Christ and the Church

My human life was a puzzle and a painful contradiction. I could see endless beauty in the creation, yet my own experience was mostly failure and disappointment. I sensed that there was pattern and purpose in everything, yet I couldn’t solve the puzzle—what is it all for? As a teenager I heard the gospel and received Christ with joy; but I was very dissatisfied with the social activities and the shallowness of traditional Christianity. I wondered if the church that I read about in the book of Acts existed anywhere on the earth. One day I shared the gospel with a coworker and he came to the Lord. A short time later he met a brother meeting with the local church and went to a meeting. The next day he insisted that I go to a meeting with him, and I did, but I didn’t enjoy it. A few months later, my outward circumstances had collapsed, and I found myself in need of a ride home one Friday night. My coworker offered me a ride and invited me to go to the church meeting with him that night. That night I was attracted to the enjoyment of the singing and calling on the name of the Lord. Soon I was fully involved in meeting with the local church, enjoying Christ as the Tree of Life. I was sure I had found God’s purpose for my life. But before too many months had passed I began to have problems with besetting sins that troubled my conscience and brought me under a cloud of self-condemnation. I was still a young college student, very immature, and I began to fall away from the Lord. Eventually I felt I had to leave the church rather than stay and feel condemned in my own conscience. Years passed in which I tried to forget the Lord and the church. But I couldn’t deny the longing in my being to find the truth. So I tried all sorts of “alternatives”—the world is full of people and things that claim to be “the answer”. But one day the Lord spoke to me inwardly and very clearly “I am the way, I am the truth, I am the life, no one comes to the Father except through Me” (John 14:6). I was convicted that I had to submit to Him, but I didn’t want to admit that I had wasted all those years. Then my circumstances collapsed again and I finally gave in and called on His name: “Lord Jesus, I need You”. That was all it took. He came into my life in a real way from that moment. I began to attend meetings of the church in Houston because I knew the Christians there were the most absolute for the Lord of any I had ever met. At first I wasn’t completely comfortable with Witness Lee’s ministry, but before long, through Witness Lee’s ministry, the Lord began to show me that the church is His heart’s desire, and that today He is in the midst of the golden lampstands, caring for the churches (Rev. 1:13). When I received this revelation it caused me to desire to give myself to Christ and the Church. I realized that Witness Lee and Watchman Nee were absolutely one with the New Testament teaching and fellowship of the Apostles (Acts 2:42). Later my eyes were opened to see that the local churches are one with each other not just doctrinally, but in reality, under the headship of Christ, and that together they are the practical expression of the one universal Body of Christ on the earth today (Eph. 1:22-23). This vision fully captured my inner being—I now saw what God was after. A corporate, living Body composed of the many members of Christ, each holding the Head, coordinated together in the Spirit to manifest God in the flesh on the earth for all to see.

A lot of time has passed since then; I’ve gotten married and had a family, bought a house and established my career. The Lord was definitely with me in all of these things. He gave me a dear sister in the Lord for my wife, and four lovely children who are growing in the Lord. But I was more and more occupied with the affairs and cares of this life, and gradually less and less involved in the things of the Lord. Recently I became very dissatisfied with my human life and my Christian life, and I realized that I had drifted away from the Lord and His heart’s desire. Thank the Lord for His great mercy! After much prayer by other Christians and my family, my situation changed again and I was set free from my job. Over the past year, as I have been trying to find work, the Lord has been gradually recovering me back to the knowledge and experience of Himself. I have struggled much with my outward situation, and the Lord has met my need for encouragement and comfort through the dear believers in the Body.

Recently a brother encouraged me to go to a church conference in Europe and there the Lord graciously unveiled to me a further revelation of His heart’s desire, the Church which is His Body. I saw that the lampstands in Revelation chapter one are the exact duplication of the lampstand in the tabernacle in Exodus 25. The Word is clear that in Revelation one the lampstands are the churches and the lampstand in Exodus 25 and Zechariah 4 is a clear type of Christ as the embodiment of God and the light of life. That means that the church today bears the testimony of Jesus. A proper church should only express Christ. The Lord also showed me that He loved the Church and gave Himself up for Her (Eph. 5:25) pouring out God’s own blood (Acts 20:28) to purchase Her (Matt. 13:45-46). This revelation touched me deeply and renewed my love for the Lord and His purpose.

Thank the Lord for His New Testament ministry which is so available through the teaching of Watchman Nee and Witness Lee and their faithful coworkers in the Lord’s recovery. In retrospect, my experience is very clear now—the puzzle is solved! Our Father God loves me to such an extent that He has reserved for me His very best. He is unwilling for me to be occupied or satisfied with anything less than His beloved Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. So He has allowed me to be confounded in my human experience from time to time so that He can come in to redirect me to Himself. But He is also preparing a Bride for His Son—a corporate Bride, the Church composed of all the dear lovers of Christ. So He is not willing for me to remain just an individual Christian. Again He has allowed the environment to constrain me and bring me to Himself for His further revelation and direction. As one who loves Christ, I must love what He loves and do what He does. He loves the Church and is building His Church (Matt 16:18) for His return. So by His mercy I must forsake my own interests and be blended with the believers locally and universally, and labor in the spread of the gospel of the kingdom to the whole inhabited earth and in the perfecting of the believers unto the building up of the Body of Christ to the full extent of my measure of the gift of Christ. Today I sense that He is calling His seekers to a new level of consecration, to be willing to give all, to pay a serious price gladly, lovingly, for His satisfaction and for His heart’s desire. And as He shows us more of His eternal purpose, that which is so precious to Him that He went and sold all that He had and bought it, spontaneously He is gaining our whole being. He is so lovely! Lord Jesus I love You! I give myself to You for the carrying out of Your heart’s desire!

Joe Bruso Jr.

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