The Lord Jesus says in Matthew 16:18, “… I will build my church.” The building of His church began on the day of Pentecost (Acts 2:1-4, 41-42). Yet this greatest prophecy of the Lord stated here still has not been fulfilled, even up to the twenty first century. The Lord is not building the church in Christendom, which is composed of the apostate Roman Catholic Church and the Protestant denominations. This prophecy is being fulfilled through the Lord’s recovery, in which, the building of the genuine church is being accomplished (footnote 184 Matthew 16).

Such a prophecy is being fulfilled in the Lord’s recovery; therefore, we who are in the Lord’s recovery must rise up to do our portion. Otherwise, His return will be further delayed. Twenty centuries ago, thrice the Lord said, “I come quickly.” But unless the Body of Christ—the church—is built, our Lord has no way to come back.

We are aware that the Lord builds His church, He says so, yet He is not doing the building directly. He also gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as shepherds and teachers, for the perfecting of the saints unto the work of the ministry, unto the building up of the Body of Christ (Eph. 4:11-12). According to the grammatical construction, the building up of the Body of Christ is the work of the ministry. Whatever the gifted persons in verse 11 do as the work of the ministry must be for the building up of the Body of Christ. However, this building up is not accomplished directly by the gifted ones but by the saints who have been perfected by the gifted ones (footnote 124 of Ephesians 4).

In brief, it is the perfected local saints who will build the Body of Christ which practical expression can be found in the locality as the church in the locality. Now that we know that the perfected saints in the locality are the ones directly building the Body, then we need to know also how these perfected saints are best produced.

The early believers remembered the Lord by breaking bread at home. Meeting in the home as a Christian way of meeting together is fitting to God’s New Testament economy. It became a continual and general practice in the churches (cf. Rom. 16:5; 1 Cor. 16:19; Col. 4:15; Philem. 2) until gradual degradation crept into the church where meetings of the believers needed a cathedral, a chapel, or at least a rented hall. Of course, if we would read Revelation 2:3, we would see evidently the undeniable degradation that the church underwent until we arrive to the church in Philadelphia (Rev. 3:7-13) which prefigures the church in recovery.

One of the practices that we are now recovering is the breaking of bread from house to house. Houses opening for bread-breaking are also houses that are conducting prayer meeting and Life-Study meeting and quite often, gospel meeting. The saints who belong to the house that opens for LTM are perfected faster than those who do not open their homes.

It has been observed that a certain church, due to size (about 2,000 saints), is divided into seven clusters. The cluster 2 of that church has the goal of opening up 600 homes for the LTM. As of date, 69 homes had already been raised up for LTM. Without controversy, every time the monthly combine meeting of the church is conducted, the saints from cluster 2 would be not less than 40% of the prophesying saints. Remember, it is said in 1 Corinthians 14:3 and 4b, “But he who prophesies speaks building up and encouragement and consolation to men… but he who prophesies builds up the church.” Therefore, more prophesying, more building.

The Lord is speaking here. We need to recover the house to house LTM to hasten His return. The saints get perfected faster; they become more solid in the matters of having the God-man living, exercising the mingled spirit, and becoming burdened for answering the Lord’s declaration of “I come quickly.” (Rev. 22:7, 12, 20)

Come, Lord Jesus! (Rev. 22:20)