English Version
2 Cor. 1:9 "Indeed we ourselves had the response of death in ourselves,
that we should not base our confidence on ourselves but on God, who raises
the dead."
John 20:31 "But these have been written that you may believe that Jesus
is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing, you may have life in
His name."
The experience of death ushers us into the experience of resurrection.
Resurrection is the very God who resurrects the dead. The working of the
cross terminates the self that we may experience God in resurrection. The
experience of the cross always issues in the enjoyment of the God of resurrection.
Such experience produces and forms the ministry.
Toward the end of 1 Corinthians Paul speaks of resurrection. Now at
the beginning of 2 Corinthians, Paul brings the believers back to this matter
of resurrection....This is related to ministry. Ministry is not a matter
of our doing; it is a matter of our living. Both the ministry and the living
revealed in this Epistle are of resurrection life. (Life-study of 2 Corinthians,
p. 6)
John’s ministry was a mending ministry. When Peter was called by the
Lord, he was fishing, but when John was called, he was mending the net (Matt.
4:21). Peter did a great deal of fishing, bringing in a multitude of people.
However, John mended the spiritual net, for his ministry of mending was
a mending ministry of life. Only life can mend, covering all the holes in
the spiritual net. How much this is needed today! There are so many holes
in the Christian net. What can mend them? Nothing but life. This is the
reason that we have been burdened over and over again with this matter of
life. Some people laugh at us, saying, “Don’t you know anything except the
one word life?” Yes, in a sense, we only know life, nothing else. We do
not know anything else because we do not need anything else. Life is our
only need. Brothers and sisters, you need life. Other things may enlarge
the holes; life will close every gap. We need John’s ministry. John’s ministry,
the last ministry in the Bible and the ministry with which the Bible concludes,
was a mending ministry of life. (Life-study of John, p. 12)
We who have eternal life can pass this life on to others. This means
that we can be a channel through which eternal life is supplied to others.
We can be a channel for eternal life to flow out of us and into others.
(Life-study of 1 John, p. 337)
In the church life we must learn to minister life. This is what is needed.
Do not try other ways. No way of helping is better than that of ministering
life.
You may raise the objection that you yourself are short of life; how
can you minister it to others? You may indeed be short of life. Then what
should you do? Do not go to admonish or rebuke. Do not even go to the other
party. You yourself must turn to the Lord. “Lord, have mercy upon me. My
brother is sinning; he needs the supply of life. He lacks life. But so do
I, Lord. I don’t have much life either. Have mercy upon us, but first have
mercy upon me. I need more life. I must have more life.”
We need to learn that when any brother or sister sins, this is a strong
indication that he or she is short of life. To be of help, we must first
check whether we have life. Do we have a surplus of life? Do we have more
than we need? If not, we must wait on the Lord with prayer and fasting until
we get the rich supply. Then we can minister from this supply to others.
This is the way to go on in the church life during this time of degraded
Christianity.
John stresses that this life which we need to minister to others is
simply God Himself. It is the Son of God. “This is the true God and eternal
life” [1 John 5:20]. Our need is to have a bigger portion of the Lord Jesus.
Then we shall have a surplus to minister to others, a surplus not of knowledge
or doctrine but of God. (The Mending Ministry of John, pp. 92-93)
Further Reading: Life-study of 2 Corinthians, msgs. 1-2; The Mending Ministry
of John, ch. 11
