I. TO LIVE AND MAGNIFY CHRIST
The first item in the church life in God’s economy is that we need to be those who live and magnify Christ (Phil. 1:20-21a). If we do not live Christ and magnify Christ in our daily life, we are not practical members of a practical church. We need to live Christ day by day from morning to evening. If people can see only what we are in our natural being, we are not living and magnifying Christ. We must live a life to show people Christ. Christ should be magnified in us by our living Him. Merely to claim that we are the church is not adequate. We must show even the angels, the demons, and the evil spirits that we are a people who live Christ to magnify Him.
A. To Love and Treasure Christ
To be those who live and magnify Christ we have to love and treasure Christ (Rev. 2:4). After His resurrection, the Lord came back to Peter in a particular way. Not long before this, Peter had denied the Lord to His face three times (John 18:17, 25, 27). I believe that Peter was very ashamed. No doubt, he still remembered his failure. Now the Lord Jesus asked him also three times, "Do you love Me?" Peter said, "Lord, You know that I love You." Then the Lord charged Peter to feed His lambs, to shepherd His sheep, and to feed His sheep (John 21:15-17). The Lord loves His lambs and His sheep, and He is very concerned for them. If we love Him, we should love them.
B. To Pursue and Gain Christ
In order to live and magnify Christ for the church life in God’s economy, we also need to pursue and gain Christ (Phil. 3:12). To pursue in Greek means to persecute. To pursue Christ is to persecute Christ in a positive sense. Before Paul was saved, he persecuted Christ. After he was saved, he pursued Christ to such an extent that he persecuted Christ, but in a positive way. We need to be those who desire to gain Christ to such an extent that we would lay hold of Him, not letting Him get away from us.
C. To Enjoy and Partake of Christ
We also need to be those who enjoy and partake of Christ. God has called us into the fellowship of His Son that we may enjoy Christ as our God-given portion (1 Cor. 1:9). Christ as the allotted portion of the saints is our divine inheritance for our enjoyment (Col. 1:12).
D. To Exalt and Minister Christ
Finally, we need to exalt and minister Christ (Col. 1:18b; 1 Tim. 4:6). In our meeting life, we have to exhibit Christ. But if we do not live Him and magnify Him by loving and treasuring Him, pursuing and gaining Him, enjoying and partaking of Him, and exalting and ministering Him, we cannot exhibit Him in the meetings. To exhibit Him requires a life of living Him that He might be magnified. Living and magnifying Christ is the first condition, first term, first requirement, for us to live the church life in God’s economy.
II. TO BUILD UP THE BODY OF CHRIST
We live and magnify Christ in order to build up the Body of Christ (Eph. 4:12). God has no intention of having individual Christians. God’s intention is to have one corporate Body composed of all the saved ones and constituted with the transformed believers. Some may not like anyone except themselves and the Lord Jesus. They may want to meet merely with the Lord by themselves. But our enjoyment of the Lord by ourselves does not compare with the sweetness and richness of Christ which we enjoy when we meet with the saints. We need the Body. The Lord wants us to love Him by meeting together with all of His lovers.
(The Satanic Chaos in the Old Creation and the Divine Economy for the New Creation, Chapter 5, by Witness Lee)
