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Prayer: Lord, we look to You that You would open to us Yourself with Your Word. You are our Father, and we are Your children. We come to You with a sincere heart, a seeking spirit, and an open mind to seek You so that we may receive mercy and find grace for timely help. Lord, we do express to You our longing heart. How much we need You and the covering and cleansing of Your precious, prevailing blood. Even more, we need You as the anointing to us. O Lord, we commit ourselves into Your hand. May these days be full of light and life that we may be brought into Your vision to see something heavenly and eternal. Do something definitely in these days, not for us but for Yourself, Your testimony, and Your recovery. By Your headship and lordship we claim all the seeking saints for the recovery of the testimony of the church in these last days. Lord, we praise You because we have the assurance that You are moving in a deeper way and in a mighty way. We trust in You for everything that You have committed to us. We say today that we are nothing; we are impotent and incompetent, but we trust in You and put our confidence in You. At this very moment cover us, head us up in Yourself, and fight the battle for Your kingdom. We pray, Lord, that You will bind the strong man, the enemy, to release what is Yours from his hand. We ask this in Your name. Amen.
In these messages we are covering the line of Christ as life and the church, the Body of Christ, as the expression of Christ. These two items are the urgent need today. As Christians, as reborn ones, we must see God’s revelation concerning His eternal purpose. There must come a day when we definitely see that in this universe God has a divine plan, an eternal plan, which He made in eternity and for eternity. If we do not see this, we will be Christians whose condition is below the divine standard. In order to be up to the standard, we must see the eternal plan revealed to us in the whole of the Scriptures.
In man there is a natural concept concerning God and the divine things. When we were sinners, we had no heart for God and no thought about God. We did not care for the divine, spiritual things; on the contrary, we were very much occupied by the worldly, sinful things and the desires of the flesh (Eph. 2:1-3; Titus 3:3). However, when we turned to the Lord, immediately we exercised our natural understanding to comprehend and apprehend the divine and spiritual things. We may think that our natural understanding is right, but we must realize that it is absolutely wrong. Although the natural concept seems good, it is very dangerous and is a great hindrance to our seeing God’s eternal plan.
When a person repents, that is, when he turns his mind toward the Lord, immediately he has many concepts. First, since the Lord has been good and gracious to him, he feels that he owes the Lord a great debt. Second, he decides to love the Lord and is willing to even sacrifice his life for the Lord. Third, he decides to read the Scriptures because he feels that there are many things he needs to know and to keep. Fourth, he decides to do only good things and to adjust and correct himself as a new man. Last, he may even decide to serve the Lord in the church or preach the gospel. Whenever a person turns to the Lord, he will naturally have concepts like this. However, such concepts are not of the Lord. To hold such concepts is to be taken advantage of by the enemy, who would hinder us from knowing the Lord in a real and spiritual way.
The Lord has a plan, and the center of this plan is that God in Christ as the Spirit desires to mingle Himself with us. The carrying out of God’s plan requires our cooperation. We were created as vessels for God, but God did not create us as vessels without life, feelings, intentions, desires, or understanding. We were created as living vessels. To fill a glass with water is easy because the glass is without any understanding, desire, thought, or intention. Thus, it is easy to deal with. However, as all parents know, to give medicine to a child is rather difficult. Sometimes parents need to grasp a young child and hold his mouth open before they can give him medicine. This is necessary simply because the child is living. He has his own intention, thought, and desire, and he does not want to cooperate with his parents. God made us as living vessels, but when He comes to fill us with Himself, many times we do not cooperate with Him.
The most glorious and pleasing thing to God is our cooperation with Him in allowing Him to fill us with Himself. Sooner or later we will discover that we are persons who are willing to act by ourselves in doing many things for God, but we are not willing to cooperate with God. Often in the past forty years I had a desire to do things for God. Yet in my innermost being I had the sense that I should stop and open myself in order to give Him the cooperation so that He might come in, occupy me, and fill me. Truthfully, although I knew I should do this, I did not have the intention or the desire to do it. I was like a child who knows he should take his medicine but has no desire to do so. A child would rather do many things for his parents than cooperate with their demand to take his medicine. This is our real condition before God. We like to help people, preach the gospel, and do many things for the Lord, but as we are doing these things, deep within us there is a sense that we must stop ourselves from our doing, open ourselves to cooperate with the Lord, and let the Lord operate on us.
We Christians always try to do things and work for the Lord, but the Lord wants us to eat Him and drink Him by enjoying Him and feeding on Him. We should not be “doing” Christians but should be “eating” Christians. We should not be “working” Christians but “drinking” Christians. We need a revelation that God’s eternal purpose, His ultimate intention, is to mingle Himself with us and work Himself into us. This is the divine thought. Once we have this thought, our concept, nature, conduct, and even our whole being will be changed, transformed, and revolutionized.
Even though I have made many mistakes and committed many sins, the things I have repented for the most before God are not my mistakes and sins but the things that I tried to do for the Lord. When I do not have light, I think that I must do this or that for the Lord to work for Him and serve Him. But once I receive light, I know that I am on the wrong track and am not going along with the Lord. At such a time I sense that I must cease from my doing, working, and serving and give the Lord a chance to work on me and in me. I need to prostrate myself before the Lord, asking Him to forgive me for doing such foolish things. We need to be delivered from doing, from working, and from serving God. On the one hand, we encourage people to exercise to give testimonies or offer prayers in the church meetings. On the other hand, we know that there will be a time when the Lord will reveal to such people that they must stop from exercising anything and be delivered from all kinds of activities. If we are sick, in order for the doctor to operate on us, we must submit ourselves to him. This simply means that we stop ourselves from doing, from working, and from any kind of activity and offer the doctor our absolute cooperation.
During the years from 1938 to 1943 I was working so much for the Lord that no one could stop me. The more I worked, the more the work interested me. Yet there was a deep sense within me that I should stop a little. It seemed that the Lord was saying, “You need to stop. Do not work so much for Me. Let Me work on you, and let Me work in you.” Nevertheless, because I would not listen to this inner sense, the Lord came in and disciplined me. First, He put me in prison, and then He put me in a sickbed for more than two and a half years. This was not because I had committed some sins but simply because I did too much for the Lord. The Lord needed my cooperation. Since I would not stop, He made me lie down. During those three years, more and more revelation came to me as I repented for my doing too much for the Lord.
We have pointed out that the Lord’s eternal purpose is to work Himself into us. Strictly speaking, we are not the workmen or the workers; rather, we are the work, the workmanship, of the Lord (Eph. 2:10), and we must be worked on by the Lord. Do not think that we need to work for the Lord. If a piece of building material tried to work for the builder, he might tell it, “Stop. Let me work on you. Only after I have worked on you will you be useful for my purpose. The degree to which you will be useful for my purpose depends on the degree to which you are willing to be worked on by me. Only in this way can my building be accomplished. The more active you are, the more you hinder me from building.” Sooner or later, if we have a sincere heart in seeking the Lord, He will stop us from our doing and reveal to us that we need Him to mingle Himself with us and work Himself into us.
After being regenerated, many Christians become like Saul of Tarsus, doing what he did before he was regenerated. Whereas the apostle Paul was Saul before he was regenerated, we are “Sauls” after our regeneration. Saul was very active in working, moving, and doing things in Judaism (Gal. 1:13-14; Phil. 3:4-6). One day the Lord met him in order to stop him from his doing and blind him. Before that time he always took the lead to move and to act, but after the Lord met him, he needed someone to lead him (Acts 9:1-9). From that day forward God revealed His Son in Saul (Gal. 1:15-16). God showed him that what He wants is not human activity but a human vessel who is willing to cooperate with God’s desire to fill him with Himself (Acts 9:15). God wants to fill us with Himself; He wants to enter into us to saturate us with His element and permeate us with all His riches. For this, He needs our cooperation. Everything of the Christian life, the Christian service, and the church life must come out of this. We may have been a Christian for many years, but even today we may not have seen the eternal plan of God.
The revelation of God’s eternal plan will stop us from all kinds of activities. We will prostrate ourselves before God and open ourselves absolutely to the Lord, saying, “Lord, I hate my doing, I hate my service, I hate my work, and I hate all the good things that I do. I hate these more than I hate the sinful things, because they are stronger hindrances to Your coming in to fill me, Your saturating me with all Your fullness, Your permeating me with Your element, and Your mingling Yourself with me. Now I know that Your purpose is not a matter of my doing or my working but a matter of Your filling me with Yourself.” This is the eternal purpose of God. All the divine and spiritual things must come out of God’s mingling Himself with us.
The heart of many Christians is toward the worldly things rather than toward the Lord. Nevertheless, there are a good number of Christians who have been saved and who have a sincere heart and desire to seek the Lord. Some of them endeavor to serve the Lord by consecrating themselves to be missionaries on foreign fields. Some endeavor to do good, and some are seeking the deeper life, the victorious life, the holy life, the crucified life, the spiritual life, or the Christ-centered life. Furthermore, there are some who insist that we must experience the baptism in the Holy Spirit and speak in tongues. Some believers stress absolute grace, others teach Arminianism, and still others espouse Calvinism. However, once we see God’s eternal purpose, all these things disappear. When the sun is shining, there is no need of the stars. When we see God’s eternal purpose, the only thing that counts is God mingling Himself with us by working Christ into us. As long as we cooperate with God to have Christ wrought into us, we will have the deeper life, the holy life, the victorious life, the sanctified life, the crucified life, and the spiritual life. We will also be prevailing and powerful in our prayer and service, and we will be full of life in our work and in our daily living. This is the central point. The centrality and universality of everything is for Christ to be wrought into us.
Today there are many things that believers emphasize. Some emphasize prayer and intercession, urging us to pray seven times a day as David the king did (Psa.119:164). Others insist that we must study the Scriptures by attending a Bible institute or seminary. However, neither of these is the answer. The answer is Christ Himself as the center and as everything, not in doctrine, in teaching, or in knowledge but in experience, in practice, and in reality. What we need today is the living experience of the living Christ as the living Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45; 2 Cor. 3:17). Our need today is a living person, Christ Himself, experienced and enjoyed by us day by day. Then we will know what the central thought of God is.
Question: Galatians 6:2 says, “Bear one another’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ completely.” How and in what attitude should we bear one another’s burdens, and what is the law of Christ and its fulfillment?
Answer: Suppose you were to ask a peach tree that bears peaches, “Please tell me what it means to bear peaches.” If the tree could speak, it might answer you, “I do not understand how to bear peaches, but I do understand how to live by receiving many kinds of supply from the soil, from the water, from the wind and the air, and from the sunshine. As long as I live by all these things, I will spontaneously bear peaches.” The verse concerning bearing one another’s burdens is in the sixth chapter of Galatians, not in the first chapter. In the first chapter Christ is revealed in us (vv. 15-16), in the second chapter Christ is living in us (v. 20), in the third chapter Christ is our clothing (v. 27), in the fourth chapter Christ is formed in us (v. 19), and in the fifth chapter we are not separated from Christ (vv. 4-6). If this is our condition, we will surely bear the fruit of the Spirit.
Galatians 5:22-23 speaks of fruit, not of fruits. What is mentioned in these verses should not be considered nine kinds of fruit, but one kind of fruit with nine aspects. The first aspect of the fruit of the Spirit is love, and the last aspect is self-control. Toward others we must always have love, and in dealing with ourselves, we must always have self-control. These are the aspects of Christ as life, and they are an overflow of the Christ whom we have experienced. When we experience and enjoy Christ, He will flow Himself out; this outflow is the fruit. Christ is the fountain of the flow of life. If we abide in Him and allow Him to abide in us, there will be an outflow of life from within us, which is the fruit of the Spirit, with love as the first aspect.
The law of Christ in chapter 6 is the law of love, which is substantiated by the law of the Spirit of life (Rom. 8:2). The law of love enables us to bear one another’s burdens. Then at the end of the book the apostle tells us that neither circumcision nor uncircumcision is anything, but a new creation is what matters (Gal. 6:15). Human morality and human immorality, human good and human evil, do not mean anything. None of these things avails, but a new creation is what matters. A new creation is a person who is mingled with Christ, a person who has Christ revealed in him, Christ living in him, Christ covering him as his clothing, Christ being formed in him, and Christ being a fountain of life within him. To repeat, neither doing good nor doing evil avails before God. These things are nothing. What is needed is a new creation, which comes into being through our being mingled with Christ. This is the right position and condition for us to have.
Question: How can we abide in Christ?
Answer: In order to abide in Christ, at least once we need to see that we are in Christ. This is a fact. We are persons who have been put into Christ by God (1 Cor. 1:30). Thus, we are in Christ. To abide in Christ simply means to not go outside of Christ but to keep ourselves in Christ. There is no need for us to strive to be in Christ, because we are already in Him. For example, to abide in a house means to remain in that house and to not leave it. We need a revelation to see that we are in Christ. In the New Testament there is a very small phrase of just two words, but it is the most important phrase in the universe. This phrase is in Christ. We must have a definite seeing that we are persons who are in Christ. We must keep ourselves in Christ, remaining in Him and not going out of Him.
Question: Does the Lord put certain individuals aside for a time so that He can work again in their lives?
Answer: It is not good to analyze too much, but there is a principle that we need to see. If our intention is genuinely for the Lord and we are doing too much, the Lord will come in to stop us from our doing. God’s eternal purpose is to have Christ wrought into us, but our concept is always to do something for God. We forget that we are vessels whose purpose is not to do something but to contain something. This is the problem today. We have pointed out that many Christians simply do not care about the things of God; they love the world, having no heart for God and no desire to seek the Lord’s mind or the Lord’s business. There are a good number of seeking Christians, yet among them the concept of doing something for God is very strong. They do not know that they were made to be vessels and were regenerated for the purpose of containing Christ.
There is no need for us to do things for God. He can do everything. God needs us to cooperate with Him as living vessels. We need to allow God to fill us. On the day that we see this, our whole Christian concept will change, our whole being will be revolutionized, and our work and activity will be absolutely in another realm, that is, in Christ Himself. We will stop all our activity, and day by day we will say, “Lord, I am here and I am open. I am nothing but an empty vessel. I thank You that I was made in such a way to contain You. I can do nothing, Lord, yet I can contain You. Come in, fill me, and saturate my whole being with Yourself.” This is the right condition and position for us to be a living Christian. If there is never a day in our whole life in which we see this, we will be pitiful and miserable persons. The sooner we see this, the better. Before he saw this, the apostle Paul was active in Judaism, in doing and in working. One day the Lord knocked him down to the ground, and he saw a heavenly vision. His whole being was stopped from doing. This is why he wrote of God revealing His Son in him, of Christ living in him, of his putting on Christ as his clothing, of Christ being formed in him, of his not being separated from Christ but keeping himself in Christ, and of Christ flowing out of him to bear the fruit of the Spirit.
This is the divine concept, and when we see this, we will be delivered from doing and working. We will realize that we are nothing but an empty vessel to contain Christ. It is not easy for the young people to see this, because young people are very active. For the older generation it is even more difficult because too many things already occupy them.
Question: How does a person get out of the religious “rat race” of always going around in a circle as in a cage?
Answer: We can escape such a situation only by revelation. Before he was saved, Saul was very active. One day, on the road to Damascus, the Lord met him, and he was knocked down before the Lord. He was stopped. The revelation stops us, and this stopping is a deliverance that rescues us from our human effort and doing and brings us into the line of the divine will. From that time forward, we are on the right track.
Question: It seems that Paul was still very active after he became a Christian. Is this not true?
Answer: After Paul received the revelation, there is no doubt that he acted, moved, and worked, but the motive, the initiation, and the source were not himself but Christ. Christ was energizing him all the time, just like a motor in a car (Phil. 4:13). Paul’s activity was an issue of his cooperation with Christ. Seemingly, he was walking and working, but actually, it was Christ doing these things in Paul. Twice Paul said that it was not he but Christ. In Galatians 2:20 he said, “It is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me,” and in 1 Corinthians 15:10 he said, “I labored...yet not I but the grace of God which is with me.” The grace of God came through Christ (John 1:17). This grace is God in Christ enjoyed and experienced by us. It seems that Paul was saying, “It is not I, Paul, who labor much, even more than all the other apostles; it is God in Christ experienced by me as grace. The grace of God works in me so that I can labor as I do.” We need a revelation to see that God’s intention is to work Christ into us as our everything and to work Christ through us and out of us. We need to be in this stream, in this line, and on this track. All of our daily walk, living, working, service, and activity must be an issue, an outflow, of the divine life. This is something absolutely different from human effort.
