Truth Lesson: Pillar, a Reward to the Overcomer

In the recent training for the elders and the responsible ones, a message on "The Factor of Living an Overcoming Life in the recovered Church to Consummate the Divine Economy and Become the New Jerusalem" has impacted me a lot spiritually. What I used to consider as an overcomer is not the whole truth at all. Besides, I was also helped to see the factor that can make me an overcomer. Factor is an element contributing to the result. Therefore, I must take care of the factor to meet the end result. 

OVERCOMERS in the Recovered Local Churches

The real overcomer is Christ. The sooner one realizes this, the better.  Now as a believer, I have Christ in me. So the way for me to become an overcomer is by being one with Christ practically in my daily living. 

Such believers who are living Christ are the overcomers, who are also the factor that contributes to the building up of the church. It is not merely enough to be in a recovered local church life, the church in Philadelphia, but much more to be overcomers in the church; the Lord is calling for the overcomers. The local churches are the procedures to have the reality of the Body of Christ as the goal. There are local churches that existed yet without resulting in the living of an overcoming life. The local churches are not the factor, but the overcomers in the recovered churches are. These ones will consummate the divine economy and become the New Jerusalem. The church could be empty if it is not contributing to the consummation of the divine economy. In other words, the so-called church could be empty if there are no overcomers. 

The Lord is the Overcomer and He is reproducing Himself in us to make us overcomers in the local church.

Matthew 18:17 And if he refuses to hear them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to hear the church also, let him be to you just like the Gentile and the tax collector.

The Lord only regards the church meeting on the ground of oneness. In Revelation, it is always “the church in ….” The Lord must recover genuine local churches, or He has no way to build up the church.  As we are in the recovered church, our response should be, “Lord, make me an overcomer.”

To the local church in Ephesus, the Lord said, “Unless you repent, I will remove the lampstand.” This shows that the assembly may still exist as an empty local church without being a lampstand. It is possible for a church to be empty if it exists without the overcomers. The reality of the kingdom of the heaven is the content of the church, which is Christ Himself as our life, as the essence and the substance for us to be the proper church life. Through which we will be build up with the other believers. Without the reality, the constitution, the central work of God, the churches are just empty. Only the overcomers can build up the church that will bring the Lord back and consummate in the New Jerusalem.

REWARD

The principle of reward is, "What we are will become our reward in the coming age."

Revelation 2:7 He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes, to him I will give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the Paradise of God.

To be an overcomer we must eat the tree of life today, not waiting until the next age. The present enjoyment of the overcomers is the reward in the coming age. What we enjoy and participate in today will become our reward in the coming age. 

PILLARS

To be an overcomer is also to be a pillar today so that we can become a pillar in the coming age. Who are these pillars? In Revelation 3:12 the Bible says, 

"He who overcomes, him I will make a pillar in the temple of My God, and he shall by no means go out anymore, and I will write upon him the name of My God and the name of the city of My God, the New Jerusalem, which descends out of heaven from My God, and My new name."

But in 21:22 it says,  

"And I saw no temple in it, for the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb are its temple."

This means the pillars are in organic union with the Triune God Himself. This also proves the fact that the overcomers are those who are one with the Lord Himself. Therefore, if we are overcomers to be pillars, we must exercise to live and walk by the Spirit who is the processed and consummated Triune God mingling with our spirit today. The way to achieve this is by allowing Christ to make His home in our hearts.

Ephesians 3:16, 17 That He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit into the inner man, That Christ may make His home in your hearts through faith, that you, being rooted and grounded in love, that Christ may make His home in your hearts through faith, that you, being rooted and grounded in love,

And loving Him with our best love; for it is with those who love Him that He comes and makes and abode with him. This aboded is the mingling of God with man. 

John 14:23 Jesus answered and said to him, If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word, and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make an abode with him.

Therefore, we are made pillars in the temple of God by living an overcoming life in the recovered church life by allowing Christ to make His home in our hearts, and making an abode with us.

Lord, make me a pillar for the building up of Your Body.