AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A PERSON IN THE SPIRIT, AN

In 2 Corinthians Paul shows us that if we are going to have a ministry of Christ, we have to experience Christ by the working of the cross (1:9; 4:10-12), and the working of the cross is for us to experience the anointing, the sealing, and the pledge of the Holy Spirit (1:21-22). The ministry comes out of this experience. Second Corinthians gives us a pattern, an example, of how the killing of the cross works, how Christ is wrought into our being, and how we become the expression of Christ. These constitute the ministers of Christ and produce the ministry for God’s new covenant. While Ephesians and Colossians may be the highest books in the Bible, 2 Corinthians is probably the deepest.

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Second Corinthians speaks concerning the ministry, which is constituted with, and produced and formed by, the experiences of the riches of Christ through sufferings, consuming pressures, and the killing work of the cross. The ministry is not merely a matter of gift. A person may be able to speak fluently and eloquently and give many good illustrations and proverbs, but this is just a gift. What the church, the Body, needs today is the ministry. The Body needs some brothers and sisters who have been thoroughly wrought by God and with God so that they may have something of Christ, not merely in their mentality as knowledge to teach others but as the very riches of Christ in their spirit and in their entire inward being to pass on to others. I expect that these ones will go out to certain places to have contact and fellowship with people. Eventually, we will see the growth in life and the building of the saints in the places that these ones visit. Today there are many teachings, much knowledge, and many gifts, but there is a great shortage of the ministry. We have to be desirous of this kind of ministry. We need to pray, “Lord, be gracious to me so that I might be delivered out of my concept concerning the gifts. How I long to be wrought through with something of God in Christ as the Spirit. May I have something of the divine element wrought into me to minister to others that I may have a divine ministry of Christ.” The church needs the ministry much more than the gifts.