NOURISHING PEOPLE IN THE DIVINITY OF CHRIST (1)
In the previous chapter we saw that we need to cherish people in the humanity of Jesus. To cherish people is to make them feel happy and comfortable. To nourish them is to feed them, to give them something to eat. In Ephesians 5 Paul speaks about Christ’s care for the church by these two things: cherishing and nourishing ( v. 29 ).
The members of the vital groups have to learn how to nourish people to continue their cherishing of people. Cherishing without nourishing is in vain. When a mother wants to feed a naughty child, she will first make him happy by cherishing him. But without nourishing him, her cherishing is meaningless. After cherishing the child, the mother nourishes him with food. This is the way that Christ as the Head takes care of His Body, the church. He nourishes us after cherishing us.
To cherish people is to make them happy and to make them feel pleasant and comfortable. We must have a pleasant countenance when we contact people. We should be happy and rejoicing. We should not contact anyone with a cheerless countenance. We must give people the impression that we are genuinely happy and pleasant. Otherwise, we will not be able to cherish them, to make them happy. Then we should go on to nourish them. We do not nourish people when we speak to them about marriage, courtship, politics, the world situation, or education. To nourish people is to feed them with the all-inclusive Christ in His full ministry in three stages.
We should cherish people by the divine and mystical life in resurrection. In resurrection means that there is nothing natural in our care for people. Anything that is of our natural life should not be used. Our life must be in resurrection. In other words, our natural life must be crucified and resurrected to become a human life in resurrection…We must realize that the sevenfold intensified life-giving Spirit only honors things in resurrection. If you do any work that is not in resurrection, the life-giving Spirit will never honor it. Thus, your labor will be in vain, with no result. Most of the work in today’s Christianity is not in resurrection. Most Christians work in their natural life, not by the divine and mystical life in resurrection. Anything that is natural belongs to the old creation. Our contact with people should not be in the old creation but in resurrection. It is only in this way that we can cherish and nourish people with Christ, the all-inclusive One. (The Collected Works of Witness Lee, 1994-1997, vol. 5, “The Vital Groups”, ch. 11, pp. 150-154)
The church in Zamboanga 