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Scripture Reading: John 21:22; Gal. 2:20a; 4:19; 2 Tim. 4:22a; 1 Cor. 6:17; Gal. 5:16, 25; Rom. 8:4
The Bible is a wonderful book. It is wonderful because it is a record of the wonderful Lord Jesus. As those who believe in Him, love Him, fellowship with Him, and draw near to Him daily, we can testify that the more we experience Him, the more we sense that He is rich and wonderful. His mysteriousness is far beyond comprehension. In the two thousand years of the history of the church, countless people have believed into Him, worshipped Him, and followed Him, yet no one can fully describe who He is or thoroughly experience Him.
By reading church history and the biographies of many famous Christians, we can see that there are many who have had amazing experiences of the Lord Jesus throughout the past two thousand years. Today the more we experience the Lord, the more we discover that the one item that is most precious and lovable about Him is that, as the Lord of all creation and the omnipotent God, He has passed through creation, redemption, death, and resurrection to become the life-giving Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45b). As the life-giving Spirit, He is not only in the third heaven and all around us; He is also in our spirit to be our life, nature, and everything. The Lord’s desire today is that we would receive Him as our life and live, move, and walk by Him and with Him.
For years we have been speaking and releasing messages as well as publishing books on this matter. However, our burden has still not been discharged. Why has our burden not been discharged? It has not been discharged because this matter is too mysterious. It is definitely not something that can be grasped merely by a little outward understanding. Even if we were to give our entire life, we still would not be able to thoroughly experience the Lord as the Spirit. The second reason that our burden has not been discharged is that, more or less, we tend to lean toward outward things rather than emphasizing the inner life. We must thank the Lord that among us there are many brothers and sisters who love the Lord and have fellowship with Him. We must also thank the Lord that the testimony of the church has been raised up in many places. Nevertheless, we must bow our heads and confess from the depths of our being that there is still a great lack in the churches in every locality. There is not the daily reality of living in spirit and of living with the Lord. We all have to admit that every saint in every church is short of the reality of the experience of living with the Lord.
For example, suppose that I am living together with a brother who is a good friend of mine. If I truly consider him to be my good friend, whenever I have the time and the opportunity, I will definitely greet him and talk to him. If I ignore him, only taking care of my own business and putting him aside, what kind of friend am I? If I were to do this, he would surely feel that I am cold toward him. He would also think that something must have happened between us and that I no longer like him. Most likely he would ask me how he had offended me. Suppose I were to answer him, “You have not offended me! I have just been too busy and too tired, and I have had many other things that I needed to do.” Even if I were to explain at length why I had been ignoring him, he would not believe that it was only because I had been busy, because to ignore a good friend for this reason is unreasonable and insensitive.
We all admit that the Lord Jesus is real, living, and concrete, that He is with us and is living in us, that He is our life and our everything, and that He wants us to live by Him and with Him. Since we all admit this, I would ask, how much of the last six hours have we spent paying attention to the Lord Jesus? We have heard all the teachings and do not need any new teaching. What we need is the practical outworking in our living of what we have heard. As I consider and reconsider, I feel more and more that in our practical daily living, nothing is more real and more important than living with the Lord Jesus. As the all-inclusive Spirit, He lives in our spirit and desires that we would live with Him.
Some may say that I am giving these messages in order to review the subjects of calling on the name of the Lord and pray-reading the Lord’s Word. They may think that I am giving make-up lessons on these two topics because we are all very short in the real experience of calling and pray-reading. However, this is not the case. I am not giving these messages for the purpose of giving you make-up lessons. I am giving them to nourish you. You have not been eating much these past few years. Therefore, I feel that I need to be more practical and that I should not give you profound teachings. My burden is to concentrate entirely on giving you substantial and practical nourishment.
Recently, I asked a certain brother whether or not he practices every day to live with the Lord. He answered that he does have this kind of exercise but that he does not exercise in this way every day. He also added that when he does exercise in this way, it may be for only half an hour in a given day. If a person breathes for only half an hour each day, will he be able to survive? I give this illustration to show you that everything that we are doing today in the churches in every locality has become a religion. It is true that meetings, messages, singing, and praying are all means of contacting the Lord. However, when they do not help us to contact the Lord, they have become something of religion. Whether or not a practice has become something of religion does not depend on the practice itself. We cannot say that arranging the chairs in a circle so that we face one another in our meetings is not something of religion or that for one person to speak to everyone else from a tall platform is something of religion. We also cannot say that you are religious if you do not pray and read the Bible or that you are not religious if you do in fact do these things. These various practices are not in themselves the issue. Whether or not a certain practice, such as reading the Word, praying, meeting, and singing, has become something of religion depends upon whether or not we are genuinely touching the Lord when we do it.
In the book of Genesis there is a person named Enoch. He walked with God for three hundred years. Today, however, we are not only walking with the Lord but also living with the Lord. God was outside of Enoch while Enoch walked with God, but today the Lord is within us, and we live with Him. The Lord is our life and our person, and we are living with Him.
We need to have the real practice of living with the Lord, not only living with Him in the meetings but also in our daily lives — in our home, on the street, and at our office. We should not only receive this teaching; we should practice it and live it. We must pay attention to the Lord Jesus. We must not put Him aside. We should not abandon the Lord Jesus when we get busy and then eighteen hours later come to the realization that we have left Him and hurriedly pray, “Lord, forgive me for not drawing near to You,” and then three minutes later go back to our busy life of not living with the Lord.
The focal revelation in the Bible shows us that our Lord, our God, has done everything. He passed through death, entered into resurrection, and having completed everything, ascended into the heavens. Now there is only one thing left for Him to accomplish. He wants to enter into us to be our life, to live with us, and to have us live by Him. Today He is in us in a real and practical way. This glorious God, who is the Triune God — the Father, Son, and Spirit — and Jehovah, is living in our spirit. This is not a doctrine but a glorious fact. Our Savior, who is the expression of God the Great, is in our spirit today to be our life and to live with us. What we need is not the understanding of this teaching but the practice of this living. If we love the Lord sincerely and genuinely, then from now on, our top priority should be to practice living with the Lord. Every one of the saints should say, “Lord, have mercy on the church where I am. From now on, I will not practice anything else except living with You.” We need to have this start in our personal life. The local church that we are in also needs to have this start.
The Lord Jesus is real and living. He is living right inside of us. In the winter many of us wear gloves. A glove is made to look exactly like a hand, except that a glove is empty. A glove is an exterior covering. The reality of the glove is the hand. According to the revelation in the Bible, every created human being is a hollow shell. Our mind and intellect, our will, and our emotions of joy, anger, sorrow, and delight are all shells. All our desires are also shells. In fact, our entire life and our whole being are an outward shell. When God Himself enters into us, He becomes our content and the reality of our life and being. The God who enters into us is Jesus Christ as the life-giving Spirit. He is the reality of God. We are a shell, and God desires to enter into us to fill every part of our being. First He enters into our spirit. Then He fills our mind, our emotions of joy, anger, sorrow, and delight, and our will with its power. Outwardly, we are but a shell. Christ is meant to be our inward content.
Since we are a shell, our content must be Christ. He has already entered into us to be the content of our spirit, so now we need to live by Him and with Him every day. We should not wait until just before we come to the meeting in the evening to pray to the Lord, saying, “Lord, I am going to the meeting. Lord, do remember this meeting, take care of the brothers and sisters, and take care of me.” If we have not prayed all day, it is too late for this kind of prayer. This kind of prayer is religious prayer.
Since we should not wait until just before the meeting to pray, what then should we do? When we wake up in the morning, it is not necessary to purposely kneel down. While we are brushing our teeth, washing our face, and getting dressed, we can begin living with the Lord by contacting Him, praying, “Lord, what will You do today? Lord, how will You lead me today?” The minute we wake up, we can contact the Lord. The best way to do this is by calling on the Lord — “O Lord! O Lord Jesus! What do You want me to do today? How do You want me to live by You today? O Lord! How will You lead me today?” If we simply communicate with the Lord in this way, gradually over time we will have the practice of contacting the Lord. Then whenever we are thinking, we will say, “Lord, I am going to use my mind. My mind is an empty shell. Your mind is the real content. Lord Jesus, come and think for me. I want Your mind to be my mind. O Lord, do think over this matter in me. In this matter, let Your mind fill my mind.” This is very clear. When we go to the store to shop, we should not speak to the salesperson on our own. We must say to the Lord, “Lord, I ask You to speak. Lead me in my speaking.” In everything we must let the Lord come in. When we need to think, we must allow the Lord to think for us. We should not depend upon our own mind. When we are about to use our emotions, we need to open ourselves to the Lord and say, “Lord, come in now! Are You happy? Are You sad? O Lord Jesus! My emotions are just a shell that needs Your filling.” We also need to allow the Lord to come into our will to fill our will and to make decisions in us.
Today our greatest lack is that we do not exercise to live with the Lord. We all need this kind of exercise. If you go to buy a suit, you should say, “Lord, what should I do in this situation? Which kind of material do you think that I should get? Should I buy this style or that style?” Those of us who love the Lord and are of the Lord are truly different from the rest of the people on the earth. Those who do not love the Lord and are not of the Lord are merely who they are in themselves and nothing more. As such, they are under Satan’s hand. We, however, are different. We are not solely who we are in ourselves. We have the Lord Jesus living with us. He wants to live in our mind, emotion, will, and our entire being. Since the Lord is with us and in us, we must allow Him to live in our living.
We all need to make the decision to practice to live with the Lord. Making this decision is like signing our name to an agreement. Once we have made this decision, it is as if we have signed our name. From that time on, we must have this practice. It is not enough to practice only when we are pray-reading or when we are in a meeting. We must practice in our daily living. When a sister speaks to her husband, she should not think in her heart, “Since I am not talking to the president or to a judge but only to my husband, it does not matter how I speak.” The married sisters should not think this way. It is probably true that your husband is not the president or a judge, but the Lord Jesus is within you while you are speaking to your husband. The Lord Jesus is higher than the president. He is within you as life, and He wants you to live by Him. When you are about to converse with your husband, you must check with the Lord within. You should say to the Lord, “Lord Jesus, how would You speak? In this situation be my thinking, my joy, my anger, my sorrow, my delight, and my everything.” This is the practical way to exercise to live with the Lord. In every matter, great or small, we must exercise to take the Lord Jesus as our life. This is our destiny — to live by the Lord Jesus moment by moment, to live constantly with the Lord.
When you are about to lose your temper, immediately you should call, “O Lord Jesus! I am about to lose my temper. Please come and lose Your temper!” You have to invite the Lord Jesus to lose your temper for you. Sisters often give their husbands a long face. However, from now on, whenever you are about to have a long face, right away you should call, “O Lord! O Lord Jesus!” If you want the Lord to live with you, you also have to live with the Lord. I also suggest to the brothers that whenever you are about to give a message, you must exercise to live with the Lord by praying, “O Lord, You give this message!” You should never again give a message that the Lord Jesus is not giving, and you should never again give a message with words that the Lord who is in you would not say. You have to live with the Lord. If the Lord does not speak, you should by no means speak.
The Lord uses our spirit as the base. Our experience tells us that we can drive the Lord out of our mind, out of our emotions, and even out of the message that we are giving. However, we can never drive the Lord out of our spirit. He is in our spirit, and we cannot chase Him out. This is wonderful. No matter what, He always remains in our spirit. Perhaps then you would ask me, “Since the Lord Jesus does not go away, why is my spirit still depressed sometimes?” Your spirit is depressed because the Lord Jesus in your spirit is depressed. You should remember that whenever your spirit is low, it is low because the Lord Jesus in your spirit is low. He has no way out of your spirit because you have forced Him to be depressed.
When you live by the Lord, do not believe in your feelings, and do not exercise your mind. Rather, you should exercise your spirit. Within you there is a spirit. A child does not initially understand that he has legs, but when you put him on the floor, eventually he will use his legs and begin to crawl. There is no need for you to teach a child to stand, for eventually he will stand up on his two legs. He does not understand his legs, yet he knows how to use them. In the same way, it does not matter how little you know about your spirit; you still know how to use your spirit. Do not think too much and do not go by your emotions, being happy when you are stirred up and downhearted when you are not. Do not pay attention to these things. Simply mind your spirit.
It is the same when you are praying. When you pray, do not pay attention to your thoughts and do not stay in your mind. Pray quick and simple prayers from your spirit, using just two to three sentences to hit the point. When many brothers and sisters pray, they go on and on, uttering long, wordy, and aimless prayers. Imagine if you were the Lord listening to this kind of prayer. Would not your patience run out? Instead of depending on your wordiness, pray by the spirit. Do not give histories or speak doctrines when you pray. If you feel that the Lord is lovely, just say, “Lord, You are so lovely. I love You.” That is enough; there is no need to say more.
I have discovered that some of you have a new way of singing. You pick only one hymn, and then you pray-sing it verse by verse. I am not criticizing or correcting you. I wish only to say that there should not be any method to our singing. Everything and everyone should be according to spirit with no set method. Perhaps today when we sing a hymn, we may pray-read the whole hymn. Then perhaps tomorrow after we finish singing the hymn, we may not pray-read at all. The hymn singing should be something living. It should not be according to any set way. This does not mean that you should purposely learn different ways to sing, because the different ways that you learn would also become set ways. Every one of us should learn to live in spirit with the Lord. There is no need to have a set method in picking hymns, singing hymns, or pray-reading, because we are all living with the Lord.
In our daily living, it is easy to live alone. For example, it may be quite convenient for a young lady to live and walk by herself. However, once she gets married, her life as a married person may become more difficult. The husband has his ways, and the wife also has her ways. A married person has to live his life with another person. Our Lord’s living with us is even more involved than the living together of a husband and wife, for He is living right within us. No matter how close your husband is to you, he cannot live inside of you, and he cannot be your life or your person. However, our Lord lives inside of us to be our person. Thus, we absolutely must exercise to have the habit of going along with Him rather than having Him go along with us.
The Lord told Peter, “You follow Me” (John 21:22b). When the Lord said this, He was already in resurrection, and shortly after He said this, He ascended to the heavens. Once the Lord ascended to the heavens, how could Peter follow Him? Peter could follow the Lord because the Lord not only ascended to the heavens; He also entered into Peter. How do we follow the Lord today? Someone once told me, “The way to follow the Lord is to do whatever the Lord did. He left us a model.” Gradually, I discovered that this is the religious way. Today the Lord lives in our spirit, so whenever He makes a move in our spirit, we just follow. This is the way to follow the Lord.
You and I are no longer single today. We all have this wonderful One living in us to be our life and our person. He wants us to put ourselves aside completely and to live by Him. Our mind should be filled with His mind, and our emotions should be filled with His emotions. He wants our entire being and our entire living to be filled with His element. He can sympathize with us, but He does not want to take our way. Thus, we must learn from Him and follow Him. He is in our spirit, so we also have to learn to release our spirit, exercise our spirit, use our spirit, and turn back to our spirit. Each time we turn back to our spirit, we touch the Lord, because the Lord is there. I hope that the brothers and sisters do not take this only as a teaching. Instead, I hope that you would promise to practice, to exercise, living with the Lord.
According to my experience, I suggest that if you want to live by the Lord, you should not cease calling on the name of the Lord. You must call on the name of the Lord continually. Besides this there is no other way. Do not think that calling on the name of the Lord is of no importance. The Lord’s name is real, for His name denotes His person. If a certain brother is dead or not present, then for me to call his name is useless. However, if he is real, living, and present, then when I call him, he will come to me right away. Jesus is our Lord’s name, and the Spirit is His person. Once you call “Lord Jesus,” the Spirit is here. Do you want to receive the life-giving Spirit? Just call, “O Lord Jesus!” When you call, He comes.
Perhaps you would say that this is all superstition. If you believe this, then let us call on the philosophers. Let us say, “O Plato! O Socrates, where are you? O Confucius, I love you!” You may love these ones and call upon their names, but they will not respond. But if you simply call “O Lord Jesus!” mysteriously you will be filled with feeling within. The more you call, the more feeling you will have. Why is it that when you call on a philosopher or a sage, you have no feeling within, but when you call on the Lord Jesus, you do? This is because all the philosophers are dead and are not here. Only the Lord Jesus died but lives again. He is real, He is living, and He is experiential. He is right here, and He is even inside of you. When you call on Him, your spirit will be released. However, all calling is not the same. If while remaining in your mind, you call with your mouth — “O Lord Jesus!” — nothing will happen. When some electrical switches are turned on, the electrical current comes in right away. However, when other electrical switches are turned on, the electrical current still does not come. This illustrates that not all calling is the same. Never think that calling on the Lord is a superstition. It is a spiritual reality. Our Lord is the Spirit today within our spirit. When we call on Him from our spirit — “O Lord Jesus! O Lord Jesus! I love You!” — there is such a sweetness within. Even when you are reading the Bible, do not use your mind to think. Call “O Lord Jesus” as you read, and you will be refreshed within. This is the way to call on the name of the Lord and to pray-read the Lord’s Word. I hope that every brother and sister would practice this kind of living with the Lord every day. In all the churches all the brothers and sisters should be led to live in this practice of living with the Lord.
