While outward adjustment and efforts at self-improvement may produce temporary results, they quickly fade. The inward operation of the living Christ, however, produces genuine and lasting spiritual growth. The Experience of Christ as Life for the Building up of the Church unveils that this inward operation of life also results in the building up of the church as the expression of God. In each chapter, Witness Lee presents not only a clear vision of our enjoyable Christ but also many practical ways for us to enter into the enjoyment and expression of Christ in the church.

In this book, Witness Lee considers the church in six main aspects: in eternity past in God's plan and purpose, in the Old Testament types, in its progress, in its recovery, in its present testimony, and in eternity future. He examines God's eternal purpose concerning the church and how this purpose is realized in practical the building up of the church today through the believers function and their experience of the indwelling Christ.

The entire Bible reveals that God's eternal purpose and the good pleasure of His will is to have the church. In order to carry out His purpose and pleasure, God made a plan, which centers around the mysterious, incomprehensible Christ who was incarnated as a man, crucified for our redemption, resurrected to be our life, and ascended to the heavens. Specifically, God's plan is to impart, to dispense, this unsearchably rich Christ into His believers. In Enjoying the Riches of Christ for the Building Up of the Church as the Body of Christ, Witness Lee unveils how the church as the Body of Christ is produced by our enjoyment of the unsearchable riches of Christ through His word and by His Spirit. Such an enjoyment causes the believers to grow and be transformed into the precious materials for God's building. As the believers come together in spirit and in oneness, the work of building is carried out for the glory of God and the defeat of His enemy.

In The Life and Way for the Practice of the Church Life Witness Lee speaks not only of our need to know Christ but also of our need to receive a vision of the church, His Body. Enjoying Christ as life will lead us into the proper practice of the church life. In the proper church life we all live and move as members of the Body, guard the genuine ground of oneness, and experience Christ in order to present His riches in the meetings for the building up of His Body.

The practice of the God-ordained way in its four steps should be our experience. The first step is to fulfill the New Testament priesthood of the gospel. To preach the gospel is to get sinners saved to be members of the Body of Christ. The second step is to nourish and feed the new believers in the home meetings. The third step is to perfect the saints through the group meetings.... The fourth and last step of the God-ordained way is prophesying in the church meetings for the building up of the church, consummating in the organic building up of the Body of Christ. We should endeavor to build up the local church. Eventually, this building up will consummate in the building up of the Body of Christ.

"From the experiences of the saints throughout the ages, and in the light that we have seen in these recent years before the Lord, we may say that the experience of life can be divided into four stages with a total of nineteen points. According to our experience, the first four stages may be designated as follows: the first stage may be called the salvation stage; the second, the revival stage; the third, the stage of the cross; and the fourth, the stage of spiritual warfare. But according to our relationship with Christ, these four stages should be designated in this way: the first stage; in Christ; the second, abiding in Christ; the third, Christ abiding in us; and the fourth, Christ fully grown in us. The experiences of these four stages are based on our relationship with Christ. Life is God Himself, yet in order that God may be our life, this life must necessarily be in Christ. Therefore, the Scripture says, “Christ is our life” (Col. 3:4). Since life is Christ, when we experience life, we experience Christ. The experience of life may be expressed, therefore, as our relationship with Christ."