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Scripture Reading: Gen. 2:8-9; 1 Cor. 1:9, 24, 30; 2:2; Matt. 13:3-8, 19-23, 44-46; Rom. 12:1-2; 2 Cor. 3:17-18; 1 Cor. 3:6, 9-12; 1 Pet. 1:23; 2:2, 5
The central thought of God is that He desires to work Himself into us. The only way for God to accomplish this is to be life to us. There is no other way for God to work Himself into us. For anything to become a part of us, it has to be eaten and digested by us, and it even has to be mingled with us. Nothing can be wrought into us as much as the food we have eaten. By the evening, the breakfast and lunch we ate earlier in the day already have become a part of us.
After we read the first part of Genesis about God’s creation, especially the record of God’s creation of man, we may ask what God’s purpose with this created man is. We find the answer right away in the second chapter of Genesis. Immediately after God’s creation of man, He did not give many commandments to man, telling him to do this and not to do that. It is not a matter of doing or not doing. God simply put man in front of the tree of life with the intention that man would eat of this tree (vv. 8-9). By studying the whole Bible, we can realize that this tree of life signifies God Himself in Christ as the Holy Spirit to be life to us in the form of food. Therefore, God put man in front of the tree of life to eat God Himself, to receive something of God into himself as his life. The record of the picture in Genesis 2 is very clear; there is no other way for God to be life to us other than by being food to us.
The New Testament tells us clearly that man was made of clay to be a vessel (Rom. 9:20-23; 2 Cor. 4:7). Vessels are containers to contain something. What does man contain? Clearly, it is the tree of life, that is, the riches of God in Christ as the Holy Spirit.
In the New Testament we see that the Lord Jesus, who is the Word of God and God Himself, was one day incarnated to be a man. People thought that He was a great prophet or a great king. According to the Gospel of John, however, the Lord Jesus made it very clear that He came that we may have life and may have it abundantly (10:10b). He came to be the bread of life for us to eat, saying, “As the living Father has sent Me and I live because of the Father, so he who eats Me, he also shall live because of Me” (6:57). In the twenty-one chapters of John, the Lord Jesus did not tell us many things to do or not to do. He simply reminds us to receive Him, love Him, and abide in Him—to feed on Him day by day as the small pieces of manna. By feeding on Him and drinking Him, we have Christ in us, and we become His multiplication, His increase, the many grains that come into existence from the one grain, and the many branches of the one vine (3:30; 12:24; 15:4-5). All these items give us a very clear picture of God’s intention to come into us in Christ His Son as the Spirit to be our life so that we may have life and have it abundantly.
Although I believe that we are all very clear about this, I have the deep burden to share this with you again. Throughout all the generations and especially today, there have been too many things—good things, even the best things—that distract, frustrate, hinder, and veil people from life. I almost cannot express the burden in my heart. What I am speaking did not come from a dream; I speak out of the realization I have received through my recent visits. In the past two and a half years I have visited more than sixty cities in the United States, from the west to the east and in the southern, northern, and middle parts of the country. I have visited different groups and have met different situations. Just in a recent period of about two weeks, we encountered more than five different kinds of Christian meetings. Through all this I have realized something concerning God’s intention and the enemy’s activity.
God created the earth and the heavens with billions of items so that man can exist on the earth in order to fulfill God’s purpose. And what is God’s purpose? It is that God wants to put Himself into man as his content and reality, so that man will become His expression. The enemy, however, has utilized all these material things to distract people from the central purpose of God. Millions of people on the earth have been and are still distracted. Some, for example, are distracted even by loving a car. They just do not pay any attention to God’s central purpose. Rather, they pay attention to having a better living.
Why did God create so many items for us? It is simply because we need to exist in order to fulfill the purpose of God. We need food, drink, housing, and many other things for our existence for God’s purpose. However, Satan came in, and he is still doing his best to utilize what God created to distract us from God’s purpose. Food and marriage are for God’s central purpose, but Satan utilizes these things to distract people away from this purpose.
In the Old Testament time God came in to give His people the law. The Old Testament was given, revealed, and inspired in order to help God’s people to understand His central purpose, but the enemy Satan utilized even the Old Testament to distract people from Christ. Satan could use even the Old Testament to distract God’s people to pay attention to something other than Christ and is contrary to Christ. In the four Gospels we can see clearly how the enemy used the Old Testament to distract the Jews from Christ. In John 5:39 and 40 the Lord said, “You search the Scriptures, because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is these that testify concerning Me. Yet you are not willing to come to Me that you may have life.” It was too hard to turn the Pharisees from the outward Scriptures.
In the New Testament we have knowledge and the gifts. Today many Christians are still being distracted by knowledge, such as doctrines concerning the dispensations, and they are also distracted by gifts. The New Testament is for the central purpose of God, but Satan utilizes even this to distract people from Christ. Many people talk only about dispensations, doctrines, and the gifts. Satan has covered up God’s central purpose. Perhaps even some of us are still under the covering. These covers include all the material things and even the Old and New Testaments with the teachings of dispensations, gifts, tongues, and healings. All these can become the covering, veiling elements. Some may make the excuse that they are standing for sound doctrine and contending for the teachings from God, without realizing that they are under a veil that keeps them from seeing properly.
This matter troubles my heart. I have contacted many dear saints in this country. Sometimes I am very happy because I can see God’s move, the Lord’s work in people. But many times my heart is rent. They are dear saints with seeking hearts toward the Lord, but they are blinded. We may speak concerning life, but even for the word life they have various interpretations; the word is the same, but their dictionary is different. When we speak of life, they nod their heads, but after the meeting we find out that they were nodding about something else. They are under a veil.
The book of 1 Corinthians deals with the matter of gifts by showing us that Christ is our portion. Christ is all in all to us; He is God’s power and God’s wisdom, and He became wisdom to us from God, both righteousness and sanctification and redemption (1:9, 24, 30). In chapter 1 of this book, Christ is everything to us. Then chapter 2 tells us that the apostle did not determine to know anything among them except Jesus Christ, and this One crucified (v. 2). If we had only chapters 1 and 2, however, we may have mere doctrine. We would not know how Christ can be our portion and our all. God’s intention is to give Christ to us as our portion so that we may enjoy Him, partake of Him, and share Him. He is our portion, our wisdom, and our righteousness, sanctification, and redemption. But this is the problem: How can we enjoy this Christ in a practical way? When we go on to chapter 3, we see that Christ has to be planted in us. Verse 6a says, “I planted.” What did Paul plant? He planted Christ. After planting, there must be watering. Therefore, verse 6 continues by saying that Apollos watered and God caused the growth. We must be fully clear that the seed Paul planted was Christ.
Now we can understand the parables in Matthew 13. We should not care for the great tree in Matthew 13:31 and 32; that is too negative. Rather, we should pay our attention to life, which is the central thought in Matthew 13.
We may use one word for each parable in this chapter. In the first parable the word is seed (vv. 4, 37). A sower went forth to sow the seed into the earth, signifying humanity, the human heart. The sower is Christ, the Son of God, who came to sow the seed of life into humanity. Moreover, the seed is also Christ. He Himself is the sower and the seed. Christ comes as the sower to sow Himself as the seed into us. He did not come to teach or to be a great rabbi. When Nicodemus came to the Lord Jesus, he called Him Rabbi. The Lord right away responded, “Truly, truly, I say to you, Unless one is born anew, he cannot see the kingdom of God” (John 3:3). The Lord seemed to be saying, “I am not coming to be a great rabbi to teach you. I am coming to be a seed sown into you so that you may be born anew. I came to sow Myself into you as the seed of life.”
The first parable in Matthew 13 has four aspects because it speaks of four kinds of hearts as the growing soil. In the first aspect, the enemy of God came as the birds of the air to snatch away the seed. This indicates a frustration. God’s way is to sow His Christ into us, but Satan’s way is to snatch the seed away. However, regardless of how much the enemy can snatch away, something is still left. Then in the second aspect there is the stony ground. The stones make a person superficial. Someone may be glad about God’s testimony, God’s message concerning Christ as life, but he is actually shallow. Underneath, he is full of stones; he is the stony ground. Farmers know that almost nothing can grow in this kind of soil. In the third aspect, the cares of this life, the lusts, and many worldly things become the thorns that choke the growth of the wheat. In this aspect also, there is almost no growth.
Due to the snatching away, the superficiality, and the choking, the seed is almost all gone. But praise the Lord, He is eventually victorious! He will fulfill His purpose. The enemy can only delay God’s purpose, but His purpose can never be nullified. So eventually, there is the fourth aspect in which the seed is sown, it grows up, and it bears fruit thirtyfold, sixtyfold, and a hundredfold. This is a brief, clear picture of life.
We must answer before God: has Christ been sown into us? Yes, praise the Lord, He has been. However, are we in the first, second, third, or fourth aspect? Christ has been sown into us, but is there growth, or is the growth choked?
In the second parable of Matthew 13, the descriptive word is not tares; we do not want to pay attention to the negative things. The word is wheat (v. 25). The seed has become wheat. Do we think that the enemy, having done as much as he did to spoil seventy-five percent of the seed, will now go to sleep? We may sleep, but the enemy never sleeps. While people sleep, the one who does not sleep comes in to sow the tares, the false, imitation wheat. The intention of the enemy in sowing tares is to frustrate the growth of the wheat. Satan adds many false Christians with the intention of frustrating the growth of the real Christians. Look at today’s Christianity. There is a great mixture. Some may say that it is all right to have the false ones among us, but sooner or later we will be affected. We may illustrate the effect of the mixture in this way: I may wear a dirty blackened coat while you stand next to me wearing a white coat. Can your white coat make mine white? No, but eventually my dirty coat will blacken your white coat. I can blacken you, but you cannot whiten me. How many worldly things have been brought into today’s church by the imitating, false Christians to frustrate the real growth of the genuine believers! This is the subtlety of the enemy.
Can we trace the subtlety of the enemy? First, he snatches away; second, he causes us to be stony; and third, he chokes. Eventually, God has some wheat, but Satan comes in to plant the tares to frustrate the growth.
The descriptive word in the third parable is mustard (v. 31). These are parables, figurative records that we must understand in a figurative way. We must learn to read the figures. Seed grows into wheat, and wheat is good for eating. What is grown in Matthew 13, then, is good for eating. In the third parable we still have a seed, a mustard seed. A mustard seed is very small but good to eat. The mustard seed is Christ, who is small to us in order to be life to us. We have a hymn that says, “So subjective is my Christ to me! / Real in me, and rich and sweet!” (Hymns, #537). Originally, we sang the second line as, “Small in me, and rich and sweet!” However, some said that if we sing it in this way, simple people will not be able to understand. To think this way is the mentality of Christianity.
In a good sense, are we bigger, or is Christ bigger? Some people may eat turkey for dinner. Is the turkey bigger, or are we bigger? I say to you, we are bigger than anything we eat. Anything we eat must be smaller than we are. If it is bigger, we can never swallow it. Rather, it may swallow us. If it is bigger than we are, we have to cut it into smaller pieces in order for it to be food to us. Christ is so small to us. Praise Him! Many times I worship Him, saying, “Lord, I worship You for Your smallness. Because You are so small, I can feed on You.” Christ is fine and small, like the mustard seed that is good to grow into something for people to feed on. Mustard is not a building material; we cannot build a house with mustard, because it can bear no weight. It is good only for eating.
In Matthew 13 the enemy changed the little mustard seed in its form and image to become a great tree. This is against the principle of God’s creation in Genesis 1, which says that living things should be “according to their kind” (Gen. 1:11-12). A mustard plant must be after the kind of mustard, but the mustard in Matthew 13 is not according to its kind. It changed in nature and in form, which breaks the principle set up for God’s creation. The mustard seed changed into a tree, which is good not for eating but as lodging for the birds, which signify Satan’s evil spirits with the evil persons and things motivated by them. Today’s Christianity is mostly good for lodging. If you travel throughout the whole world to find mustard good for eating, you will see that there is almost none. If you go to almost any kind of so-called church, you will get no food. You will only find a place good for lodging in the evil sense. This is the frustrating and damaging work of the enemy.
Still, the Lord is victorious. Some wheat has produced grain, and the grain has been made into fine flour. According to the Scriptures, wheat is for making bread to offer to God as food to satisfy God and man. From the seed comes the wheat, from the wheat comes the grain, and from the grain comes the fine flour to make bread to satisfy God and to satisfy man. Therefore, in the fourth parable in Matthew 13 the characteristic word is meal (v. 33). Even at this point, however, the enemy is not satisfied. He still comes in to frustrate by bringing in the leaven to corrupt the meal. We have the seed sown, the wheat grown up, and the fine flour produced to make bread to satisfy God and man. This is God’s intention. However, there are still the negative things.
This should not be a mere message; we have to check ourselves according to this message. Consider Christ as the seed of life within us. Is it snatched away? Are we the stony ground? Is something within us always choking the seed? Have we been frustrated by false Christians, either by our friendship with them or by following them in certain worldly ways? Are we growing now? Is the fine flour, the meal, produced in us, or is there the leaven? All these four parables reveal life and growth. Without life we cannot have the meal to make the bread to offer to God. Even if we have life, without the growth we still cannot have the meal. We need life, and we need growth.
In the fifth and sixth parables in Matthew 13 we have a treasure and a pearl (vv. 44-46). The treasure hidden in the field must be gold or precious stones. Both the precious stones and the pearl are transformed items. After the growth in life there is transformation. If we read the Bible carefully, we can see that both precious stones and pearls are good for God’s building. The New Jerusalem is built with precious stones and pearls (Rev. 21:19-21).
Since Christ has been sown into us as life, there has been a great struggle between the Lord and the enemy, both around us and within us. We should not think that the negative items in Matthew 13 are only there and not within us. Within us are the same matters mentioned in this chapter. The enemy may have snatched away the words and messages that we received concerning Christ. In the past two and a half years many messages about Christ as life have been ministered to us, but nearly every bit may have been snatched away by the enemy. We may listen to message after message, but after listening nothing may be left remaining in us. Or perhaps the seed sown remains, but we may be a shallow, superficial person full of rocks and stones beneath. If this is the case, can Christ grow within us?
We may say, “Praise the Lord, I am not too shallow. I am a deeper person.” However, is there something choking us within? Are there the cares of this life, lusts, the love of money; is there the desire to be rich, to better our life, and to uplift our standard of living? I do not like to say these things, and I am not happy to say them, but I feel the burden to do so. All these things choke, so after two and a half years, where is the growth? In addition, we may have friendships with imitation, artificial Christians, which may frustrate us from growing. The inner life is working within us, yet there may be an influence without that causes a struggle. By our experiences, we know that what I am saying is true.
Moreover, there may be leaven. In addition, the principle of the great tree is always within us. In these days the church in Los Angeles is looking for a meeting place. Whenever we touch this matter, there is the temptation to have a bigger, more beautiful building. We may say, “Our current building cannot attract people. This kind of building is for the poorer, lower class. The bank managers and people with doctorate degrees will not come here.” To speak in this way is the principle of the great tree. If we say that the “poor Jesus” is not good enough to attract people, we must be careful. The principle of the great tree is still in our nature. We still like to be big, to have magnificent, attractive material things. We do not have enough money for those things, but even if we did, we should not care for them. We need to keep the principle of the mustard seed—to be little, temporary, and transient. If you feel that to sit in a nicer chair when we meet is very good, you are still in the great tree. When the Lord Jesus was on the earth, what kind of meeting place did He have? He met on the mountainside and on the seashore. Of course, I am not legalistic, but I do not like anything with the principle of the great tree.
In Shanghai, mostly under my hand, we built a meeting hall that could accommodate three thousand people inside and two thousand outside. The brothers brought the architect to me. He asked, “Mr. Lee, what kind of design do you want for your church?” I explained it to him again and again, but he simply could not understand me. We were both speaking Chinese, but he could not understand. He said, “I have learned architecture. I know how to build a law court, a restaurant, and a church, but I do not understand what kind of church you want to build.” His thought contained the principle of the great tree. I told him to let me draw the rough design, and he could just fit it to the city codes. By cooperating in this way, we were able to do it. However, we did not build a “church.” We simply built a big “warehouse.”
When we came to Taiwan, we built the first meeting hall in Taipei, hall one, in 1952. The same thing happened again. The architects could not understand what we wanted to build. Again, I drew the rough design and told them to do their best to meet the requirements of the city codes. When the inspector from the housing department came, he said, “Is this your church? It is just a warehouse.” I do not feel shameful about this; I feel glorious. This is the principle of the mustard seed.
To have the church is a matter not only of growth but of transformation. In order to build the church we must be transformed. Human beings were made from clay. Originally, Peter was a piece of clay, but when he received Jesus Christ as the Son of God, the Lord immediately changed his name to Peter, a stone (John 1:42). The clay was transformed into stone. In Revelation 21 we see that Peter becomes not only a stone but a precious stone. Peter’s name is written on the foundation of precious stone (vv. 14, 19). When we are regenerated, we are first transformed from a piece of clay into a piece of stone. After this we are transformed in our soul, and eventually at the Lord’s coming we will be transfigured in our body. Then we will be precious stone. Even a pearl is something that has been transformed. We need transformation.
I did not make up the word transformation. In Romans 12, before the apostle brings us into the reality of the Body life, he tells us to do two things. The first is to offer ourselves bodily for the Body, and the other is to be transformed by the renewing of the mind (vv. 1-2). Our spirit has been regenerated, but our soul still remains old. We must have our soul transformed by the renewing of the mind. In these two verses we can see that the building of the church depends on our real consecration and the transformation of the soul. We can never be built up as pieces of clay. Even if we are stone within, the stone is still covered by clay; as such, we cannot be built together. Therefore, we need transformation.
The same word for transformation is in 2 Corinthians 3:18. Verse 17 says, “The Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.” Then verse 18 says that we are being “transformed into the same image from glory to glory, even as from the Lord Spirit.”
As we have seen, in the parables of Matthew 13 there is the view of life, growth, and transformation to produce the building materials. In 1 Corinthians 3 the apostle has the same thought that the Lord Jesus had in Matthew 13. Paul says that we are the cultivated land of God, that we need the seed to be planted and to grow (1 Cor. 3:6, 9a). Then on the other hand, he says that we are the building of God, built with precious stones (vv. 9b, 12a). Therefore, in Matthew 13 and 1 Corinthians 3 we can see the consistency of the divine thought: life is sown into us to grow and to cause transformation.
Now I must speak something practical. As a local church, we must have Christ planted into people as the seed. I do not oppose teachings and gifts; I simply care for how much of Christ has been sown into us. How much of Christ has been planted? We need the sowing of Christ as the seed of life into us. There must be the planting of Christ. The apostle Paul says, “I planted, Apollos watered, but God caused the growth” (v. 6). Do we have the watering and the growth?
Mothers know that after they have a baby, they must feed the baby. In the first week she feeds the baby one way; then in the second week, second month, and second half year she still knows the right way to feed the baby. A mother knows how to feed a baby to make him grow, but in the church today do we know how to help people to grow? Do we ourselves know how to grow? I have learned much by visiting many places where there were many seeking ones coming together. In the first year of their coming together, the situation among them was not clear, but after two or three years everything was exposed and brought to the surface. In all these meetings almost no one has any idea or knowledge of how to grow. We praise the Lord, however, that He has brought many of these people to the point that they realize they need something.
There are only two ways to build up a church, or a so-called church. One way is to organize; this is the organizing system. All the denominations, including the Roman Catholic Church, depend on the organizing system. As long as they have the best organizing regulations and a strong, proper character for organizing, this so-called church will flourish. It will be built up not by life but by organizing. This is the wrong way; it is the worldly, human way. The proper and spiritual way is to build up the church by life and the growth in life. This requires us to know how to sow Christ into people and know how to grow in Christ and how to help others to grow in Christ.
The real situation, however, is that many meetings in different places drop the organization. They do not like to have the organizing system, but after two or three years they become a vacuum. They have neither the organizing nor the adequate knowledge and understanding of life, so they become empty. They do not know how to grow in life or how to help others to grow in life. They do not have the way of life and the way of growth in life. This is the very reason for the weakness of so many local meetings.
First Peter 1:23 says that we have been “regenerated not of corruptible seed but of incorruptible, through the living and abiding word of God.” Then in chapter 2 he says that as newborn babes we need to grow, and by this growth we become living stones to be built up as a spiritual house (vv. 2, 5). Therefore, in Peter’s writings we again see life, growth, and building. Building comes from life and growth. We must have life, and we must have the growth in life. Then by the growth, with the growth, and in the growth we have transformation. We can be transformed only by growing; the more we grow, the more we are transformed. This transformation is for producing the materials good for the building.
The apostle Paul says, “I planted, Apollos watered, but God caused the growth.” Do we know how to water? Do we know how to help people to grow? Some may say that we need the gifts. In a sense, I admit this is true, but in what way do the gifts help? Have we seen the growth in those people who pay attention to the gifts? For the most part, I have not seen the growth among them. They exercise the gifts very much, but there is almost no growth in life. It is not a matter of exercising the gifts; it is a matter of growing in life. People always desire something miraculous. However, miracles are miracles, and the growth in life is the growth in life. These are absolutely two different categories. What we need is not the miraculous things but the growth of life.
In 1 Corinthians 3:9 Paul says, “You are God’s cultivated land, God’s building.” We are not only planters and waterers but also builders. Do we know how to build, and do we know how to be built up? When we talk about gifts and tongues, people can understand, but they may not understand when we talk about growth in life and building. I was very much impressed with this during my recent visits to other places. I told myself that when I returned to Los Angeles I would once again stress one thing: that the eyes of the dear ones would be opened concerning planting, watering, and building, as Paul did when he says, “I planted, Apollos watered...As a wise master builder I have laid a foundation, and another builds upon it. But let each man take heed how he builds upon it...gold, silver, precious stones” (vv. 6, 10, 12). The problem is, do we know how to be built up, and do we know how to build others up? Let us pray for this in these days. If we do not see the way to grow, to water others to help them to grow, to be built up, and to build up others, we have only doctrines. Chapters 1 and 2 of 1 Corinthians speak concerning Christ as our portion and everything to us, but if we do not know how to experience Christ to such an extent, if we do not know how to sow Christ, grow in life, be built up, and build up others, those chapters are only doctrines to us.
In my recent contacts with people, I spoke almost entirely on the line of life and building. After the meetings, however, it was very difficult to talk with them. So many people are just covered by the old concept, understanding, and mentality. It is hard to take away the covering and open them to the Word. It was by these difficult talks that I realized what the need is today and what the enemy’s subtlety is to distract people from these matters. This was not only a realization in my understanding; in my spirit I had a certain insight about the situation. The distraction is very subtle, not only among us but even the more within us. There is something within us of the enemy distracting us from life, growth, and building.
There is nothing miraculous about life, growth, and building to attract us. Is there something attractive about a seed sown into the ground? After perhaps ten days a little shoot comes up and starts to grow. Next week it looks the same as this week, but after three months we can see something small growing. Is there anything attractive, miraculous, or powerful about this process? It is powerful, but not in an apparent way. It is something precious but hidden. If something is not hidden, it is not precious. All the artificial things are superficial; all real treasures are hidden. Only those who have spiritual discernment—those who know a certain brother in Christ not according to the flesh but according to the spirit, not according to outward appearance but according to the inward reality—can realize that with him there is something precious. The inward working of Christ in a brother is the hidden treasure.
In this matter there is no outward show. We, however, may like the outward show. We may like to see that all the ones in the church are like angels. Tell me, though, what have you actually seen? If you say that everyone is wonderful and better than the angels, you are not mentally sound. There is not such a thing on this earth. Someone else may say that they have seen nothing good; everyone is still just flesh. This is marvelous. A certain brother is still that certain brother. The earth is still here, but there is a treasure hidden within him. We are not angels. You may be a Southern Californian, and I am a Chinese. You may be “white earth,” and I may be “black earth.” However, you must realize that there is a measure of Christ within us. The treasure is hidden under the earth.
I treasure a brother not because he is that brother but because Christ is within him. This is the precious stone; the poor earthen vessel means nothing. Those who handle precious stones buy ones that for the most part look ugly outwardly. This is because they discern through the ugliness the precious stone that is within. If we take nice looking stones to these experts, they may not want them. We should not pre sent ourselves to the “experts” in a nice looking way. The more we show ourselves to be nice, the more the experts will say there is nothing precious within; it is all a show. The experts can see through the show and realize something. The more ugly one is outwardly, the more precious he may be inwardly. This is the treasure hidden in the earthen vessel. We must know people today not according to the outward appearance, not according to the flesh, but according to the inward spiritual preciousness. This is something of Christ worked into us, and this is transformation.
This is a small sketch, a small hint, that we may see what we need today. We do not need an outward show in which everyone looks better than the angels. Instead, we need Christ sown into us, and we need to grow in Christ in a normal, ordinary way, with nothing that is miraculously attractive. We need to grow in Christ and be transformed with Him so that we may truly have the fine flour that is good for bread to offer to God to satisfy His desire and to feed others and so that they may be transformed to be good material for God’s building. This is the proper way. If we know how to sow, grow, build, and be built up, then we can experience the very Christ revealed in the first two chapters of 1 Corinthians. The secret of experiencing Christ is in the third chapter: to have Christ planted into us, to grow in Him, and to be built up in Him. Pray for these things so that they may become real to us in these days.
