The Body of Christ, Watchman Nee

Watchman Nee, Twelve Baskets Full, Vol. 3, The Body of Christ

 

". . . personal holiness . . .  is really precious. Victory in living is really precious. Salvation is really precious. . . . Praise the Lord for forgiveness of sins, for justification before Him, for deliverance from the power of sin. But remember that God did not set Himself to save us to give us spiritual experiences like deliverance and victory in life, personal holiness, and so on, just so we could be hundreds and thousands and myriads of individual Christians, all separate units dotted over this earth for God. . . .

The Lord opens your eyes to see that salvation is in terms of the Body. Having personal holiness is in terms of the Body, having the power of the Spirit is in terms of the Body, having an experience of the Cross is in terms of the Body. You see that the Divine thought is one Man - not a host of small men. It is one Man: the Lord Jesus Christ Himself and His people making up one Man before God. The whole thought of God is centered in Christ, and we are in Him. If it not only a question of the Head, but of the Body. . . .

You begin as an individual, but you must end as a member of the Body."

Questions on Unity

I owe the dear “reader of my blog” a wrap up post on what the Lord taught me during my journey as shared in the last four (4) posts. But, I have this burden to share below and then will provide the promised post.

The Lord has been putting the need for unity of believers on my heart lately and I ran into a good definition of the Church while I was reading a blog from a new friend (see PS below).

He wrote: “. . . a community of saints who gather on the ground of fellowship in Christ among all the disciples of Jesus in their locality.” I agree with this and will be sharing on this, but today I want to propose a couple of questions.

In my locality how do we move from “going” to church in division to “being” the church in unity?

How does this work itself out practically?

PS – I have not made it a practice of plugging other blogs here, but I would like to recommend one which I have found to be enlightening. The author, Josh Lawson, wrote a post where he presented, much better than I ever could, the unity of the Body. I will be using portions of it as I present my thoughts on the unity,

It is:     http://www.insearchofthecity.com/

Grace and Peace