THE WAY TO BE VITALIZED (2)
The church life is the right place for you to be an overcomer. But this does not mean that as long as you are in the church life, you are an overcomer. It is one thing to be in the church life. It is another thing to be an overcomer in the church life.
In the Old Testament there was the city of Jerusalem with Zion as the center. Jerusalem was built on a mountain range. Mount Zion was one of the mountains on which Jerusalem was built. Zion is the center, and Jerusalem is the circumference. The church life is today’s Jerusalem; within the church life there must be a group of overcomers, and these overcomers are today’s Zion. According to Revelation 14, the overcomers are standing on Mount Zion with the Lord (vv. 1-5). Actually, in typology the overcomers are today’s Zion. Then in the last two chapters of Revelation, there is the New Jerusalem. Without Zion (the overcomers), Jerusalem (the church life) cannot be kept and maintained.
Zion is the high peak, the center, the uplifting, the strengthening, the enriching, and the reality of the church, the holy city. If there are no overcomers in a local church, that church is like Jerusalem without Zion. There are some churches like this today, so they are weak churches. A local church must have some overcomers, and these overcomers are the peak and the center of that local church. They are the uplifting, the strengthening, the enriching, and the reality of that local church. If you take away these overcomers from that local church, that local church becomes like a flat tire.
The overcomers as today’s Zion are for the consummation of the holy city (the church). They are to consummate, to finish, the building up of the local church and to bring in the consummated New Jerusalem in eternity (21:1-2). In order to complete the building up of the Body, the Lord needs the overcomers, and the building up of the Body consummates in the New Jerusalem. This is why at the end of the Bible, in the last book, there is the calling for the overcomers. Today the way to become vitalized is to answer the Lord’s call to be an overcomer.
There are two ways before us today. We can either choose to be vitalized or choose not to be vitalized. I am presenting these two ways before us. Which way will we take? Are we going to be vitalized or not? We have to make a resolution. In Judges 5:15 Deborah said, “Among the divisions of Reuben / There were great resolutions in heart.” We have to make a resolution to be the overcomers, the vitalized ones. An overcomer overcomes anything that replaces Christ or that is against Christ. In the Bible there is the age of the overcomers, and there is the calling for the overcomers. Furthermore, there is a way for us to be vitalized so that we can be the overcomers. (CWWL, 1993, vol. 2, “The Training and Practice of the Vital Groups”, ch. 1, pp. 274-275)
The church in Zamboanga 