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The basic revelation of the New Testament is that we, the descendants of Adam, regardless of whether we are sinful or righteous, of whether we are good or bad, are altogether the old creation. Whether you are good or bad, you need to be regenerated. Even if we were not sinful, we would still need to be regenerated. Many have the concept that we need to be regenerated because we are evil. But all people, regardless of whether they are good or evil, need to be regenerated.
In Genesis 2 we see two trees — the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (v. 9). This shows that good does not belong to life. Good belongs to Satan. God’s intention is not to have a good man. His intention is to make a new man out of the old man. This is why we need to be reborn, to be regenerated with the divine life. The basic thought of the New Testament revelation is that we need to be a new person.
Nicodemus was a moral, high-class person who considered Christ as a teacher who had come from God (John 3:2). This indicates that he might have thought that he needed better teachings so that he could improve himself. But the Lord Jesus responded to him by saying, “Truly, truly, I say to you, Unless one is born anew, he cannot see the kingdom of God” (v. 3). To be born anew is to be born again, which is to be regenerated with the divine life, a life different from the human life received by natural birth.
After being born again, we are still mostly in the old creation, so the Bible continues to show us that after regeneration we need to be renewed (Eph. 4:23; Rom. 12:2; 2 Cor. 4:16). Second Corinthians 3:18 shows us that as we behold the Lord with an unveiled face, we are being transformed into His image. Romans 8:29 tells us that we need to be conformed to the image of the firstborn Son of God. The model to which we are being conformed is Christ as the firstborn Son of God. He is altogether different from the natural man, from us. We need to be renewed, transformed, and eventually conformed to Christ’s image. After we have been regenerated, we may be loving the Lord and seeking after Him. We may be very religious, pious, and even “godly,” but we are in the old creation. We all need to be renewed, transformed, and conformed to the image of Christ.
This is why I have done my best to adjust the way that you pray. Our former way of prayer was not the prayer from the new creation but the prayer from the old creation according to the old and natural way. Now I would like to read and comment on something Brother Watchman Nee spoke in his fellowship concerning the prayer ministry of the church. Brother Nee says,
During our prayer, we must also guard against the prayers that are not prayers.
Brothers and sisters, in prayer we must be broken. To be broken means to be finished. To be broken means “It is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me” (Gal. 2:20a).
I want to emphasize Brother Nee’s word that we should guard against the prayers that are not prayers. We may pray much, but what we pray may not be real prayer. This is why I have adjusted our prayer. We may think that as long as one prays, that is wonderful. When someone prays, we may feel that merely because he has prayed, that is prayer. But Brother Nee said that during our prayer, we must guard against the prayers that are not prayers.
Brother Nee continues,
Satan will not only take away our time of prayer but also strip us of the strength to pray. He will come in even while we pray to make us speak many unrelated, confused, unimportant, and vain words. He will cause us to ask in vain and to waste our time of prayer.
These unrelated, confused, unimportant, and vain words can be uttered when we pray long prayers. Long prayers are full of such words. Satan uses these long prayers to exhaust us, to strip us of our energy. We may pray for ten minutes, but these ten minutes could be a waste of our time.
Brother Nee continues,
He will try to occupy our time of prayer so that the effect of our prayer will amount to nothing. Many fleshly, old, long, mundane, heartless, and aimless prayers are time-consuming and wasteful prayers.
The word mundane does not merely mean commonplace but worldly, natural, and fleshly. Something mundane is not spiritual but fleshly, not sanctified or heavenly but worldly. Such mundane and long prayers are time-consuming and wasteful prayers. We should realize that many times in our meetings in the past, our prayers were like this.
Brother Nee goes on to say,
It may seem that we are praying out of habit. But actually within these prayers are suggestions, instigations, and deceptions of Satan.
Brother Nee was more strict than I am. He considered that in these long prayers, there were even suggestions, instigations, and deceptions of Satan.
Brother Nee says,
If we are not watchful, our prayer will become meaningless and fruitless. One brother mentioned a story he read in the biography of Evan Roberts. Once a few people were in his home praying for something. Halfway through one brother’s prayer, Mr. Roberts went over and covered that brother’s mouth, saying, “Brother, don’t go on. You are not praying.” The brother reading this story said within himself, “How could Mr. Roberts do this?” But later he realized that Mr. Roberts was right. Many words in our prayers are spoken by the flesh through the instigation of Satan. These prayers may be long, but many of them are impractical and useless. Brothers and sisters, this is a fact. Many times in our prayer, we seem to circle around the whole world. Time is wasted and strength is exhausted, yet nothing that is to the point is prayed about. We cannot expect God to answer this kind of prayer. This kind of prayer does not have any spiritual value. Hence, when we pray, we have to be watchful and not spend too much time or give too many reasons.
When we pray, we should not give too many reasons. Instead of giving the Lord a description with many reasons, we should simply tell Him what we want. Recently in a co-workers’ meeting, I told the brothers that their prayer was much improved. But a few co-workers still like to give the Lord many reasons in their prayer. We do not need to give the Lord the reasons why we need power. We should simply pray, “Lord, give us the power.” The reasons are just a decoration to our prayer. We decorate our prayer with many reasons which make our prayer wasteful.
Brother Nee goes on to tell us how we should pray:
Rather, we should speak what is in our heart to God in a sincere way. We must never fill up our prayer with many empty words.
This shows us that we need to be transformed not only in our daily life but also in our prayer in the meetings. A few saints among us were used to praying many times in the prayer meeting with long prayers. This means that their prayer was short of transformation.
A number of you have outwardly been adjusted in your prayer, but I am concerned that you have not been transformed and conformed to the image of the firstborn Son of God. I am concerned that you may be outwardly behaving. To behave in this way is to pretend, and pretense is a lie with nice clothing. You may have a certain outward appearance as a cloak, but there is no real transformation taking place within you. We need to be transformed in our prayer, in the way that we worship, and in our meeting life. We need to be transformed in everything.
The New Testament requires us to be regenerated, to be renewed, to be transformed, and to be conformed to another One’s image, to the image of the firstborn Son of God. Who is this firstborn Son of God? He is the One who, as both God and man, has passed through death and resurrection. As the very God, He became a man, and He was a perfect man; but even this perfect man had to pass through death and resurrection. Death and resurrection transformed Him.
Before His incarnation Christ, the divine One, already was the Son of God (John 1:18; Rom. 8:3). By incarnation Christ put on an element, the human flesh, which had nothing to do with divinity. That part of Him needed to be sanctified and uplifted by passing through death and resurrection. By resurrection His human nature was sanctified, uplifted, and transformed. Hence, by resurrection He was designated the Son of God with His humanity (Rom. 1:4; Acts 13:33; Heb. 1:5). We need to be transformed and conformed to the image of such a One who has passed through death and resurrection to become the firstborn Son of God.
The Lord Jesus also told us that if we want to follow Him, we have to deny ourselves (Matt. 16:24). The self includes all our seclusion, individualism, disposition, character, and peculiarity. The self is our entire natural person. We have to deny ourselves, not only in prayer but also in everything. In the church life a number of us behave and act according to what we are, and what we are is absolutely natural.
You might be a very nice person, but your niceness is an offense to the Spirit. You are nice, but you are not in the Spirit. You are nice, but you are nice in your self, in your natural life.
Some have been in the recovery for years, but there has been no real change within them. They may have changed a lot from being bad to being good. That was the change we saw. But this is not the change by transformation from the old creation to the new creation. We welcome the change that comes by transformation. But we do not welcome the change from being bad to being good. We need a change from the old creation to the new creation. We do not want a mere outward change. Transformation is something inward, dealing with the constitution of our being. Transformation implies a kind of metabolism; it is an inward change by the addition of a new element into the very essence of our being.
There are many things related to us and to our service in the church life that are not in the Spirit. They may be nice things and even good things, but they are not in the Spirit. We need transformation. Otherwise, the church life cannot exist as it should. What is existing among us to a great extent is something natural, from the old creation.
We may have many good things in the church life, but the Bible puts good together with evil in the category of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Both good and evil are of the same category, of the same tree. There is another tree which is so simple — the tree of life. Life is purely God, so the tree of life is the tree of God.
Paul tells us that before he received the Lord, he had attained to the top of his religion (Gal. 1:14). He even says that he had become blameless with respect to the righteousness which is in the law (Phil. 3:6). Paul was blameless according to man’s judgment, but eventually he says, “I am crucified.” Regardless of whether I am bad or good, “I am crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me” (Gal. 2:20a). Thus, in our prayer and in everything we do in the church life, we should have the assurance that it is not our doing but the doing of another One, who has passed through death and resurrection and who is now living in us. This is what it means to live a life of transformation.
The vital groups have been in existence for nine weeks. Thus far, I have passed on mainly five things for you to seek after.
First, we need to be blended by much and thorough prayer in love. This blending is not once for all. We have to practice this blending until we see the Lord. We are not yet thoroughly blended. In order to be blended, we need to release our spirit.
Actually, when I say that we need to be released, this does not mean only to pray. When we come together in the vital groups, we should release ourselves by opening up to one another. We may have been with one another for years, but we do not really know one another. Instead, we like to hide ourselves in certain things from the saints. I am afraid that not one of us is really open. All of us are pretending to be “good” members of the vital groups. We may show up on time and behave ourselves as nice ladies and gentlemen, but this is seclusion. We do not want to talk openly with the saints in our vital group because we are secluded. To talk openly with the intimate and thorough fellowship in Christ is to be released.
We do not open up to others, because we are afraid to be known by them. As a result, we cannot receive the inner healing from the Lord. We may be sick with “gangrene,” but we want to cover and hide our sickness from others. We need to realize that the other members of our vital group are our doctors. If we open ourselves up in a proper way to the other saints in our group, we will be healed. But instead of opening up, everyone is hiding. Some of us are released, but we are not absolutely released, because we are not used to being open to others. We are not open but closed and secluded.
When we come together, we may feel that there is not much to do. I have said that the group meetings are eighty percent of the church life, and the first item of the group meetings is to come together to fellowship in an intimate, thorough, and spontaneous way. Maybe a sister would open up by saying, “I can’t tolerate my children. Would you tell me how to overcome my temper?” Why would we not open up to one another in this way? Instead of seeing a scenery of intimate fellowship in the vital groups, I see a very behaving scenery. Everybody behaves. No one wants to make a mistake. Everyone wants to be a “good boy” and a “good girl.” I have seen this for many years, and I am disgusted with this. I want to see a group of seeking saints coming together to gain the Lord Jesus.
But where can we see a group of saints practicing the New Testament revelation today? Who is denying himself? Who is being renewed, transformed, and conformed to the image of the One who has passed through death and resurrection? Gradually, we have drifted into practicing a routine church life, but where is the Spirit and where is the leading of the Lord? There is not much leading of the Spirit among us. Instead, you act by your way, and I act by my way. You pray by your way, and I pray by my way. Who is going to be adjusted? Who is going to learn? If we are not inwardly adjusted and transformed, then where is the church life?
We have lost the impact in winning the sinners because we are a group of behaving people. We do not have the real spirituality as the power from on high, as the impact. In nearly everything, we have lost our spiritual impact. This is why we need a strict training. Otherwise, there will be no remedy to our situation. We love the recovery, we love the Lord, we love the church, and we are so good. We behave ourselves so that we do not offend anyone or make mistakes in the church life. But this is not the church life. This is a kind of top social club. The church life, however, is a group of Jesus-lovers who seek after Him.
These lovers of Jesus are ones who, after being regenerated, go on to learn the lesson of denying themselves in everything so that they can be renewed. They are living, serving, and meeting, not by their doing and adjustment but by the Holy Spirit’s leading. They are being renewed even in the way they deal with their children and in the way they talk to their spouse.
A brother who is in the process of being renewed might confess, “Lord Jesus, I am wrong in my attitude, my inner feeling, my expression, my word, and my tone to my wife. All these things are from the old creation.” Our word might be right, but the tone in which we speak may be wrong. The tone is not in the Spirit. The husbands need such a confession to the Lord of their inner feeling, attitude, expression, tone, and word toward their wives. We need to confess to the Lord that our speaking to our wives is not in the Spirit. The brothers may be able to pretend before the saints, but they cannot pretend before their wives. Many times the husbands’ word to the wives is not spiritual.
This shows that we need to be transformed in everything. The Lord needs a group of people who have been regenerated, renewed, transformed, and conformed to the firstborn Son of God so that they can be built up together. This building is the Body and the practical church life.
I appreciate that the Lord has raised up so many churches on the earth, but the actual situation of the churches with respect to the practice of the God-ordained way is not that much up to the standard. This is why we need to raise up the vital groups. The remedy is here. In our vital groups we must have much and thorough prayer to get ourselves blended with others in love. Whenever we come together, we should open up to one another to have an intimate and thorough fellowship.
First, we have to pray that we may be blended with others in love. Second, we must seek after the Spirit. We should pray continually, “Lord, fill me up. Transfuse Yourself as the Spirit into my being, my constitution, and pour out Yourself as the Spirit of power upon me.” We have to pray every day. This should be our practice until the Lord comes back.
Third, we have to pray unceasingly (1 Thes. 5:17) by exercising our spirit (1 Tim. 4:7) to redeem the time (Eph. 5:16). We need to practice this every day. A sister who is a housewife can pray while she is cooking or washing the dishes. This is to pray unceasingly.
We need to watch unto prayer because we are in a warfare every day. A mother may lose her temper with her children, but even if she would confess her defeat to the Lord, it is not a good model. The children may receive an impression that they cannot forget. Thus, they are offended, and the mother is a defeat before Satan. Daily our Christian life is a warfare. We are not fighting against blood and flesh but against the principalities, powers, and rulers in the heavenlies (6:12). Satan and his subordinates are observing what kind of life we live. They are watching to see how a sister treats her children and deals with her husband. This is why we need to pray all the time.
The unique way that we can release our spirit is to pray. We should not pray in our habitual, natural, repetitious, and composed way. We need to pray new items. If a sister has children, she can mention her children’s names to the Lord three times a day. We can also pray for all the saints in the vital groups. Each saint should have a printed list of the names of all the saints who are in the vital groups. While a sister is washing the dishes, she can have this list nearby and pray, “Lord, remember Sister So-and-so; remember Brother So-and-so...” This is real prayer. This is not a composition. This is not long prayer that wastes our time and exhausts our energy. We can pray for the churches in Orange County, the churches in Southern California, the churches in the rest of California, the churches all over the United States, and the churches throughout the world. We need to pray unceasingly.
We should also pray to be renewed, transformed, and conformed to the image of Christ. Then we will gain a certain amount of transformation every day. We will not be the same as we were three years ago or even three days ago. Every day we need to be renewed, transformed, and conformed. This is the way for us to live Christ and to be built up as the organism of the Triune God. This is the real church life.
We should not think that it is enough to have left the denominations and to be meeting together on the ground of oneness. What about the content of the church life? Should we be satisfied with a church life in which we have a routine way to meet and a scheduled way to serve with all things done in our natural way according to ourselves? The elders may know that they need to do something, but they may not dare to touch or adjust some of the saints because these saints are easily offended. This is why I was forced to have such a training to raise up the vital groups. I have been speaking about the new way, the God-ordained way, for eight years, but not many practice it in a full way. In this training I must be faithful to speak the truth to you. I cannot cheat you. I hope that you would receive mercy from the Lord not to be offended but to be perfected.
Fourth, we need to be perfected to do things in the coordinated way, not according to our own way. We cannot become qualified and equipped members of the vital groups overnight. We need months to build ourselves up. We have to pray that we can be blended, that we can be filled with the Spirit, that we can redeem our time by unceasing prayer, and that we can do things in the service, not according to our own way but according to the coordinated way, willing to give up our freedom.
Fifth, we need to pray for the dealing with our disposition, character, and peculiar traits. These three things are the hardest things to deal with in the church life. We all have our self, and our self is constituted with our disposition, character, and peculiar traits.
I was glad recently to see some of us function who have been used to being silent in the meetings. Some of us have been coming to meetings for years in a silent way. We need to receive the Lord’s mercy to have an inward, metabolic change of our quiet disposition. We need to pray, “Lord, have mercy upon me. Renew me and transform me. Transform me in every part of my being, in my daily life, and in my service to You in the church life. Transform me in the way that I pray, especially in the meetings.” We need to realize that whatever we do out of our natural man is not acceptable to the Lord.
Some of the saints have been faithful to the Lord’s recovery for many years, but they have remained the same. Paul says in 2 Corinthians 4:16 that we need to be renewed day by day. We should not be the same as we were three days ago. We need to become different daily by being renewed. If we never shout, we should be transformed to shout, “Praise the Lord!”
Because we are remaining in our natural disposition, we cannot see the real church life among us. We have lost our impact and our influence. We are a group of people serving the Lord faithfully, but we are serving and meeting in a mere routine and scheduled way. As a result, there are no new ones under our care, and the church has come to a standstill. The remedy to this situation is with the vital groups. We all have to be transformed.
We need to begin to pray to gain the candidates for our gospel preaching. We need to make a list of our close relatives and acquaintances. Then we need to pray, “Lord, among these, who are the ones that I should take first as my candidates for Your gospel?” The Lord will lead us. We should not take more than five people on our list as our initial candidates for the Lord to gain. It may be that out of these five, three would not be available. Regardless, we have to learn how to prepare ourselves and how to prepare our candidates, the objects of our work. We need to pray for them for about two months. Then we can go out to contact them.
This kind of selection and prayer for those whom we select will give us the impact with them. It is not the best thing to knock on “cold” doors, the doors of people we do not know. We must find a way to get “warm” doors, doors of people whom we know or who have been recommended to us by others.
We need to realize that what comes out of our labor can be counted rightly only in the future. Presently, all five whom we choose as our candidates may not be available. But after three years they all will be available due to our prayer. We do not know when the Lord will fulfill our prayer. We should just labor. The apostle Paul promised us that our labor in Christ is not in vain (1 Cor. 15:58). I believe that every minute we spend for laboring in the Lord’s service is recorded by the Lord.
According to the New Testament principle, not one person is saved directly. A person is saved through someone else or through someone else’s prayer for him. God may have chosen your cousin and decided to save him. But if you do not pray for him, no one will pray for him. Thus, God will have no way unless you pray. Your prayer will pave the way and lay the tracks on which God’s “train” can move. Prayer means a lot, so we have to pray for about two months. Then we will go out. Every day we must spend some time to get ourselves equipped, qualified, and prepared to do our duty in gaining sinners for the increase of the church.
After we choose our gospel candidates, we have to consider what book or what verses of the Bible we can use with them. This is why we need to be trained with the appropriate verses from the Scriptures. Certain verses are good for one kind of person, and other verses are good for another kind of person. Then we have to be trained how to use these verses. John 3:16 is a good verse, but many do not know how to use it.
We also have to be trained in how to take care of the new ones we gain. Maybe the Lord would not give you a new one for one year. Then you will question the Lord by saying, “Lord, why wouldn’t You give me new ones?” The Lord would say, “I gave Sister So-and-so five new ones, and she cannot care for all of them. Why wouldn’t you go help her by taking care of them?” The mothers know that taking care of children properly requires much learning. We lost many new ones in the past because we were not the proper nursing mothers to take care of them. Eventually, we will come up to the point where we and the new ones under our care learn to prophesy.
I hope that we would consider this fellowship seriously. If the Lord cannot have a way with the vital groups, it will be difficult for us to go on. How many among us live according to what we have heard from the ministry? Many saints are not much in the process of being renewed, transformed, and conformed. Instead, they live and serve in the natural way. This is quite serious. We love the Lord so much, but we still keep our disposition, character, and peculiar traits. Since this is the case, there can be no real building among us. We need to receive the fellowship in these messages so that we can be renewed, transformed, and conformed to Christ’s image. I hope that this fellowship will be fully apprehended and realized by us.
One brother told me that when he opens up to the saints, he feels that he deadens them. This is because he is too much in his natural life. When you open yourself up to others and in everything you do, you need to learn to follow the inner Spirit. In your prayer and in your activities in the meetings, you do not follow the Spirit. It is just your doing.
A brother may love the Lord to the uttermost, but it is hard for the Lord to get through in him because he is so strong in his natural life, in what he is. When he prays, he prays according to what he is. When he calls a hymn in the meeting, he calls it according to what he is. This shows that there is a great need for us to deny our self. In Matthew 16:24 the Lord told us that we must deny our self. But in Luke 14:26 the Lord told us further that we must hate our self, our soul-life. We are so natural. This means that we are out of the old creation. Anything that comes out of the old creation is fleshly and offensive to the Lord.
A brother who is strong and very bold in his natural life will take over the meeting. When he hears that we need to open up to one another, he will be the first in opening up. But he opens up to the saints in his natural life. To open up is right, but you have to open by following the inner Spirit. Do not forget that God is Spirit, and those who worship God must worship Him in spirit (John 4:24). You have to open to me and I have to open to you, but we all have to do this by following the Spirit. Therefore, there is much need to trust in Him.
Paul says that we should work out our salvation with fear and trembling because it is God who operates in us (Phil. 2:12-13). I have an operating One within me, so I am fearful that I may miss Him. I am trembling that I may offend Him, because He is not only with me but also operating within me. Thus, I am fearful, waiting, and on the alert, looking to Him. Paul uses the word watch, saying that we need to watch unto our prayer (Eph. 6:18). Even the matter of prayer needs the watching. Otherwise, I may pray wrongly. If I do not watch in my prayer, I may pray long prayers; I may pray prayers that are not prayers.
If we get into the revelation of the apostle Paul’s fourteen Epistles without seeing how the Triune God is the practical grace to us, we can be fully disappointed. This is because no one in himself can practice what Paul saw and taught. Who can live Christ and magnify Christ as Paul did? We can do this only by the bountiful supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ (Phil. 1:19-21a). The all-inclusive, bountiful Spirit is within us, enabling us to live and magnify Christ.
