Search
We need to grow spiritually. In Ephesians 4:13-16 the matter of growth is mentioned three times. We must become a full-grown man, no longer little children. Then we are to “grow up into Him in all things.” Last, the whole Body must grow (“causes the growth of the Body”). Let us answer some questions before we consider how the Body can grow.
Question: How can we deny ourselves?
Answer: When we read the Scripture that tells us to deny ourselves, our natural response is to determine to put our self aside. Such a response is not biblical but ethical. Confucius taught self-denial. When the learned Chinese believers read Matthew 16, their background of ethical teachings leads them to react, “Lord, from today I am no more for myself. I will deny myself.” This is the way of self-endeavor.
What is the biblical way? “If anyone wants to come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me” (v. 24). Do you see what follows deny himself? It says to take up the cross. To deny the self is to take up the cross. When Christ was crucified, He included you. Receive and abide in the fact that you were crucified with Him. “Lord, thank You that I do not need to deny myself by my own effort. I just accept and stand on the fact that on the cross I was crucified with You. It is no longer I but Christ who lives in me.” The real denial of the self is to remain under His crucifixion.
Question: I think we do need your sharing with us to be more legal about reading the Word, but there is a problem that crops up. We tend to pressure others instead of just taking the word for ourselves.
Answer: It is not helpful to pressure others. If you are faithful to practice contacting the Lord every day in the Word, there will be a change in you that will have an effect on those around you.
While my brother and I were studying in college, I got saved (at the age of nineteen) and began to love the Bible. I lost interest in the activities we had been doing together and spent most of that summer at home reading the Bible. My younger brother, who was fifteen at the time and quite naughty, observed the change taking place in me, and on his own he too began to read the Bible. As a result, he was saved. His salvation came about not because of anyone’s exhorting him but by the transmission of life from me to him.
If you will go to the Lord for ten minutes every morning and read the Word, you will be nourished, and your life will become shining. This change in you will minister life to others and attract them. Do not try to recruit them to study the Word.
Question: Is it good to practice releasing our spirit in the meetings even if we may be in our emotions and full of self?
Answer: It is better not to be so analytical. The practice is simple. Your spirit is gradually purified by the working of the Word and the Spirit in you. As you are contacting the Lord by these means, the negative things within you — your natural emotion, tendencies, dislikes, and such — are being killed, and the resurrection life is being ministered into you. Little by little you are being unconsciously transformed by the life of Christ. When you come to the meetings, just release your spirit in a genuine and spontaneous way. At first, your spirit is not so pure, but as the months go by, and the Word and the Spirit do their killing and resurrecting work, your spirit will be more and more purified.
Question: How can we have our will strengthened?
Answer: The Lord’s presence, as you receive the Word and touch the Spirit, will benefit you in every way. This habit of contacting Him will make your mind sober, without your even thinking about it. It will affect your emotions too. You may not ask the Lord to strengthen your will, but contacting Him will strengthen it unconsciously.
Question: How is it that after so many years of being a Christian, there does not seem to be any change in me? Why do I still lose my temper? Should we expect to improve?
Answer: I understand your problem. Day after day a mother takes care of her children, but she can see very little change in them. She does not do anything purposely to make them grow, but by feeding them properly and by regulating their behavior, exercise, and sleep, little by little they are changing. The time will come when they will be full-grown.
Why is our Christian growth stunted? It is from our failure to take in the Word. Our eating and drinking are deficient. If the main point of our meetings is guitar playing and singing the psalms, we may enjoy ourselves, but year after year there will be no change in us. Just as our human life requires that we eat, drink, sleep, and breathe, so for our spiritual life we must contact the Lord and take in His Word. Our meetings must also supply us with the solid food. The result will be transformation. We will change not by any outward doing but by the life supply dispensed into us from within.
Question: What is the proper way to handle saints who would push “windy teachings” on you?
Answer: This requires wisdom. Arguing with them is worthless. If you realize they cannot take your word, do not say anything. But you must be nourished with the good things of the Word and be faithful to attend all the meetings. Time will show how you have grown, while those who persist in looseness remain degraded.
Question: A new sister is having a hard time reading the Word. How can I help her?
Answer: Help her to pray-read. All the new ones need such help to open them up.
Question: How does a young person get started on studying the Word?
Answer: As I have previously mentioned, you must have your morning nourishment and your daily reading of four chapters. For study, you first select a book. To get into it thoroughly, studying every word, you need reference books and some good translations, like Darby’s and the American Standard Version. A Greek-English interlinear translation is a help, as is Young’s or Strong’s Concordance. By these means you will find out the proper meaning of the words. This will help you to interpret and expound the verses. You must do this consecutively and continually, not according to your whim. After you have studied the book in this way, you may come back to study the major topics of that book. Romans, for example, has such topics as justification, reconciliation, sanctification, and glorification. You can study the distinction between sin and sins, between being in Adam and being in Christ, etc. By going through a book verse by verse and then studying its major subjects, you will become thoroughly familiar with it and gain the proper knowledge. Then take another book. It would especially benefit you to go through Matthew, John, Romans, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, Hebrews, 1 John, and Revelation.
Question: In reading through the Old Testament, sometimes we go through a dry period. How can we get through this?
Answer: If this reading is part of your four chapters, just let it be dry. The genealogy in Matthew 1 may be a frustration to you, but reading it still profits you. The Scripture is God’s breath; it refreshes you whether you understand it or not. Further, when you come around to read it the next time, or the third time, you will find that it is less and less dry. I have come to cherish those first seventeen verses in Matthew 1; they are rich and solid.
When you read the Bible, do not try to understand it. You may even need to pray sometimes, “Lord, help me not to try to understand Your Word.” Just understand as much as you can; the next time you read it, you will have more understanding.
Question: How can we gain more knowledge of the Son of God (Eph. 4:13)? Would it be through studying, memorizing, pray-reading, or how?
Answer: I encourage you to read and study as much as you can. This is better than memorizing. From your reading and studying, you will spontaneously remember. The study of the Bible requires your whole mentality and much of your time. Whatever we do with the Bible is a benefit, but spending the time to study is more useful, I think, than exercising so much to memorize.
Your study of the Scriptures will be helped by referring to other books too, especially the recovery books that we have printed.
Question: When we come to contact the Lord, is it better to pray first or to read first?
Answer: Usually I find that I contact the Lord before I get to the Bible on my desk. By saying “O Lord” I am in the spirit already, before I open my Bible. Please do not think that meditating on Him is helpful. You will no sooner close your eyes to meditate than your thoughts will travel to your nagging mother-in-law, then on to London, to Hong Kong, or elsewhere. The prevailing way to touch the Lord is to be in the spirit and in the Word; then you will fully enjoy Christ.
In chapter 4 of Ephesians I would call your attention first of all to the Spirit: “Being diligent to keep the oneness of the Spirit in the uniting bond of peace” (v. 3). Without the Spirit there is no oneness. He is also the seal and guarantee of our salvation. We know that we are saved because the Spirit is within. We may worry sometimes, the way the unbelievers do, but in the midst of our fretting, the sense comes that there is no need to worry, that we can be at peace. It is this same Spirit within that makes us brothers and sisters. Without Him we are Gentiles, not children of God. It is by His constraint that we gather for meetings rather than seek worldly entertainment and excitement. We are here because we have the same Spirit, flowing in us just as electricity flows to the lights in the ceiling and unites them in shining.
The Spirit is mysterious. If you say that He is great, I say that He is small. If you say that He is kind, I say that sometimes He would rather trouble you. When you would be at peace, He gives you no peace. Yet when He seems unkind, He is being kind to you. This is the wonderful Spirit by whose working within we grow.
Verse 13 of Ephesians 4 says, “Until we all arrive at the oneness of the faith.” The third verse says, “Being diligent to keep the oneness of the Spirit.” We must keep the oneness of the Spirit until we all arrive at the oneness of the faith. We “drive the car” of the oneness of the Spirit until we all arrive at the oneness of the faith.
The faith referred to in verse 13 does not mean your believing but rather the object of what you believe. An abstract of our faith would be: Our God, who is triune, became a man by the name of Jesus. He went to the cross and died for us, for our sins. After three days He was resurrected from the dead and ascended to the heavens, where He now is as our Redeemer, Savior, and Lord. At the same time, in His resurrection He became the life-giving Spirit, came into us, and now lives within us as our life, and His blood cleanses us of all our sins.
This is what we all believe. We have the same faith and the same Spirit. These are what make us one. Whatever our age, nationality, or background, we are one because we have the same Spirit and the same faith.
Teaching, as verse 14 says, is a wind that tosses the children to and fro. Sometimes a teaching may bring in a storm or tornado or whirlwind. If you have been carried about with the winds that have blown through the recovery these past two years, it is an indication that you are a child. They may have blown you to the movies or kept you in bed when you should have been having morning watch or encouraged you to despise the elders and be loose in your daily living. What will save you from these winds? Your salvation lies in growing up. You are a child playing with toys. That is all right for a while, but you need to grow up. “Be no longer little children.”
We also need to arrive at the oneness “of the full knowledge of the Son of God” (v. 13). We do not have sufficient knowledge of the Lord Jesus. What, for example, does Colossians reveal concerning Christ? (See chapter 12.) We need to know Him in all these different aspects. Such solid, detailed knowledge of Him will save us from the wind of teaching.
The last matter that affects our growth is found in verse 15: “Holding to truth in love.” As we hold to truth in love, we will “grow up into Him in all things.”
There is no way to grow without getting into the Word in a serious way. That is why I have urged you to set aside time for this every day. Some need to study the Word in a thorough way so that in times to come they may be able to teach and shepherd in the church. Return to the Word. Follow in life and truth. Follow in knowledge and experience, that we may “grow up into Him in all things” until we arrive at “a full-grown man.”
