Chapter 5
Scripture Reading: Rom. 12:1-2; 2 Cor. 3:17-18;
We all should be saying hallelujah because the Lord is the Spirit and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom! We want to give much freedom to the Lord’s work in us, to transform us, and to conform us to His own image. These messages are as if the apostle John, after his visions, is visiting the church in Ephesus to help the saints to take the word as life, to enjoy the word, and to mend the nets in order to make the church in Ephesus become desirable.
The first three messages gave us the foundation for the Lord’s work: repentance, perfecting and love. With these the Lord can do whatever He wants to do. I hope that no one is resisting the speaking of the Lord, but that all of you are at ease, open to receive the word, follow and serve the Lord. We need to serve the Lord with an open and pure heart, receiving the word and longing to practice it in the environment that the Lord gave to us. In this way we are being perfected and the Lord can produce an environment where the life is the great power and the life is expressed in love.
In this environment all of us can grow into the Head, Christ! We can not only grow, but be transformed. The Lord has put us into a healthy environment where the things He has shown us and wrought into us are becoming the foundation of our lives. The Lord wants this foundation to become an altar so that we can consecrate ourselves to Him. The base for our transformation is our consecration. That’s why, after Paul received revelations and visions, he wrote to the church in Rome beseeching for God’s mercy, asking them not to hide themselves but to present themselves as a living sacrifice, holy and well pleasing to God (Rom. 12:1).
All the revelation that the Lord has given to us is to produce a response in us, our consecration. The environment that the Lord has put us into is the normal church life. Romans chapters twelve to sixteen show a picture of a normal church life where we can serve, be fed, meet, and practice the word. In this normal church life there are some ingredients that are there for our transformation.
Our growth is a matter of life. Our transformation is related to the divine nature of God. The nature of God is being added to us and God’s nature begins to have an expression in us. What God has planned begins to be incorporated into the church. The mind of God begins to be dispensed into the members of the Body of Christ. The members begin to be renewed in their minds, thus being transformed. We can see this transformation in their lives, in their plans, in the things they speak, and in the things they do. All this is to produce a ministry in each member and this ministry is for the one ministry of the building up of the Body of Christ.
So all these three messages that spoke about repentance, perfecting and love are the work of the Lord through the growth in life. The transformation is the developing of the organic salvation of God to give to each member of the Body a ministry and this ministry must be put into practice for the benefit of the Body. The exercise of the ministry of each member for the benefit of the church and the move of the Body produces the work of the ministry.
On this earth there will be a group of people reigning in life and when they are reigning in life the eternal purpose of God can be accomplished. Men become fruitful, multiply, fill the earth and subdue it (Gen. 1:28). Then the kingdom of God is established here on earth and that man of noble birth who went to a distant land can come back to claim his kingdom (Luke 19:12). Jesus is Lord!
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