Weekly Pursuit – Week 1 of January
Verse:
Eph. 4:16 “Out from whom all the Body, being joined together and being knit together through every joint of the rich supply and through the operation in the measure of each one part, causes the growth of the Body unto the building up of itself in love.”
Excerpts:
We believe that God is recovering the most difficult thing today. What worries us the most today is the fulfillment of Ephesians 4. It seems as though we do not have to worry about the fulfillment of John 3:16. We are not afraid that it will not be fulfilled, and we are not worried…. However, I am worried about Ephesians 4. I am concerned about how this passage of the Scriptures will be fulfilled.
Yet, brothers and sisters, we believe that there will be a day when God’s recovery will reach the fulfillment of Ephesians 4. God is doing a recovery work everywhere. The ultimate work among all these works may very well be the recovery of the Body testimony. God’s leading today is to bring us back to the beginning and to recover us to the condition at the beginning.
First Corinthians 12 and Romans 12 show us that in God’s arrangement or plan, there is no such thing as a pastor monopolizing the service of the whole Body. Neither is there such a thing as a group of brothers and sisters serving while another group of brothers and sisters is being served. What we see in the Bible is the whole Body being a priesthood…. The church is built upon the universal priesthood of the whole Body. The church is not built upon a few brothers and sisters. If the priesthood is not universal, we have Roman Catholicism. If the priesthood is universal, we have the church. We have to see that service to God is not a matter of three or five people serving, or thirty or fifty people serving. Our service to God today must be entirely different. In order to serve God today, everyone has to rise up to do the work. (The Collected Works of Watchman Nee, Set 3, Vol. 11, chap. 20)