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“As therefore you have received the Christ, Jesus the Lord, walk in Him, having been rooted and being built up in Him, and being established in the faith even as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving” (Col. 2:6-7). Have you received Christ? If so, how did you receive Him? You opened to Him, repented and confessed your sins, and asked Him to come in. He came into your spirit (2 Tim. 4:22), not into your heart, though you may have sung that well-known chorus, “Into my heart.” From your spirit, the center of your being, Christ is spreading into the surrounding parts — your mind, emotion, will, and conscience — which make up your heart.
For this cause Paul prayed, “That Christ may make His home in your hearts through faith” (Eph. 3:17). Christ is like a guest invited into your home. When He first comes, He stays in the living room (your spirit). After some time you may invite Him into the bedroom, the inner chamber (your heart), and ask Him to make Himself at home. Have you invited the Lord Jesus into the inner chamber of your heart yet? When Christ has spread into all the inward parts around our spirit, He will then have made His home in our heart. We will consider how to walk in Him after answering some questions.
Question: I feel as if I am living two lives, one at work and the other outside of my job. From the moment I walk into the office I am so busy that I seem to miss the Lord every day. How can I lay hold of Him in the midst of all that I have to do?
Answer: It is the devil’s subtlety to take some fact of our living to deceive us. His way is to tell a lie by speaking the truth. What he says is apparently true, but his intention is to lie to us. First, you should declare to him and to the whole universe that you will walk by one life, not by two.
Second, every day the first thing you should do is to take five, ten, or fifteen minutes to worship the Lord and to contact Him. Tell Him, “Lord, here is another day for me to live You. Be with me; sustain and strengthen me. Hold me in Your hand. Even though I neglect You every day, You never forget me. I have no trust in my faithfulness; I put my trust solely in You.” Even during the day, whenever you have time, pray the same way: “Lord, be with me. I cannot make it to live You out on my own, but You can live Yourself out of me.”
Do not wonder how things will work out. We as Christians have too many considerations, stemming from our background and environment. Deny these considerations; they are just frustrations and distractions. Do not believe them. We believe only in the living God. Our trust is in Him. We do not make preparations and schedules as to what we should do to overcome some situation. We have no expectations and no plan, only the living Lord.
All day, starting from first thing in the morning, contact Him, asking Him to sustain you. Just see what happens. Do not worry about tomorrow. Do not be preoccupied in the meeting, thinking how wonderful the message is but what will you do when you get to the office tomorrow. Just live today. Do not borrow tomorrow; you do not have it. Every day is today; tomorrow never comes. The devil would have us worry about tomorrow. As you hear a message, just rejoice and praise the Lord. He is so simple, so real, and so living. If you ask, What about the next hour? I say there is no next hour. Every hour to us is the present one.
Question: I am new in the church and still very much under the influence of Christianity. When I was studying to be a preacher of the gospel in an organization, it was drilled into me that I had to have a burden for souls. I would feel guilty if I did not say something about the Lord to everyone I met on the street, or at least give him a tract. We have to fulfill the Great Commission, “Go therefore and disciple all the nations” (Matt. 28:19), but can I go without being sent (Rom. 10:14-15)?
Answer: Drop all these complications, even though they are based upon the Scriptures. Come back to the simplicity of Christ. Enjoy Him day by day. Live Him, grow Him, and produce Him. He will lead us on.
Let me give you my personal testimony. I was saved in 1925. I had a heart of love for the Lord and for His Word. After seven and a half years the Lord raised up a church in my hometown, mainly through me. I had no plan. The Lord sent people to me. News was spread about the meetings, and people came and were attracted. They realized that Christ was there. In less than one year the number went from two to about one hundred.
Our leading from the Lord was to be His testimony in China. We had no intention to come to the Western world to spread His recovery throughout the whole world. However, when the time came, the Lord scattered us, and I was sent to this country. Is it not ironic that a Chinese from a heathen country should be sent by the Lord to this most advanced country where Christianity has held sway for so many years? This was surely not by my design. Yet the Lord’s recovery has spread not only throughout the United States but also to Europe, South America, Africa, and Australasia.
This is a strong testimony that if we love the Lord, contact Him, live Him, and grow Him, He will spread Himself through us. We are branches of the vine, branching out the very Christ, not by our plans or activities but just by our living. This is the way of life.
Question: How can I know the Lord’s leading in the matter of preaching the gospel? I often have the feeling when I am alone with someone that I should say something to him about the Lord, but on the other hand, I feel ridiculous approaching total strangers.
Answer: Here is another case of one of the Lord’s seekers having become complicated either by Christianity or by himself. To get out of this entanglement, drop all your consideration. In a simple way contact the Lord and live Him day by day. It may be that as you spontaneously seek His leading, you will have a burden to say a word to someone concerning the Lord; if so, do it. Another time the Lord may bring someone to you. Then, just speak according to your inner sense. Do not analyze. Do not make a decision that from now on you will speak to a certain number of people every day. Do not decide to speak to someone at work about the Lord. Just abide in Him. The Lord may lead you to someone or may lead someone to you. You can then spontaneously say something. Be delivered from your endeavoring and striving. The Christian life is an easy yoke, a pleasant burden. Consider the clusters of grapes on a vine. Without any decision, schedule, or plan, these clusters come forth, according to the inner life of the branches. As the inner life grows, the clusters spontaneously appear.
Be at peace and rest in the Lord. Whatever comes to you as a problem, reject. The Lord does not send complications but only life, peace, and rest.
The verse we quoted (Col. 2:6) exhorts us to walk in Christ in the same way that we received Him. We need to be clear that Christ today is not just far away in the third heaven; He is now also the life-giving Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45) residing in our spirit. First Corinthians 6:17 tells us further that “he who is joined to the Lord is one spirit.” These two spirits — Christ, the life-giving Spirit, and our human spirit — are one spirit. To walk in Christ is to walk in this mingled spirit. It is a matter of heeding His life within us, not of receiving instruction on how to pray, how to preach the gospel, how to honor our parents, or how to submit to our husband or love our wife.
More than fifty years ago in far-off China the Lord granted us His gracious visitation to see that His real salvation is not a way but a living person. When He comes into us to be our life, He is everything else we need as well — holiness, righteousness, humility, love, kindness, patience, endurance, and faithfulness. The day we saw the vision — that everything we need is in this One — marked the end of all our ways. He is God’s way (cf. John 14:6).
There is no need for us to strive or endeavor. Walk in Christ. In Him are both God and man; in Him dwells all the fullness of God. Because this all-inclusive One is in our spirit, we can walk in Him.
Every morning, as soon as we get up, we should turn to the Lord and say, “Lord, thank You for another day that I may live You. Remind me this whole day to reject myself, not to trust in myself, and not to live by myself. Strengthen me to live by You. Make this a day for me to live You out, taking You as my everything, abiding in You as a branch in the vine.” All during the day this should be our prayer. Do not spend time praying so much for your job, your children, or your being kept from car accidents. The Lord takes care of all things. Just concern yourself with this one matter of walking in Him.
Because it is so easy to slip out of Christ and revert to living in ourselves, doing things by ourselves, saying things in ourselves, or loving others by ourselves, Paul exhorts us to work out our own salvation “with fear and trembling” (Phil. 2:12). We need to be saved daily, even hourly, from anything outside of Christ. We must be in fear and trembling to work out our instant salvation, lest we say a word outside of Him, answer a question apart from Him, or react in our feelings rather than in Him.
The way to preach the gospel is to walk in Christ. Such a statement may seem abstract, because we are used to finding ways, or planning activities, to get things accomplished. Some of us may think that the way to preach the gospel is to use musical instruments or to have a quartet sing some gospel songs. There is also the way of eloquence, having a talented speaker give an entertaining message. It has even been said among us that the way to gain people is to go where they are; I have heard of some going to movies, bars, and ballet dances for the purpose of “catching fish.” All such proposals are ways. They are devoid of Christ.
To preach the gospel you must have Christ as your daily living. This living cannot fail to impress those who know you — your relatives, friends, classmates, colleagues, and others whom you see in the normal course of your day. It may be that during a year’s time, the Lord will move in the heart of one of them by means of some circumstance, and that one will be constrained to talk with you. With little effort on your part, perhaps just your suggestion that you pray together, that person will be saved. The next year there may be a colleague at the office who gets injured in a car accident; while he is hospitalized, he may recall your manner of life and send for you to come and talk with him. With few words, just a short prayer, he too may be saved. The following year still another may follow.
Because we live Christ, He is the way we preach the gospel. Do not have the opinion that this is a slow way to get the increase. If just one is saved per year through each of us, there will be a one hundred percent increase. Further, those who are saved in this way will become the remaining fruit. Such will not be the case with those who are brought in through the use of gimmicks; most of them will not stay.
Surely the Lord was referring to our manner of life when He said, “You shall be My witnesses” (Acts 1:8). We live as a witness, a testimony, to Him; this testimony will gradually bring others whom we know to know Him also.
This is not to say that the church should not have a regular gospel-preaching time. Every so often a Saturday night, for example, can be set aside for this. Then we can pray to seek the Lord’s leading as to whom we should bring. Each of us may then bring in one or two. This is the proper preaching of the gospel with Christ as the way.
Not only in preaching the gospel but in everything else as well, we have no way but Christ. We may never have learned how to pray, but because we know how to walk in Christ, we shall find that spontaneously, throughout the day, we are praying. Christ is our way to pray. Because we are one with Him, we walk in Him and find ourselves praying.
Learning how to be humble avails nothing. Any humility that you learn becomes your pride. You may think that you are the most humble one in your family, that all your brothers and sisters are proud and stubborn. This humility that you have developed is pride. The name for the proper humility is Christ. If you walk in Christ day after day, you will be humble without any consciousness of it. By walking in Him, He will become your humility, though you will not be aware of it.
Just as you should not try to be humble, so there is no point in your trying to love others. All your efforts to love your wife, to be submissive to your husband, to control your temper, and to be kind are in vain. Just walk in Christ, who is the life-giving Spirit dwelling in your spirit. When you arise in the morning, pray-read His Word and talk to Him. This will usher you into a walk with Him. Do not heed your emotions, your decisions, or what others are saying. Just walk in Christ, and you will find that He Himself is the love you need toward others.
If we begin our day with contacting the Lord, and continue walking in Him throughout the day, we will have rich experiences of Him to bring to the meetings. Then when there is a need to share a certain aspect of the experience of Christ, we will be able to give a testimony along that line. The riches we accumulate benefit the whole church.
The normal Christian life is to walk in Christ. By walking in Him we will be rooted and built up.
