Search
Our burden is still concerning the grouping. We may have been Christians for many years, yet we must admit that we are too natural. We may think that we are very spiritual, yet we have to realize that we are “naturally spiritual.” This means that we have not been dealt with by the Lord that much.
A number of you who have prayed a lot in the church meetings should learn to stop yourselves from praying. Your natural prayer has been a very strong frustration to the church life. If you desire to pray, you must learn to pray a real prayer that is not initiated by you. You must learn that in the matter of prayer, you need to be crossed out. Not to pray is a defeat, but to pray by yourself is a mistake.
Some of you pray much in a habitual way in the prayer meetings, but in your prayer it is hard to realize any unveiling or revelation. Our prayer should be full of revelation. The Lord’s prayer in Matthew 6 is a simple prayer, but it is full of revelation and without explanation. His prayer in John 17 is also full of revelation. Probably no chapter of the entire Bible bears as much revelation as John 17 does. The apostle Paul’s prayers in Ephesians 1 and 3 are full of revelation. This shows us that we have to learn to pray. We have been going on for a long time in a natural way.
Not only in the matter of prayer but also in the matter of the church life, we are too natural. This is why we need to have the grouping, hoping that the Lord would give us a new start. We should not do anything naturally, nor should we be silent. We should tell the Lord that we do not want to be silent or natural. This forces us to learn what it means to exercise our spirit. We have a saying among us that we need to exercise our spirit, but how many of us do it? This saying has become popular among us, but in our meetings it is difficult to see the genuine exercise of the spirit. To exercise our spirit, we need a lot of dealing. We must first deal with our natural way and our natural person, our natural being, which includes our natural prayer and our natural speaking.
The vital groups must be something absolutely new with a new start. A few saints among us can be either silent, not doing or saying anything, or when they do function, they can be very expressive. In their prayer they cover a lot of things. This is a big shortage; this is also a defect. We should not believe that in one prayer the Lord would burden us with that many aspects and with that many items. When some of us pray or prophesy, we cover perhaps as many as twenty small points. In a short prayer of less than one minute, the Lord would not burden us with twenty points. That is our habit. When we open up to pray or to prophesy, we like to cover every direction. After our prayer we may even forget what we have prayed, because we covered too many points.
We should not compose a prayer in which we really have not prayed for anything. Our prayer must not come out of any kind of composition but out of a burden. In this chapter my burden is much, much heavier than what I can speak. My only burden is for the groups. If I pray, I will pray for only one thing — the vital groups. The Lord does not need us to train Him, teach Him, or explain to Him in our prayer. He knows everything already.
Some of you, on the other hand, are naturally silent. You do not say anything in the meetings, and you do not pray. If all these habitual ways are not broken in us, we cannot be grouped together in a vital way. To be grouped together is to be blended together. According to our experiences, there is no other way to be blended except by thorough and much prayer. We should not talk too much. We should not think that if we talk together, we will be blended. This is wrong. Blending can be accomplished only by praying together. We must be persons of prayer.
The Lord Jesus was working on this earth in His ministry for three and a half years. In those three and a half years He worked day and night. Many thousands of people were helped by Him in His ministry, but eventually out of His work only one hundred twenty remained for the fulfilling of God’s economy. All the rest, including Nicodemus, were not there for the economical filling of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost. All of the one hundred twenty were Galileans. Here we can see the principle of grouping. These one hundred twenty were not separate individuals, but they were all grouped together to be one group. On the day of Pentecost the Spirit came down on one group. The Lord Jesus was the One who grouped them together.
From the first day that the Lord Jesus began to call the disciples, He started the grouping. The Lord was like a big magnet, drawing the disciples to Himself to become a group. In the four Gospels we can see that the disciples were quarreling and competing with one another. At times they were in rivalry with one another (Matt. 20:20-28; Luke 22:24). The Lord Jesus dealt with each one of them. All those dealings were for one thing — to group them together. Eventually, those who remained in an absolute way for God’s purpose after the Lord’s earthly ministry were the one hundred twenty. The others were not grouped but scattered. The Lord gained only one group, and this group prayed in one accord for ten days (Acts 1:14-15). They stayed together, they lived together, they ate together, and they lodged together for ten days, doing nothing but praying. Then they experienced the outpoured Spirit on the day of Pentecost. On earth at that time, there was only one group whose prayer touched the heart of God and His throne in the heavens.
The church actually was initiated from the first day that the Lord Jesus came out to work at the age of thirty. He gathered Peter, John, Andrew, and James, those Galilean fishermen, along with other disciples. He brought them together and grouped them together. He never let them go. In a sense, they all were “jobless” for three and a half years. They gave up their jobs to follow the Lord Jesus and be with Him. Wherever the Lord Jesus went, they went. The Lord did not need them mainly to help Him to work, but He wanted them to be dealt with. The Lord did not give them a program or a schedule to follow. He just wanted them to be with Him (cf. Mark 3:14). The Lord Jesus dealt with them day after day. The one hundred twenty were a group of dealt-with people. Before their ten days of prayer, they had been with the Lord Jesus for three and a half years.
They also witnessed the Lord’s death, resurrection, and ascension. They saw how the Lord was betrayed, was judged, was brought to Calvary, was put on the cross, and was buried. They saw all these processes. They saw the empty tomb. Then on the evening of His resurrection, the Lord Jesus came to them, breathed into them, and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit” (John 20:22). From that day, the day of resurrection, the one hundred twenty became persons with the Triune God in them. That revolutionized, changed, their entire being.
After His resurrection the Lord appeared to them over a period of forty days (Acts 1:3). The resurrected Christ dwelt in the disciples because He had breathed Himself as the Spirit into them on the day of His resurrection. His appearing does not mean that He had ever left them; it simply means that He made His presence visible to them, training them to realize and enjoy His invisible presence all the time. Thus, they experienced the Lord’s death, the Lord’s resurrection, and the Lord’s training them for forty days. Then the Lord ascended right in front of their eyes on the Mount of Olives (vv. 9-12).
After seeing all these things, could they still be natural? Surely they were no longer natural persons. The Lord ascended, but they still had the Lord within them, and they prayed together for ten days. Do you believe that they prayed naturally? Would they pray a prayer with many items, instructing the Lord and telling the Lord what to do? Surely they did not do this. Would some of them be silent, not uttering a word in prayer to the Lord? Surely they were not like this. Rather, I believe that each one of them prayed for ten days.
Prayer is really powerful, but in order to be powerful, our prayer must be a prayer that touches the throne of God and the heart of God, and it must be a prayer that can move the very God. We have to pray, but we should not pray lightly. We should not pray by composing a prayer.
We do not want to go out to reach others until our grouping is consummated. Otherwise, we may go out but go out powerlessly as we did in the past. We need to pass through a period of time in which we can be blended with all the members of our group and allow the Lord to gain our group as one entity for the carrying out of His New Testament economy.
Now that we have seen that we need to be blended together, we may still not know what to do in order to be blended. Now that we have been charged not to do anything naturally, we may wonder what to do. I hope that from now on in our group meetings we would not pray our old, natural prayers. Then we may say, “What shall we do? We do not know what to do.” Actually, this is wonderful. The first thing we have to do is to cry to the Lord in this way. We should cry to the Lord, even with tears, “Lord Jesus, I don’t know what to do. I never imagined that it is so hard to be a Christian. I cannot make it, Lord.” This is the best prayer. If we pray this way, even once, our entire person will be changed.
Some of us are very nice persons, but that naturally nice person should be condemned. We are nice, yet we are cold like a piece of ice. We cannot be blended with others. Some nice people have set themselves up as a pattern, hoping and expecting that others in the church would be like them. But if everyone in the church were like them, the church would become like a big piece of ice.
For us to pray merely in our vital group meetings is not adequate. For the blending, we need to pray day and night. First, we need to pray by ourselves privately. We can be blended by much and thorough prayer, as fine flour of the wheat, with all the members of our group, with the Spirit as the oil, through the death of Christ as the salt, and in the resurrection of Christ as the frankincense, into a dough for the Lord (1 Cor. 5:6-7a; Lev. 2:1-13). We need to pray, on our knees if possible, “Lord Jesus, blend me. Blend me, Lord. Grant me the proper prayer I need. I really don’t know what much and thorough prayer is, but grant me this experience to be blended. Lord, blend me as the fine flour of the wheat.” We should pray to get through on every point so that we can be blended.
We need to confess the sin of individualism and individuality. Individualism is a kind of logic, and individuality is a kind of living. We do have a kind of logic by which we live, and that logic is individualism. This “ism” has become a kind of living, and that living is individuality. We have to pray, maybe for more than ten days, to get through on this point.
We need to confess all our defects, shortcomings, wrongdoings, mistakes, transgressions, trespasses, outward sins, and inward evils and ask for the Lord’s forgiveness. We have to get through all these points by prayer. I have been doing this for years. What I am sharing here is altogether from my experience. We may confess that we are wrong in a certain matter, but the Lord would not let us go. He wants us to make a detailed confession of our transgressions and trespasses. In the Lord’s presence we should itemize the things in which we have transgressed and trespassed. We have to get through with the Lord. We are so natural and rough. We have never been washed by the Lord finely. We need a fine washing. We need to get through all these items by prayer. If we pray in this way, even once, we will sense that we are different.
We need to confess our outward sins and inward evils to the Lord, asking for His forgiveness. We may be able to count our outward sins, but it is hard for us to enumerate our inward evils. Our inward evils are countless. We are the totality of evil. If we are under the Lord’s enlightening, we will realize that our thinking, our intention, and our desire are all evil. Our good intentions are not pure. Our motive is not pure. Even our laughing is not pure but with a hidden motive. We have to be enlightened and dealt with by the Lord to such an extent.
Eventually, we would realize and tell the Lord that we cannot enumerate all our inward evils. Under His light we would realize that we are just evil. When we look at people, we look at them with an evil purpose. When we go to see people, to visit people, our visit is not that pure but is a mixed thing. If we have not been dealt with to such an extent in our contact with the Lord, we can never be blended with others. We need to be dealt with to such an extent that we lose our confidence in ourselves. We will then realize that in ourselves we cannot be pure. When we pray, we pray with an impure intention. When we speak for the Lord in the church meetings, we have a desire to get more Amens. That intention is impure.
We also need to confess our sinful nature. Our nature is our very being, and this being is altogether dirty and rotten. It has been corrupted. This nature has its defilements and its attachment to the contamination of the world. The entire world is a contagious ball. If we become attached to it, we are immediately contaminated. We must be dealt with by the Lord to such an extent that we dare not touch anything worldly. To our feeling, to our consideration, the entire world is a big contagious ball.
We also have to deal with the oldness of our sinful nature. Our nature was inherited from Adam, so it is almost six thousand years old. A young person may think that he is only twenty-four years old, but actually he is almost six thousand years old according to his adamic nature. This is why the Bible says that we need to be renewed (2 Cor. 4:16; Eph. 4:23; Rom. 12:2). We need to be renewed because we are old.
Then we need to confess our dispositional problems. We have many problems with our disposition. Quite often we take an excuse by saying, “I was born that way.” This is the excuse of our dispositional problem. We need to condemn our natural disposition, not excuse it. Many of us pray according to our disposition. For certain brothers and sisters to pray short prayers is very difficult. If some of the saints prayed short prayers of two sentences in the prayer meeting, that would be a “miracle” because this is not according to their disposition. We do not realize how bad we are naturally and dispositionally. We also have the peculiarity in our character. We have to deal with this by thorough and much prayer. We cannot have such a thorough dealing within a short time.
We also need to deny our self, our habit, and our old way of doing things (Matt. 16:24). There are so many troubles related to us that need to be dealt with. As fallen beings, we are a composition of troubles.
Do we believe that today we have no more confidence in ourselves and no more trust in our natural ability? If this trust were taken away from us, we could not live. We live because we have confidence in ourselves and trust in our ability. But if we trust in our ability, we cannot be blended with others. If we have even a little bit of self-confidence, self-trust, we cannot be blended with others.
We need to love all the members of our group with an equal love in the love of God (Phil. 2:2). It is difficult to find anyone who loves others with an equal love. We always love according to our preference and our taste.
In serving the Lord, we have learned not to criticize or condemn others. On the other hand, to build up a church, the most needed thing for the leading ones is to know the saints. If we do not know the saints, how can we build them up? Some of us came together to study every saint in our arranging of the vital groups. Because of the peculiarities of the saints, this was a difficult task. One saint is too strong, and another is too soft. One saint has a habit of praying too much to kill the meeting, but another never prays. All of us have our dispositional problems and the peculiarity in our character. All of us are descendants of Adam. Then what shall we do? We must go to the Lord and pray.
In these coming weeks we have to go to the Lord in prayer every day to deal with all the above items. We need to pray thoroughly. The more we pray, the more we will be dealt with in these items and the more we will be blended. Then no one will be able to offend us. Today we are very sensitive because we have not allowed the Lord to deal with us.
When we come together in these days, we need to pray mainly for the blending. The blending implies all these dealings. If the fine flour is to be blended into dough, we cannot have any hard pieces remaining in the flour. There are many “hard pieces” still remaining in our being. Since this is the case, how can we be blended with others? There is no other way for us to be blended except by prayer. If we are dealt with to the extent that we have talked about, we will not be able to be offended. Someone may tell us that we are not so nice. We may respond, “You are right. I am even worse than what you know.”
When we come together, we should pray for our being blended together. The second thing we have to pray for is our dynamic activities. We need to pray for our function, for our activities. Eventually, we need to go out to bring people to Christ and to keep people in Christ and in the church. We need something dynamic, and this needs our prayer. Before the day of Pentecost the one hundred twenty prayed together for ten days. We cannot do anything without prayer. We need to be blended together by thorough and much prayer so that we can go out dynamically. We have to pray for our blending and for our dynamic activities.
Question: I realize that we need much and thorough prayer, but when I start to pray, it seems that I do not have that much to say. How do we pray thoroughly?
Answer: Our concept is that thorough prayer is to explain. Paul, however, says that we do not know what to pray but the Spirit helps us in our weakness, interceding for us with groanings which cannot be uttered (Rom. 8:26). We do not know how we should pray; hence, we groan (v. 23). In our groaning, the Spirit groans also, interceding for us. In our dealing with the Lord, we may groan, “O Lord, my character. My character, Lord! What shall I do, Lord?” This is thorough prayer.
We need to cry out to the Lord. Many of us are too nice. When the Spirit is on us, however, we will forget about being nice. The fewer words we speak, the better. But the more we groan and cry out to the Lord, the better. If we could kneel for thirty minutes, groaning and crying out to the Lord, this is the best prayer.
We need the Lord’s breaking through His cross. Otherwise, it will be hard for us to exercise the spirit, because we are too much in the mind. The many items we have in our prayer are evidence that we are in our mind. Paul’s word in Romans 8 concerning coming to the Lord to groan is very meaningful. We might pray, “O Lord, I don’t know what to pray, but I know my natural man is condemned, and my character has a lot of problems. Have mercy upon me.” If we try to explain things in our prayer, we may be able to do this for only ten minutes. Then our speaking will be exhausted. But we can never graduate from groaning. We have to learn to shout, to cry out, and to groan.
Question: Is it wrong not to be able to pray in a group if you feel that someone has done something against you?
Answer: As long as we can be offended, we are a failure. We have to pray, “Lord, save me from the feeling that I have been wronged. Lord, I am still so natural. I am still so much in myself.” This is a good prayer, a genuine prayer. Such prayer always conveys a certain amount of enlightenment and revelation. When we pray in our natural way, our prayer is darkening; it does not enlighten.
Question: What should we pray for when we come together in our vital groups?
Answer: In this period of time we should pray only for our blending and for the activities of the vital groups. We should pray for these two things privately and when we come together. We cannot pray too much for them. We should pray, “Lord, blend us. Blend me with the others in my group so that we can have the impact in our activities.” We should forget about all other things and focus on this.
Confessing is a very crucial part of the blending. Without confessing, we cannot be blended with others. A prayer life is a life that revolts and rebels against our natural being. If we are naturally nice, this may prevent us from crying out by the inspiration of the Spirit. According to our natural being, we may pray too much and too long, not caring for others but only for our own feeling. Others are naturally silent. We have to rebel against our natural being. A prayer life is a rebellion. Some who were born so bold have to rebel against themselves to be silent for a period of time. The real prayer life stops our natural being.
Prayer is the release of the spirit. If you do not release your spirit, you can never receive the Spirit. This may be likened to a water hose. When water is coming out of the hose, this means that water is coming into it. Thus, to release our spirit is to receive the Spirit. But a number of us would not care for the release of the spirit but only for our habitual prayer. Some bold and talkative ones should not pray in the prayer meetings for a period of time. This is what it means to rebel against our natural life.
Sometimes we pray so fast that no one can follow us. Paul indicates that we need to pray in a way that others can say Amen to our prayer (1 Cor. 14:16). Based on this principle, we have to pray audibly so that others can hear our prayer. We have to pray by crying, by shouting, or in a proper, audible way. Some of us need to slow down our speaking so that others can hear us and say Amen.
By this fellowship we all can realize that our habitual way is the killing way. We have killed the church life without any awareness. The Christian life is a life of the Spirit. To pray is to exercise our spirit, to release our spirit, so that we may receive more of the Spirit. When more water goes out through the hose, more water comes in. If we stop the “going out,” the “coming in” is also stopped. The release of our spirit is the receiving of the Spirit.
We have been building up ourselves for too long, so it is really hard for the Spirit to do anything through us. Also, it is hard for us to exercise our spirit because we are so natural. We do not have the habit of using our spirit. We are habitual in using all the other parts of our being but not our spirit.
Question: When we pray corporately, does it matter if we say “I” or “we” in our prayer?
Answer: This question indicates that you are in your mind. When you are releasing the spirit, the Spirit leads you. If He leads you to say “I,” you say “I.” If the Spirit leads you to say “we,” you say “we.” There is no legality.
When you try to pray in the meeting, you must get yourself prepared. You are not going to speak something common. You are going to say something particular. This is a petition expressed to the throne in the heavens. It is a great matter. Do not pray in a light way. It is the same thing in speaking for the Lord. We must get ourselves prepared to speak for the Lord. This is to rebel against our self. If we are willing to be corrected and rescued from our habitual ways, this will be a big blessing to the church meetings.
