Duplication

Recently I was so much impressed by the matter of "duplication" in our services in the Lord's work. In fact, this has been a burden in the Lord's work today. Gone are the days of "spiritual giants" where spirituality in an individualistic way was pursued as the main goal of a Christian life. In fact, I was once such. This line of belief is very dangerous for the building up of the Body of Christ; for the Body of Christ is a corporate matter with each members function according to the measure God has measured to them, not going beyond nor below, but just as the Lord, the Head of the Body, sovereignly has ordained.

In a normal Christian life in a normal church life, coordination in oneness with all members functioning is a must. For this practically to happen there must be a mutual shepherding of one another; the learned ones must train and perfect the learning ones, the senior and experienced ones must shepherd and perfect the younger and inexperienced ones. Whatever one has learned under the Lord's grace must be passed on to the next generation, and impart to the ones who have not yet learned. By this way, the building up of the Body of Christ will hasten. God is not seeking for individualistic spiritualist, but He is seek for the Body, His Bride, for Him to marry to consummate this age.

If not for the faithful brothers in the Lord's recovery today who are imparting this burden in this age, I would still be very individualistic, keeping all my learning from the Lord to myself. With this burden released I have started to serve in the way of perfecting and building up one another. What the Lord has taught me all these years must be passed on to many other saints, in a sense, I must reproduce myself in a positive sense to other saints to carry out the same work I am doing. Just as much as I learned from other saints who shepherded me, taught me and trained me, I must do the same to other saints, and that saints must in turn do the same likewise. By this way, the Lord's work of building up His Body will hasten much more. The urgent need today it "duplication" or "reproduction" of the Lord's work in us to others.

These days, the Lord blessed me with some saints whom He graced me to shepherd and have now become my vital group members. Once in a week we would serve together in prayer, visiting new ones, preaching the gospel and shepherding the new ones. So far seven solid group of contacts have been contacted. And the burden for shepherding is growing exponentially. Praise the Lord for such a grace! This all I could enjoy because of the initial shepherding the Lord graced me to carry out. We are mutually shepherding one another.

 Few days ago, we enjoyed pray-reading verses from Jeremiah 24 : 

6 And I will set My eyes upon them for good and will bring them back to this land and build them up and not tear them down, and I will plant them and not uproot them. 7 And I will give them a heart to know Me, that I am Jehovah; and they will be My people, and I will be their God; for they will return to Me with their whole heart.

We prayed these verses applying to all the ones we are praying for; we had no words of our own but the word of God itself. We enjoyed praying in this way so much; every word means so much, and after such pray-reading interceding, our burdens were released and we had the assurance that God has already answered our prayer, for it is His word that we prayed with. This kind of corporate vital group experience and enjoyment would not have happened had I not shepherded my vital members in a way of reproducing my spiritual learning from the Lord to them. 

This is the need of the Body in this age: mutual shepherding and spiritual reproduction for the perfecting of the saints unto the building up of the Body of Christ.