The Increase of Christ in the Believers Being Their Spiritual Progress and Growth in Life

Phil. 2:12-13
So then, my beloved,
even as you
have always obeyed,
not as in my presence only
but now much rather in my absence,
work out your own salvation
with fear and trembling;
for it is God
who operates in you
both the willing and the working
for His good pleasure.

 

It is right
that we
should love the Lord,
but we should not do it
according to
our way and our intention.
Our will
must be subdued to His will.
Simply to love Him
is not enough.
Loving Him
will cause many problems.
Therefore,
we need
the subduing of our will.
The person
whom we love
is the strongest One.
He will
never be subdued,
and He can
never be subdued.
Therefore,
we are the ones
who must be subdued.

 

Man’s will
is the organ
with which man
makes decisions.
Our willingness or unwillingness,
our wanting or not wanting,
and our deciding or not deciding
are all the functions
of our will.
The will of man
is his “rudder.”
As a ship
turns according to the rudder,
a man moves
according to his will.

 

Man’s will
can be said
to be his true self, the man himself,
because the will
represents the man.
All the actions of the will
are actually the actions of this “man.”
When we say,
“I am willing,”
we actually mean
that our will
is willing.
When we say,
“I want this”
or “I decided to do this,”
it means
that our will
wants it,
or that our will
decided it.
The function of the will
is to express
the intention of our whole being.
The emotion
is only what we feel,
the mind
is only what we think,
but the will
is what we want.
Hence,
the will
is the most important part
of our whole being.
Man’s will
is deeper than his emotion and mind.
Therefore,
when a believer
pursues after the spiritual life,
he has to pay attention
to the will.

 

The neck
signifies man’s will.
The Bible speaks of those
who walk according to their self-will,
who are stubborn and proud,
as stiff-necked ones (Isa. 3:16).
Hence,
the neck denotes
man’s will under God.
The Lord considers
the submission of man’s will
as the most beautiful thing
in man.

 

There is
a two-step endeavor
in the union of the will with God.
One step
is for God
to subdue
the activities of our will;
the other step
is for God
to subdue
the life of our will.
Often
our will
is subdued by God
only in certain particular matters.
In these matters
we think
that we
have completely submitted to God.
However,
there is
still a secret tendency
for our will
to become active
once given the chance.
God not only wants our will
to be restricted by Him
in the aspect of its activities;
He also wants
the tendency of our will
to be completely broken, smashed, and destroyed
as if its very nature
is changed.
Strictly speaking,
a submissive will
and a harmonious will
are different.
Submission
is only in the aspect of activities,
but harmony
is in the aspect of
life, nature, and tendency.
A servant,
who fulfills
all the orders of his master,
merely has a submissive will.
The will of a son
who is intimately sympathetic
towards his parents’ heart
is harmonious with his father’s will
because he
not only does
what he should do,
but he
also delights
in doing it.
A submissive will
merely stops its own activities,
but a harmonious will
is one with God
and is of the same heart as God.
A will
that is in complete harmony with God
is one
in which one’s whole heart
is placed
in the will of God.
Only those
who are in harmony with God
can truly comprehend
God’s heart.
If a believer
has not reached the point
where his will and God’s will
are in complete harmony,
he has not yet experienced
the highest point of the spiritual life.
Submission to God
is good,
but when grace
has completely overcome the natural disposition,
the believer
will be
in complete harmony with God.
Indeed,
the union of the will
is the highest point
of the believer’s experience
of life.

 

Gal. 4:19
My children,
with whom
I travail again in birth
until Christ is formed in you.

 

Phil. 3:10
To know
Him
and the power of His resurrection
and the fellowship of His sufferings,
being conformed to His death.

 

The growth in life
is not a matter
of outward correction
or of adjusting our daily walk.
In fact,
outward correction
has nothing to do with
the growth in life.
When a seed is sown
into the earth,
teaching and correction
do nothing
to effect
the seed’s germination or growth.
Instead,
the seed receives benefit
only by being watered and fertilized.

 

We need to be impressed
that the growth in life
is nothing other than
the increase of Christ within us.
We need to forget
about all the teachings
concerning self-correction and self-improvement
that we received from Christianity.
Even before we were saved,
we received
this kind of teaching
from our parents,
and we do not need to have it
repeated to us.
Instead,
we need to forget these things
and pay attention to Christ.
Many believers
are not short of self-improvement;
many are cultured
gentlemen and women.
What the believers lack today
is the increase of
Christ as life
within them.
Thus,
their need
is more of Christ.

 

The church
is not a place
where people are taught
to behave;
the church
is a place
where Christ is sown into us,
where we are watered,
and where God causes the growth.
Christianity
is a religion
full of
teaching,
but the church
is full of
Christ as life.

 

Again I say,
the growth in life
is nothing other than
the increase of Christ
in the believers
for the building up of the church.
…In order to have
the proper growth in life,
we need to be
Christ-conscious.

 

In Galatians 4:19
Christ is presented
as the One
who is formed in the believers.
…Paul says,
“My children,
with whom
I travail again in birth
until Christ
is formed in you.”
Paul considered himself
the begetting father
and the Galatian believers
his children
begotten of him
in Christ.
The word travail
refers to
painful toil
in childbirth.
In this metaphor
Paul likened himself
to a mother
who gives birth
to a child.
He had labored in this way
to regenerate the Galatians
when he
first preached the gospel to them.
Because they deviated from the gospel
that he had preached to them,
he was toiling again in travail
until Christ would be formed in them.

 

When the Galatian believers
were regenerated
through Paul’s preaching of the gospel to them
the first time,
Christ was born into them
but not formed in them.
Here
the apostle was travailing again
that Christ
might be formed in them.
To have Christ
formed in us
is to have Christ
fully grown in us.
First,
Christ was born into us
at the time we
repented and believed in Him,
then He
lives in us
in our Christian life,
and, finally,
He will be formed in us
at our maturity.

 

According to
the context of the book of Galatians,
to have Christ formed in us
is to allow Him
to permeate our being
and saturate our inward parts.
When Christ
occupies our inner being
in this way,
He is formed in us.
In order to have Christ
formed in us,
we need to drop everything
other than Christ Himself,
no matter how good
these things may be.
Even things
which come from God
and are scriptural
may not be Christ Himself.
Although the law
was given by God,
it must be set aside
so that all the ground in our being
may be given over to Christ.
We need to allow Him
to saturate
every part of our inner being.
He must occupy us
and saturate
our mind, emotion, and will.
To have Christ
possess our entire being
is to have Him
formed in us.

 

Eph. 4:13
Until we all
arrive at the oneness
of the faith
and of the full knowledge of the Son of God,
at a full-grown man,
at the measure of the stature of
the fullness of Christ.

 

Eph. 4:15
But holding to truth in love,
we may grow up into Him
in all things,
who is
the Head, Christ.

 

Spiritual progress
is the increase of
the element of God in us.
It is also
the removal of things
other than God within us.
We must not think
that we can make progress
by simply attending a meeting,
hearing a message,
or understanding a message.
Spiritual progress for us
is not only addition
but also subtraction.
Having eight or ten messages in us
is not progress;
it can well be
a hindrance.
Spiritual progress
is the increase of
the element of God
and the removal of
everything else.
…When we listen to a message,
the message reaches our mind,
but this is
not progress.
…If something
is removed from us,
we have progress.
If God’s element
increases in us,
we have progress.

 

Many Christians
are delivered from
the pleasures of sin
as soon as they are saved.
Yet it is
not enough
to be free from sin alone.
Spiritual progress
is being free from everything
that usurps the place of God.

 

Whenever God’s work
removes something from us
other than God,
we have
spiritual progress.
We must continually ask ourselves
whether we are shedding things.
…If nothing
has been cast off from us
for a month or a year,
we have had
no progress
during that month or year.
Brothers and sisters,
spiritual progress
on the positive side
means the increase of
the element of God,
and on the negative side
it means
the decrease of
ourselves.
A Christian
who makes great progress
is one
who decreases daily.
…On the positive side,
spiritual progress
means the increase of
God’s element within us.
On the negative side,
it means
the dropping of many things
from within us
little by little.

 

Ephesians 4:13
and Galatians 4:19
clearly show us
what Christian progress is.
When Christ
grows and is formed
in a Christian
so that there is
the measure of the stature of
the fullness of Christ within him,
this is
Christian progress.
When Christ
is formed in a Christian,
and the measure of his stature
is increased within him,
this is
Christian progress.

 

Most Christians, however,
consider growth
as merely a matter of improvement.
But it is possible
to have
a great deal of improvement
without any growth.
The growth in life
is the addition of Christ as life
into our being.
Not only Christians
but even unbelievers
may improve
as their natural life matures.
For example,
as a young person grows
from a teenager
to a man in his late twenties,
he will improve.
But this improvement
is not the growth in life.
Many Christians
have been helped
to improve themselves
by listening to sermons.
Although sermons
may help people
to improve,
they do not help them
to grow in life.
According to the Bible,
to grow
is to have
more of Christ
wrought into our being.
The growth in life
is simply the increase of Christ
in our being.

 

The growth in life
is the increase of Christ in us.
Christ is already in us,
but He needs to grow in us.
Christ in Himself
does not need to grow,
for He is
perfect and complete.
In Himself
Christ is fully mature,
but in us
Christ may still be very small.
We need to gain
more of Christ.

 

When Christ increases in us,
we grow in Him.
According to Ephesians 4:15,
we may grow up into Christ
in all things.
In our thinking,
our loving and hating,
our likes and dislikes,
and all our decisions,
we may grow up into Christ.
Even when we
get a haircut,
buy a pair of shoes,
study,
or work,
we may grow up into Christ.
Most brothers and sisters
are in Christ
in some things
but not in all things.
In everything
and at every moment,
we need to grow up into Christ
by having Christ increase within us.