«　WEEK 7　DAY 4　»

　　Eph. 3:8 To me, less than the least of all saints, was this grace given to announce to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ as the gospel.

　　1 Cor. 14:26 What then, brothers? Whenever you come together, each one has a psalm, has a teaching, has a revelation, has a tongue, has an interpretation. Let all things be done for building up.

　　[In 1 Corinthians 14:26] has…indicates that when we come to the church meeting, we should have something of the Lord to share with others, whether a psalm to praise the Lord, a teaching (of the teacher) to minister the riches of Christ to edify and nourish others, a revelation (of the prophet, v. 30) to give visions of God’s eternal purpose concerning Christ as God’s mystery and the church as Christ’s mystery, a tongue for a sign to the unbelievers (v. 22) that they may know and accept Christ, or an interpretation to make a tongue concerning Christ and His Body understandable. Before coming to the meeting, we should prepare ourselves for the meeting with such things from the Lord and of the Lord, either through our experience of Him or through our enjoyment of His word and fellowship with Him in prayer. After coming into the meeting, we need not wait, and should not wait, for inspiration; we should exercise our spirit and use our trained mind to function in presenting what we have prepared to the Lord for His glory and satisfaction and to the attendants for their benefit—their enlightenment, nourishment, and building up.

　　Thus the meeting will be an exhibition of Christ in His riches and will be a mutual enjoyment of Christ shared by all the attendants before God and with God for the building up of the saints and the church. (1 Cor. 14:26, footnote 1)

　　In the world today there are many exhibitions and fairs…. This is just what we are doing when we come together to worship God. We are meeting together to have an exhibition of Christ, not just the Christ whom God gave us but the Christ we have produced, the Christ upon whom we have labored and whom we have experienced. That is the Christ whom we all come together to exhibit. Brothers and sisters, this is what all our meetings should be—an exhibition, a fair, in which all sorts of the produce of Christ are displayed. (CWWL, 1961-1962, vol. 4, “The All-inclusive Christ,” pp. 346-347)

　　 Through our experiences of the riches of Christ, these riches will become an exhibition, a show, of the produce of Christ. Our meetings must always be an exhibition to show forth what Christ is, what Christ has, and what Christ does…. If we experience many items of the riches of Christ during the day, we will come to the meeting in the evening with the divine attributes that we have experienced. When we all bring something that we have experienced and put our experience of Christ’s riches together, there will be an exhibition of Christ. In this way every meeting will be a show of Christ. (CWWL, 1987, vol. 3, “The Scriptural Way to Meet and to Serve for the Building Up of the Body of Christ,” p. 367)

　　The life of God’s people is first a life of laboring on Christ. Second, it is a life of having something of Christ to bring to the meetings to offer, to contribute. The proper life of Christians is to labor on Christ all the time. Then they will have the rich surplus of Christ to bring to the meetings for a rich exhibition of Christ. We exhibit Christ to God and to God’s enemy. The children of Israel had to come to Jerusalem three times a year for three feasts….They brought the top surplus to the Tent of Meeting for God’s worship. We also have to bring the top surplus of Christ to the church meetings for our worship to God in spirit and reality (John 4:24). (CWWL, 1965, vol. 2, “Christ as the Content of the Church and the Church as the Expression of Christ,” p. 376)

　　Further Reading: CWWL, 1987, vol. 3, “The Scriptural Way to Meet and to Serve for the Building Up of the Body of Christ,” ch. 10