The Vital Groups for God’s Building

In this post we would like to consider the vital groups in light of Message 11 of the 2010 Winter Training, given by Ron Kangas, concerning God’s building. We must realize that the vital groups are not just for the vital groups. Rather, the vital groups must be the reality of the Body of Christ. They must be for God’s building. All the quotes are taken from Ron’s speaking.

God’s heart’s desire is a building, which is the mingling of divinity with humanity. God is building Himself into man and building man into Himself, the issue of which is His dwelling place: a house of prayer and the house of His beauty. Four matters help bring this revelation into our pursuit of the Lord:

1. “The Lord has a supreme and highest requirement of us all, and that is, to be built up with one another in the Triune God… Then the corollary, the complementary point…is that the highest virtue of one who pursues the Lord, is being built up.”

We may love the Lord, be spiritual, constituted with the truth, and faithful in service, but if we are not built up with others, we are short of God’s highest requirement. This is why we need to enter into the vital groups where we are built up with those around us. We cannot remain mere individual spiritual specimens but rather we must be broken and blended with one another. This relates to the next point which says,

2. “God measures us and evaluates us not merely and not mainly according to moral regulations or spiritual principles, but according to His house, His building.”

This is based on Ezekiel chapter 43 where Jehovah charged Ezekiel to show the degraded children of Israel the pattern of the house in order to cause them to repent. God does not measure us merely by our morality, our practices of morning revival or Bible reading. Rather, He just shows us His house and asks, “Do you match this? Do you fit into this? Do your spirituality, service, and pursuit of the truth match and fit into this building? Are you solidly built in?” He measures us by the oneness and the one accord we have with one another, which again may be seen in the vital groups. Then the next point gives us a warning and a way:

3. “We first must become the material, through growth and transformation, so that we’re buildable… The years between the middle 20s and somewhere into the 40s maybe reaching 50, the essence of your spiritual experience, personally, is to become buildable.”

The warning is that we may become someone unbuildable, not only unbuilt. The process of transformation will include breaking and the discipline of the Spirit but the issue is that we come to Bethel the second time and be in the reality of the building. Then for the rest of our lives, we will live, pursue the Lord, and serve in the church in this reality. In other words, we do everything in the vital groups. We pursue the Lord, serve in the church, and carry out the God-ordained way in the vital groups. Brother Ron then admonishes our age group by saying,

“We have a heart of love for these saints between the ages of middle 20s and early 40s. We fully agree that you would be useful, that you would be given opportunities to serve; we’ll make way for you. But even that is not your intrinsic need. Your intrinsic need is to become buildable, BUILDABLE, so you can be built together with anyone according to the Lord’s arrangement.”

Again, this can be worked out in the vital groups where we are “forced” to be broken and blended with one another into a barley loaf. Finally the last point, which is something that only God can work out:

4. “We need Him to infuse into us a desire for His building. We need Him to duplicate in us the desire that is in His heart for His building… This grips you.”

Regarding this, our prayer should at least match that of the Israelites who are currently seeking the rebuilding of the temple:

“May it be Your will, to instill in our hearts, a deep desire to do Your will, to preserve and fulfill the commandment, to build the holy temple, such as the sanctuary that Moses established at the foot of Mount Sinai, and like the holy temple that King Solomon built on Mount Moriah, and as the one the children of Israel made upon the return to Jerusalem from Babylonian captivity…”

Unfortunately, our prayer for God’s spiritual house may be much less fervent and desperate than that of the Israelites for the physical temple. May we all be before the Lord and seek Him to infuse us with this deep desire that’s on His heart. “Lord, make our hearts a duplication of Your heart concerning Your building.”