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In order for us to practice the church life according to the God-ordained way, we need to be trained. In our practice of the church life in the Lord’s recovery, we are very free. If we are too free in doing things, we are through. The proper things to be accomplished must have a definite goal with the strict control. If we each have the freedom to work according to what we feel is right, the work is finished.
In the Lord’s recovery we pay much attention to spirituality. Brother Nee and I have given hundreds of messages on this line, stressing that we should not do anything according to our way or by our energy but by prayer and by trusting in the Lord. This is very good, but we may use prayer and trusting in the Lord as an excuse for taking the freedom to do what is right in our own eyes. We may say that because we do not feel a certain matter is of the Lord, we will not do it. Thus, we have the freedom to do what we want. In the recovery today, there is freedom everywhere.
The United States is a country of freedom, but those in the United States military service give up their freedom. When you enter into the military, they cut your hair and give you new clothes to wear. In the military you have no choice, no preference. You have no freedom to do what you want. Those who are in the military suffer the loss of their freedom for the sake of defending the whole country. They are under a strict training. To raise up the vital groups properly, there is the need of training. We have formed these vital groups because we have no way to get through with the church in a general way.
The training meeting is not a church meeting. To a church meeting, you may come late, and no one will say anything to you, but to a training meeting, you are obligated to come on time. We should be aware of the difference between the training and the church meetings. In the training we are willing to give up our freedom so that we can be perfected to be more useful to the Lord.
In this chapter I would like to begin to have some practical training for the vital groups. Prayer is greatly needed. We should pray not only when we come together in our vital groups but also in our private time. We have to learn how to use our time for prayer. We might take the excuse that we are too busy, but everyone on the earth is busy. Even a beggar might tell you that he is busy. We may think that when a person loses his job, he will no longer be busy. When he loses his job, however, he may be busier.
Many things on the earth need us and demand our time. Because many things require our time, we must exercise to redeem it. We can waste time in many small things. A person may take either two minutes to comb his hair or twenty minutes. It depends upon which way he does it. Some young people may spend twenty-five minutes to comb and style their hair. This is an illustration of how we can waste our time.
We may say that we do not have the time to pray because we are too busy. But when we receive a phone call, it seems that we are no longer busy. We have much time to talk on the phone freely. Quite often I told people that the telephone is very “sticky.” It seems that when people get on the phone, they cannot get off. If we would love prayer and consider prayer the way that we consider talking on the telephone, we would have much time to pray. It is a lie to say that we do not have the time to pray. We have the time to do many other things, but we have a kind of habitual idleness when it comes to prayer.
In order to be useful, functioning members of the Body of Christ, we must learn how to redeem our time (Eph. 5:16). Day by day we are losing our time, so we have to redeem it. We must cut off our long conversations on the telephone. Furthermore, when we are having a time with the Lord to pray, it is best to take the phone off the hook. Our prayer time is very important, so during that time, we should not accept any phone calls. In the vital groups the first thing we need to learn is to pray. In order to redeem our time, we need to pray unceasingly (1 Thes. 5:17). If we do not pray, our groups cannot be vital.
First, we need to learn to pray. Second, we have to change our concept, the concept of thinking that people can be saved and brought into the church life in a quick way. Of course, people can be regenerated in an instant. But it is difficult to find a proper believer who has not had the adequate care. As members of the vital groups, we have to drop the thought of gaining quick and easy results.
We need the adequate time and labor to raise up the new believers. We must be prepared to spend two years to get someone saved, nourished, fed, raised up, and to some extent perfected to be one who is fully in the church life. If you can gain one sinner to the extent that he is fully in the church life as a normal member within two years, this is wonderful. We have to get ourselves prepared psychologically to take the laboring way.
We should not think that we can have an overnight “fortune” in the gospel. You may think that you are being trained to be “magicians” who can instantly bring in big results, but this concept is wrong. We are being trained to be the laboring ones. To gain someone and care for him until he is fully established in the church life is not an easy thing. We must realize that we probably will need more than two years to get a person saved, nourished, and growing up to such an extent that he would remain in the church life. You need to get yourselves prepared. Do not go out hoping that you could make an instant fortune.
When someone is saved by you, that person becomes your spiritual child, your babe. If you do not have this consideration, you will not be able to keep that person in the church life. In January of 1993, we hope to begin to go out for the preaching of the gospel. We should not expect that within 1993 we will gain one person who is solidly in the church life. I am not speaking of merely getting someone to believe in Christ and be baptized within one year. That is not very difficult. But to gain one who would remain under your care, learn the teachings of the Bible, be willing to be nourished by you, and be fully brought into the church life is not easy.
We need to gain someone whom we consider as our child. This makes a big difference. Before some sisters have children, we may wonder how they could have the ability to raise up children. But when they have children, they become different. When they have a child, they are for nothing but that child. We must take care of our new ones by considering them as our babes.
Paul told the Thessalonians that he was like a nursing mother, cherishing them as his children (1 Thes. 2:7). He told the Corinthians that he was their spiritual father who had begotten them through the gospel (1 Cor. 4:15). His Epistle to Philemon shows us the way to take care of a new one. We all have to change our concept. In the Lord’s work we should not expect quick results. Actually, in the physical realm it takes eighteen years to take care of one child. Then that child is considered as an adult. Since it takes this long to raise up a child in the physical realm, how can we expect to raise up a child of God, a Christian, within half a year? If we want the increase and the remaining fruit, we have to realize two things: first, we need to pray for our child; then we have to take care of this child.
For the long run, it is not profitable to beget many children in a quick way. God ordained that people bear children in a slow way. God created only one man, and God told this man to be fruitful, multiply, and fill the entire earth (Gen. 1:28). Man has filled the earth to such an extent that many people are concerned about the increasing population. Spiritually speaking, however, we are short of children because we do not practice the God-ordained way to gain the increase. We just practice something according to our way, according to our taste.
We may go out to preach the gospel and save someone. After spending some time with this new one, however, he may not have any desire to go on with the Lord. Then we may go out and get another one saved, but after three months this one moves away. These kinds of experiences may discourage us and cause us to lose our desire to gain the increase. We may want to forget about endeavoring to gain the increase because we have tried and failed. This is the reason we need the training. This training will prepare us to gain people for the increase and building up of the church. If we take the way of labor, laboring and laboring without focusing on the results, we will be very fruitful. If a brother is thirty years old today and the Lord gives him forty more years to live, he could gain fifty people as remaining fruit within these forty years. We need to labor and labor according to the way of the training.
Another point I would like to make is that we must drop our own way. If someone wants to learn a trade like carpentry, he must drop his own way and pick up the trained way. He must learn the trade of carpentry according to his instructor’s way. Otherwise, he will be a failure. We should not think that it is easy to preach the gospel to get sinners saved. We should preach the gospel, but we cannot do it according to our natural way. We have to learn to preach the gospel in a trained way, not in a way that is according to our disposition, character, and peculiar traits.
All of us have our particular disposition, character, and peculiar traits. These three things annul us in everything. Some sisters among us are nurses. They cannot be good nurses if they work according to their disposition, their character, and their peculiar traits. Depending upon the nurses’ disposition, the patients can be either helped or damaged by them. A nurse with a proper disposition can make the patient happy. Many nurses, however, do not make their patients feel happy and pleasant, because of their particular disposition. This shows us that in taking care of people for the gospel, we must learn to deny our self, which includes our disposition, character, and peculiar traits. We must learn to preach the gospel, not according to our way but in the trained way.
In our prayer these days we need to pray for three things. First, we need to pray, “Lord, teach me how to redeem my time.” The only way to redeem our time is to pray. Thank the Lord that nothing is as convenient as prayer. We can pray everywhere. While we are driving our car, we can pray. We can redeem the time throughout the day by prayer.
Second, we need to pray that our psychology would be changed. We must be prepared to realize that it will take time to gain people as remaining fruit in the church life. But there is a principle in the whole universe that as long as we preach, people will believe. This is a principle set up by God. Thus, we have to pray and to preach in a laboring way.
Third, we also need to pray that we will not preach according to our way but according to the trained way.
The members of all the vital groups also have to attend the regular church meetings. In particular, all of us have to endeavor to come to the prayer meeting. We have to do something to rescue the prayer meeting. We have been practicing the church life in the United States for about thirty years. Over this period of time a negative habit has been built up. This negative habit is that most of the church members despise the prayer meeting.
All of us need to do our best to come to the prayer meeting. Because of this training with the vital groups, the church prayer meeting here has been greatly helped and rescued. I have been praying nearly every week that the Lord would increase the attendance in the prayer meeting.
Also, when we come to the prayer meeting, we are obliged to pray and to pray not just once. Do not pray long prayers. You do not need to compose anything. Simply tell the Lord what you want. Some saints’ prayers have too much composition. Their prayers are not spontaneous. Never forget that it is easier to get an answer to a short prayer. The best prayer is one with short sentences. Some saints have long sentences in their prayer. But we do not need to give the Lord reasons and explanations in our prayer. He already knows these things, so we should simply tell Him what we want.
Some saints among us are too bold in the meetings. They are bold to direct others to sing a certain hymn and then direct them to sing it over again. But the hymn that they called and asked the saints to sing again was the wrong hymn. If we ask the saints to do this, we must have a sense that the atmosphere of the meeting indicates that all the saints would like to sing this hymn again. Then when the saints are asked to sing it again, they will be happy about it. We need to learn to sense the atmosphere and taste of the meeting. If certain bold ones would cut off their long prayers and stop giving instructions in the meeting until they learn how to sense the taste and the atmosphere of the meeting, their spirit would be built up.
The bold ones among us need to deny their bold disposition. Likewise, the timid ones among us need to deny their timid disposition. Their timidity greatly annuls their function. When they speak, they should exercise boldness to speak in a stronger tone. When they speak and function softly, that does not build up their spirit. If they try to function in a stronger way, that will build up their spirit and cause them to grow.
We have to realize that the meetings are the coming together of God’s children to worship Him. John 4:24 says that God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit. Every church meeting is a time for us to do things in the spirit, because that is the time to worship God. The only principle, the basic, strict principle, in worshipping God is that we must exercise our spirit.
We need to exercise our spirit all the time in the meeting. Whether we speak or not, we must exercise our spirit. If we do not speak, this should be because the Spirit leads us not to speak. When we speak, we speak also because of the leading of the Spirit. Thus, all that we do in the meeting should be the issue of the exercise of the spirit. But we are so neglectful about this matter. We may exercise our spirit only when we feel that we have to pray or speak something, but we must exercise our spirit at all times. I am nourished in every meeting because regardless of whether or not I function, I am in the meeting in the Spirit with the exercise of my spirit. Because I exercise my spirit, I enjoy others’ spirits. When you are in the spirit, I sense it. When you are not in the spirit, I also sense it. We all need to learn and build up the habit of exercising our spirit at all times.
