ; this means that they announced Jesus Christ as the gospel. What they announced was not an empty doctrine or an elusive gospel but a living Jesus Christ, who is the reality and content of the gospel. After their preaching, once men received the gospel, they spontaneously received Jesus Christ.

　　In Ephesians 3:8 Paul says that he announced to people the unsearchable riches of Christ as the gospel…. For example, Paul tells us that Christ has both divinity and humanity (Rom. 1:3-4). This means that He was God and man, possessing all the divine attributes and human virtues. This is an item of the riches of Christ. Moreover, He also passed through human living, experienced all the trials and ordeals of human life, and endured all the pains of humanity. Then He went to the cross and died, and in His death He terminated all things and accomplished redemption for us. After His death He resurrected and became the life-giving Spirit. This life-giving Spirit is the Triune God, comprising the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. All the attributes of the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, including love, light, holiness, righteousness, life, power, authority, peace, and joy, are items of the unsearchable riches. However, how can all these riches become our practical experience? How do we minister such a Christ to others in our speaking?

　　We must tell people that this Christ, who possesses all these unsearchable riches, is now the life-giving Spirit….This Spirit, being omnipresent, is in our heart and in our mouth. As long as we confess, repent, and call upon the name of the Lord Jesus, opening our mouth and believing in our heart, the Spirit will enter into us. When the Spirit comes into us, He comes with all His riches. From then on, as long as we call on Him, breathe Him, and enjoy Him day by day, all His riches will become our experience, and His attributes such as love, light, holiness, and righteousness will become our virtues. Then we will realize that our love is boundless, our patience is enduring and transcendent, and our power is strong. After speaking to people, we should also pray with them….This is the way to minister Christ to people. First, we should speak the truth and present Christ clearly to them. Then we should pray with them to supply them practically in spirit with what we spoke to them so that they can receive the Christ whom we have announced. (CWWL, 1984, vol. 5, “Truth, Life, the Church, and the Gospel—the Four Great Pillars in the Lord’s Recovery,” pp. 405, 408-409)

　　Further Reading: The Conclusion of the New Testament, msgs. 7-8,10, 80, 89; Life-study of 2 John, msgs. 1-2; Life-study of 3 John, msgs. 1-2