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There is a need for some to serve the Lord full time in every place, even in a small village in the countryside. There is always a need, but we must have some spiritual ability in order to discover or expose the need. Some businessmen are able to make money anywhere; even in the poorest country they can discover a market in which to do business and make money. In a sense, their ability creates the market. Similarly, if we have the spiritual “money-making” ability, we can create a spiritual “market” anywhere. If we have the ability to create a spiritual market, the work may demand that we give up our job in order to serve full time. If it seems that we need to serve only part time, the reason may be that we lack the ability. There is a great need for full-timers everywhere. The need for full-time service depends on our ability to create the market. There are as many markets as there are full-timers who have the spiritual money-making ability.
We may have the spiritual ability to create a need for a full-time serving one, but we should not think that we are the right person to meet the need. I have always thought that I am the wrong person to serve full time because there are many problems that I cannot solve and many saints whom I cannot help. No one is the right person to serve full time. Only the Lord is the right person. We have nothing to boast about. We are inadequate and insufficient in many things. According to Mark 11:23, faith can remove a mountain, but when there is a mountain that needs to be removed, we do not have the faith. When we face great problems, we can only sigh and groan. We can only do a little. We need much help from the other members of the Body in all the local churches.
Wherever we are, we should exercise our spiritual ability to create a need for full-time service. We should not say that we do not have this ability. We must try our best to become one who has such ability. Perhaps we do not have great spiritual ability, but we have a little. We need to exercise our ability to create opportunities to serve. We may begin by shepherding the saints. If we do not know how to shepherd, we can simply invite some to our home and fellowship with them in mutuality, asking them to help us. If we do this a few nights each week, after six months there may be a need for us to serve full time. However, we should not be proud or think that we are the right person. If we think that we are qualified or special, we should not serve full time. Every full-timer is nobody. The same principle applies to preaching the gospel. We should not think that it is too difficult to bring people to the Lord in a particular place. It only depends on whether we go to do it. After preaching the gospel, we need to pray, “Lord, I am a useless servant. You have chosen the wrong person. I am not the right one. I do not know how to preach the gospel. I even do not adequately know what the gospel is.” Although we should pray in this way, many sinners will be saved through us if we create the market.
Question: There is a new locality in which the Lord has gained a few older sisters and some young ones. They have begun meeting in the homes of the sisters. Is this a good situation?
Answer: No situation is ideal. I have seen some good beginnings that eventually came to nothing. In the early 1930s Brother Watchman Nee was invited to the capital of my home province to preach the gospel. There was a large medical school there that missionaries had established. When Brother Nee preached the gospel, more than fifty medical students were brought to the Lord. Many of them began meeting as a local church. At first, because they did not have any other place to meet, they met in a cemetery. We admired this wonderful start and treasured these medical students. After graduating to become medical doctors, almost all of them were distracted and left the Lord’s recovery. This marvelous beginning came to almost nothing. However, other beginnings that seemed very poor have become wonderful churches today.
We should not trust in any situation. No one can tell whether any kind of beginning will eventually be prevailing. Seemingly promising young believers in the church may leave after a few years. Others who seem to be hopeless cases may become excellent believers. We cannot predict or figure out how new ones will turn out. As parents, we must do our best to take care of our children. We must nourish and educate them with the Word and the knowledge and grace of the Lord. However, we should not think that we can cause our children to be saved. If we could, there would be no need for the Father to choose and to predestinate in eternity past. Nevertheless, we cannot neglect our responsibility to care for our children. Neither can we neglect to care for the believers and the churches. Only the Lord knows whether a new believer will become one who pursues Him and is useful to Him or whether a new group will become a strong local church. We do not know. Therefore, we must have a broadened heart to embrace all believers and the new local churches. We should not despise the apparently weak ones. The Lord often uses such ones.
Every beginning is a good beginning, and every place is a good place. The usefulness and longevity of a beginning often depend on our spiritual money-making ability. If we have the spiritual ability, we can create a very profitable market in a seemingly small or weak situation. We should never question how long a group will last. We cannot know. Only the Lord knows. We need to learn not to be prejudiced. We live in the age of grace. We cannot control grace; it is like the sun and the rain. Matthew 5:45 says, “Your Father who is in the heavens...causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good and sends rain on the just and the unjust.” We can only say, “It is all the Lord’s mercy.” The leading ones in every local church need to learn the lesson not to overly appreciate nor despise anyone. We do not know the future. We should not play politics, but we should avoid offending people, because everyone is promising for the Lord’s recovery. Much can change in a few years. We must embrace everyone — good or bad, promising or not.
Question: Would you share more about the proper exercise of authority?
Answer: We should not be concerned about our authority. The real authority among God’s people is love. Ephesians 5:24 says, “Let the wives be subject to their husbands in everything.” Since there is submission on the female side, it seems that there should be the exercise of authority on the male side. However, verse 25 does not exhort the husbands to exercise their authority. Instead, it says, “Husbands, love your wives.” In order to exercise genuine authority, we have to love others. Whether we have authority is tested by whether we have love. Those who have the most love have the highest authority. If a brother conducts himself or functions in a meeting in a wrong way, the elders should go to him not to exercise their authority but to love him. They should not only correct him but also minister something positive to him.
If we exercise our authority but do not love people, we will cut off one member after another until there is no one left. That is not the way. The proper way is to always forgive, love, and embrace. To love and embrace others unjustly is better than to hate justly. To cut others off in the church life is like divorce. Those who cut others off always have reasons, but it is not the way. To claim and exercise authority to cut others off is absolutely wrong. When we cut others off, we actually cut ourselves off. In this age or the next, time will tell that we were wrong to cut others off. If we do not love a person, we should not exercise authority over that one.
Question: If a new one in the church life has psychological problems, how much time should we spend caring for that one?
Answer: We must walk according to the spirit. If we have the time, we should use it to care for them. If we do not have the time, there is nothing we can do. We also need to remember that we are not the right person, because in ourselves we cannot do anything to help.
Question: I fear that I might give so much time to the church that I would completely neglect my family. Would you speak according to your experience concerning this?
Answer: I do not think that if we give ourselves to the church, we will completely neglect our families. To do so would be wrong. We must love the church and at the same time do our best to take care of our family. I believe that the church life will help us to take care of our children.
Question: Would you share something further concerning walking according to the spirit and the Body life?
Answer: If we truly walk according to the spirit, we will spontaneously be in the Body life. If we have problems with the church or with other members, this indicates that at least to some extent we are not walking according to the spirit. If we walk according to the spirit, we will have no problems with others. Nothing will hinder our being joined to others in the Body. We need the experience of Romans 8 in order to enter into the experience of Romans 12.
Question: What is shepherding in relation to walking according to the spirit?
Answer: We should not overanalyze the things pertaining to life. When we overanalyze, life is gone. We should not ask what shepherding is; we should simply go to shepherd. However, after we shepherd others or do anything for the Lord, we must always confess, “Lord, I am a useless servant.” Whenever we think that we can do something in ourselves, we are finished.
Question: As leading ones, how should we encourage the saints to preach the gospel as part of their living of Christ without condemning those who do not?
Answer: We should never condemn anyone. If no one in our locality preaches the gospel, we still should not condemn them. We need only to walk according to the spirit and minister such a living to the saints. Then we can follow the Lord’s leading to speak in the meetings concerning the need to preach the gospel, and we should take the lead to do it. This is good enough. Many matters revealed in the Bible have two sides. On the one side, the Bible reveals that the Lord does things through us and from within us. On the other side, the Bible charges us to do those same things. On the one hand, if the saints walk according to the spirit, they will spontaneously preach the gospel. On the other hand, we need to charge the saints to preach the gospel. As we exhort them, we must also minister to them the life that walks according to the spirit.
Question: I have had a heavy burden for many years. What is the best way for me to go on?
Answer: We need to humble ourselves and confess to the Lord that we are narrow, religious, proud, and self-confident. It may be difficult to trust in the Lord, but it is easy to trust in ourselves. This is the self. Our narrowness, religiousness, pride, and self-confidence are the source of all our problems, including our problems with our families and the saints, our lack of usefulness to the Lord, and even the heaviness of our burdens, anxieties, and sorrows. If we are not narrow, religious, proud, or self-confident, we will always be joyful and released and will not have a problem with anyone. This is why the Bible charges us to love our enemies (Matt. 5:44). We cannot love others, even our wife and children, if we are narrow, religious, proud, and self-confident.
If we walk according to the spirit, we will not be narrow, religious, proud, or self-confident. If we cannot forgive someone, it indicates that we are narrow and religious, because we are vindicating ourselves. Self-vindication and self-justification are religious. If we are not religious, we will always forgive and forget. The most religious persons are the narrowest persons. Doctrinally speaking, the local churches are not sectarian, but if we are narrow, religious, proud, and self-confident, we will be sectarian in practicality. We must love every believer.
We need to walk according to the spirit, reject our narrowness, religiousness, pride, and self-confidence, and have the basic attitude of love toward all believers. We should be willing to help them and give them whatever we have. What we actually do to care for them should be determined by our walking according to the spirit. If we do not walk according to the spirit, even our trying not to be narrow, religious, proud, or self-confident will be something of our self.
Question: What is the best way to help a brother who has been offended?
Answer: The best way is not to do anything. We simply need to walk according to the spirit. The walking according to the spirit in Romans 8:4 eventually issues in being led by the Spirit in verse 14. We should not try to think of a way to help a brother. Our help may damage him. If we walk according to the spirit, we will spontaneously be led by the Spirit and will know how to care for him and minister life to him. Our care for others should be something of the Spirit’s leading.
Question: Why have so many Christians missed the focus of the Bible for almost two thousand years?
Answer: In order for a chicken to grow, there is the need of feathers, bones, and even dung. However, when we eat the chicken, we eat only the meat. The feathers, bones, and dung are necessary for the chicken to grow so that we can obtain the meat. Similarly, every part of the Bible is necessary, but it is all for the focus — that the Triune God lives in the believers so that they may live Him. Distraction from the focus of the Bible actually comes not from the other points in the Bible but from the enemy, Satan. Paul says concerning the Jews, “Unto this day, whenever Moses is read, a veil lies on their heart” (2 Cor. 3:15). Such veils are something of the enemy. Therefore, when we read the Bible, we need to pray, “Lord, keep the enemy away from my reading of Your Word.” In this way we will come to the healthiest food in the Word.
The Bible is composed as it is because it was written for human beings. God’s way is the best way. We could not find a better way to write the Bible. Nevertheless, it is a fact that there are many points in the Word. Preparing a message to share with the saints is like shopping for groceries. No one can eat all the groceries at once. Our intention in publishing the ministry is to release the riches from the Word that have been hidden for centuries. Before 1960 it was difficult for the leading ones to feed the churches because not much of Brother Nee’s speaking was published. Since we have published many Life-study messages, the situation today is absolutely different. There are many groceries today. In addition to the printed ministry, there are audio and video recordings of messages.
Today the problem is not a lack of “groceries” but the ability to discern which portions are best suited for a particular local church. The leading ones are like housewives who must discern the kind of nourishment their children need. No matter how rich the published messages are, the present situation in a local church involves a particular need. The leading ones must know how to minister a word that meets the present local need. For instance, the attendance at certain meetings may be gradually decreasing. The elders need to exercise their spirit to seek the way to deal with such a situation. The elders should consider the local need in selecting the ministry to feed the church.
Sometimes the elders need to do something else to increase the spiritual appetite of the saints. A lack of appetite may indicate sickness. A healthy person has a good appetite and digestion. As caring mothers, the elders should notice when the saints are not eating well and should do something to clear up their digestion and increase their appetite. This is not easy; it depends on our spiritual ability. Nevertheless, we need to find a way to take care of the saints. We should learn by experience, but this requires much time and suffering.
The writings in today’s Christianity are inadequate to nourish God’s people. The Lord has given us a different way. Any portion of a Life-study message is rich spiritual food for the saints. For the sake of God’s economy and His move on the earth, I must labor in the ministry of the word, but this means that I cannot visit the churches regularly even though my heart is with them. However, the leading brothers can care for the churches.
As leading ones, if we mean business with the Lord, we need to walk according to the spirit and minister life to all the saints in our localities. Then all the saints will live a life of testimony and speak Christ, preaching the gospel and spreading the truth everywhere. We have no trust in organization or a great work. We trust in walking according to the spirit, bearing a bright and shining testimony in our daily life, the proper, genuine preaching of Christ, and the spreading of the truth. If all the local churches go on in this way, time will serve the purpose. The Lord’s move on the earth will be prevailing.
We must not be narrow or sectarian; rather, we need to love every believer. We should not consider that only those who meet with us are in the local churches. All the believers are in the local churches. We need to avoid opinions and dissension. We cover those who have many opinions; we cannot cut them off. The church life is not like an Asian bean cake, which is cut square and straight. Instead, the church life is like mashed potatoes. There will always be trouble, opinions, complaints, and disorder. All the churches mentioned in the New Testament were like this. Our natural tendency is to cut others off and be divisive. However, we have to embrace everyone, including the troublesome ones. If we are not inclusive, we will damage the church.
