Search
Scripture Reading: John 15:1-2, 6; Matt. 25:24-29; Prov. 11:25; 2 Cor. 12:15; 1 Cor. 9:22
In the foregoing chapters we saw four main points concerning our service. First, in doing things, we need life and skill. Life depends upon growth; we have the divine life within us, and this life is growing. Skill, however, depends upon training. Since the church meetings care mainly for the growth of life, we also need the training to care for our skill. Training is not for mere teaching but for dealing with ourselves without excuses. We should not be merciful to ourselves in the way of making excuses. To be trained is to become like a sacrifice on the altar. The priests showed no mercy in cutting the sacrifices. Any mercy would have spoiled the sacrifices. We need a strict training. All the ones who rendered help to me in my youth were strict. At that time I did not appreciate them very much, but today I am very grateful to them.
The second point we saw is that, because the church is an organism that needs life in every aspect, merely doing business and carrying out affairs in a good way is not adequate. Therefore, the church service is always for ministering life to others. Third, in order to minister life to others, we must pick up a burden to care for unbelievers, young believers, new believers, and weaker believers. If we do not contact people, we cannot minister life to them. Just as doctors need to have patients, we also need people to care for. It is impossible to minister life to others if we are always by ourselves. We need some persons to be under our care, either unbelievers under the care of the gospel for salvation or new, young, or weaker believers under our ministering of life for their growth in life. We need to pick up the burden to care for people.
Without a proper love for others, our care for them is not genuine. A proper mother cares for her children day and night. Even in her dreams, she is still caring for them. No mother would be burdened to care for her children simply because they are attractive or so that when she is old, they can take care of her. This kind of love is a political love, a love with a purpose. A mother loves her children simply because they are of her own blood. To come to someone out of a motive to accomplish something is the way of a politician. The proper way is to receive a burden for someone from the Lord in prayer and then to go to contact him, regardless of the outcome for us. After receiving a burden for some persons in a specific way, it is not effective to immediately begin to pray with them. First, we ourselves need to pray, “Lord, You have given me a burden for these brothers. Now I come to You to discharge my burden. You put the burden upon my shoulders, and now I am returning the burden to You.” We need to pray through until we are assured that the Lord has answered our prayer for those brothers. We should have not merely a short, general prayer but a prayer from every angle. As we pray thoroughly, we should have the assurance that the Lord has given this burden to us and that we have returned the burden to the Lord. Then the Lord may say, “I am happy to receive this burden from your hand. Now you must stand with Me. We two — you and I, I and you — will be one. Then I will tell you the time and the right way to contact them.” After this, the Lord will bring to us each one He has burdened us for. One may come the next evening, and on the following days others may come. In this way we will see that the Lord answers our prayer.
The fourth matter we have seen is that in order to minister life to others, we need to be dealt with thoroughly by the Lord. The reason we do not care for anyone is that we are too “raw”; we have not been dealt with adequately by the Lord. Almost no fallen human being was born with an interest in others. Everyone was born with an interest only in himself. However, we have been reborn, and this new birth is one that produces an interest in others. Still, we may neglect the interest that is in us by the new birth. Therefore, we need a thorough dealing, which will eventually come to the matter of our disposition. It is due to our disposition that we have no interest in others, or even if we do have an interest in others, we are unable to minister life to them. We may present people with a “loaf of bread,” but within it is the “stone” of our strong disposition. If we are peculiar, it is difficult for people to receive something from us. Therefore, we must go to the Lord to be enlightened. We must not say that we have not received any light. The light is here all the time. We simply need to exercise our sight to receive it and deal with what we see. Then by dealing with what we see, we will receive more light.
As those who have been born again, we have the divine life. However, we may not exercise the divine life much in the church service. We may simply do things and talk, gossip, ask questions, and exercise our mind and emotions in the name of “fellowship,” yet without the exercise of the divine life in us. To come together to have a friendly talk without the ministry of life is not fellowship; it is merely something social. Genuine fellowship is the flow and the mutual imparting of life. I minister life to you, and you return life to me, and in this life current there is the real fellowship. In our service groups if we care only for business affairs without much imparting of life, that is not the genuine church service. That is simply a kind of social service. Everything in the church must be in the nature of life, with the content of life, and in the imparting of life. The “currency” in the church “exchange” is not dollars but the divine life; the divine life is our only kind of “merchandise.” The church is altogether a matter of life. Our work, speaking, fellowship, service, ministry, message, Bible study, and prayer must be in the flow and imparting of life.
In the church we must have life, training, and fruit-bearing. Every member of the church should be a branch that bears fruit. The word of the Lord in John 15 is emphatic and definite. He said, “I am the true vine, and My Father is the husbandman. Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, He takes it away; and every branch that bears fruit, He prunes it that it may bear more fruit” (vv. 1-2). If we are saved, we are a branch in the vine. We cannot deny this. Therefore, we must realize that every branch in the vine must abide in the Lord to bear fruit. This is not a small matter. The Lord said, “If one does not abide in Me, he is cast out as a branch and is dried up; and they gather them and cast them into the fire, and they are burned” (v. 6). Some Bible scholars have misunderstood this verse. If we take this as a word concerning salvation, we will not be able to understand it. This word is not about salvation; it is about the enjoyment of the life supply of the vine tree in order to bear fruit. To be cast out is not to be lost. Some Pentecostals use this chapter to deny that our salvation is eternal. They say that someone may be saved one day, lost the next day, and saved again the next morning. This kind of salvation can be compared to an elevator that goes up and down. However, in chapter 10 of the same Gospel the Lord Jesus said, “I give to them eternal life, and they shall by no means perish forever, and no one shall snatch them out of My hand. My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all, and no one can snatch them out of My Father’s hand” (vv. 28-29). The Lord’s salvation is eternal and once for all.
However, this does not mean that we will never suffer any dealing, discipline, or punishment from the Lord. In actuality, we may suffer all these. After someone is born, he cannot be unborn by behaving wrongly. Rather, a genuine child is disciplined when he makes mistakes. What the Lord said in John 15 is that the branches that do not bear fruit are first cut off from the supply of the vine tree, then dried up, and eventually burned in the fire. In my Christian life I have seen many withered ones and even some who were “burned,” unable to come back to the life supply. The withered ones are through with regard to the enjoyment of the life-juice of the vine tree. We must be careful not to play games with the Lord and the church. About twenty years ago, certain ones opposed, criticized, and condemned Brother Watchman Nee. Eventually, all those criticizers became withered. They did not lose their salvation, but they were finished regarding the enjoyment of the life supply.
As branches we must bear fruit. If anyone has not borne fruit for several years, I am very concerned for him. There is the danger that such a one may be cut off from the life supply. We must endeavor and be desperate. We must say, “Lord, I am one of Your branches. Why do I not bear fruit? I must bear some. I cannot go on like this anymore. Lord, have mercy on me that by Your grace I may bear at least one fruit.” If we will bear even one fruit, the life supply will flood in. The life-juice will stream in, and we will bear more fruit. To bear the first fruit is a breakthrough. We must have such a breakthrough. We need to go to the Lord to have a thorough dealing with Him.
In the parable of the talents in Matthew 25, the problem was not with the one who had five talents or the one who had two but with the one who had one talent. This one said, “Master, I knew about you, that you are a hard man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you did not winnow. And I was afraid and went off and hid your talent in the earth; behold, you have what is yours” (vv. 24-25). The master did not argue with him. It is as if he said, “Yes, I am a hard man, but do not come to blame me. Since you knew who I am, you should have done the gathering and reaping.” Then he said, “Take away therefore the talent from him and give it to him who has the ten talents” (v. 28). This is the divine economy. The human economy is to take care of the ones who do not have something. If someone has five talents, we would ask him to spare some for the ones who have less. However, the divine economy is not like this. The more we have, the more the Lord will add to us, but the more we do not have, the more the Lord will take from us. The reason we do not make a profit is that we do not use the talent we have. Our excuse is that we are not apostles, elders, or leaders of a service group. However, it is good to be a “no one.” The Lord does not use the “someones”; He uses the “no ones.” If we think that we are someone important, we need to be reduced to be no one. When we are finally no one, the Lord will come in to use us. Therefore, we should not excuse ourselves by saying we do not know how to do something.
Too many of us are making excuses. How much profit have we made for the Lord? All the reasons for not making a profit are only excuses. We can make excuses for ourselves, but when the Lord comes, He will ask us to give an account to Him. At that time our mouth will be shut, and we will have no excuses. In this regard, the Lord is a “hard man.” He admits that He reaps where He did not sow and gathers where He did not winnow. However, it is not true to say that the Lord has sown nothing. At least He has sown one talent into us. We all have something. No one can say that he never received anything from the Lord.
The Lord does not require us to make the same quantity of profit. We simply need to make a certain profit. The five-talented one made five talents more, and the two-talented one made two talents more. If the one-talented one had made only one talent more, he would have received the same praise from the Lord. Five plus five, two plus two, and one plus one are all the same to the Lord, and He will praise each one equally. We must be careful not to fail to exercise what we have. If we are not careful, the talent we have will be taken away and given to others. The situation in the church today is not properly balanced. Some are very useful and others are not very useful, because the latter do not exercise their talent. We must all go to the Lord desperately that we may bear fruit and make some “interest” for Him.
According to the divine economy of the Bible, if we desire to receive, we need to give. If we water others, we ourselves will be watered, and if we desire to grow in life, we need to help others to grow (Prov. 11:25). When we help others to grow in life, we ourselves will have the growth. The way to receive is to give, and the more we give, the more we receive (Luke 6:38; Acts 20:35). Therefore, we should not believe our situation. Our situation with respect to whether we are good or bad, useful or not useful, is a lie. We should not say that we can do nothing and are not useful. Rather, we need to say, “Satan, get away from me. I can do something, I have something, and I am useful in the Lord’s hand.” We should declare this to the whole universe, not by feeling or according to our situation but by faith. If we will all declare this, our whole situation will change. In contrast, the more we say that we have nothing and can do nothing, the more our usefulness is killed. The liar Satan works subtly to produce many liars (John 8:44b). Satan may use even a wife to tell her husband that he is useless, and he may use the husband to say the same thing to the wife. Satan may use even the children to say, “Don’t go to the meetings so much. What use can you be to the church?” We need to speak against the lie, saying, “I do have something, and I can do something.” When we say we do not have, we lose what we have, but when we say we have something, we add to what we have. Therefore, we should endeavor to water others and care for them.
Although the Lord promised a child to Abraham, the child did not come for many years. The Lord even put Abraham into a situation in which he was forced to pray for the household of Abimelech so that they could have children (Gen. 20:17). If we were Abraham, we might have found it difficult to pray. We might have said, “I am too pitiful. I have been praying for myself for many years, yet I have not received a child. How can I pray for them?” However, when Abraham prayed, God answered the prayer not only for Abimelech but also for Abraham (21:1-2). If we turn our prayer from ourselves to others, we will receive what we desire (Job 42:10). It is because we are too self-centered in our prayer that the Lord needs to teach us a lesson. If we water others, we will be watered, and if we care for others, we will be cared for.
The apostle Paul said, “I will most gladly spend and be utterly spent on behalf of your souls” (2 Cor. 12:15). This passage has the sense of sacrificing one’s wealth and one’s life. Spend refers to the spending of Paul’s possessions, and be utterly spent is the spending of what he was, referring to his being. If we have a spirit to spend whatever we have and to be spent, to sacrifice whatever we are, we will have a great increase each year. At the present time, our rate of increase is very low. This is because we have not adequately spent what we have and what we are. We have reserved our spending and preserved our self. It is impossible to have a higher rate of increase under this condition. As we pointed out in the previous chapter, the Boxers in China had a slogan: “Kill all the Westerners and their followers, except Mr. Corbett.” This is because that missionary spent everything and was spent for the Chinese people. Whenever any poor ones came to him, he would give them something, such as dinner or lodging. He reserved nothing. Eventually, when he himself was short of something, the people knew that it was because he had spent it on them.
Paul was this kind of person. He always spent and was spent. He meant business with the Lord. He was on earth for nothing else but to gain people. Therefore, he also said, “To the weak I became weak that I might gain the weak. To all men I have become all things that I might by all means save some” (1 Cor. 9:22). Some in the church life are too strong in their disposition to be touchable in this way; it seems that no one can cause them to be shaped. Paul, however, seemed to have no disposition of his own. He was simply like a piece of wood that could be cut into any shape. Because his disposition was fully dealt with by the Lord, it was soft, bendable, flexible, and applicable to any situation. In my training in Taiwan in 1954, I told the serving ones that they should have a character and a disposition like paste, which can be applied to any kind of surface. On the contrary, some of the brothers and sisters are like pieces of hard rock that cannot be applied to any situation. This kind of “rock” is good only for beating others. Some may even feel good about this and say that a hard piece of rock was useful to the Lord to kill the Philistine giant (1 Sam. 17:49), but it is pitiful to think in this way. On the one hand, we need to be strong, but on the other hand, we should not be hard. We need to be soft, flexible, and applicable, good for any situation we are placed in, able to fit into every bend and corner.
Our disposition is the cause for our not bearing fruit and using our talent to care for people. We are still too natural. Some persons are always slow, regardless of the situation they are in or the persons they are with. It is as if they would not even pour water on a house fire before they carefully checked what kind of water they should use. This kind of person will try to justify himself from the Bible, claiming that God is always patient and never does anything in a hurry. Brother Watchman Nee pointed out to us how the Lord once ran to do something. When the prodigal son returned home, the father ran to meet him (Luke 15:20). The Lord may be patient in every other matter, but He is quick to receive sinners. Some, though, are too quick. They bear fruit quickly, but then because they offend the fruit with their quickness, eventually they have no remaining fruit. I do not care to rebuke or expose anyone. We simply must go to the Lord and let Him shine on us. Then we will see how natural we are. By His mercy, we must have a change. If we are slow, we should speed up, and if we are quick, we should slow down.
Twenty years ago I gave a training on thirty points of character. Character is different from disposition; it is thirty percent disposition by birth and seventy percent habit by our living. In order to be useful in the Lord’s hand for fruit-bearing, we must deal with our disposition. In my ministry I have seen many different dispositions. Some people are peculiar in their way of speaking. They can make people laugh, but it is difficult for them to minister life to others. These dear ones need to be dealt with in their disposition. Some of the dear saints are too loose and light. They are never accurate in speaking or in doing things. That is also according to their natural disposition. The more our disposition is touched, the more useful we are in the ministry of speaking for the Lord. Some were born with a disposition for speaking, but they are not genuinely useful. In order to speak for the Lord, we must be reconstituted in our being, that is, changed in our disposition. Many times I have gone to the Lord and condemned myself, saying, “Lord, I exercise my old, natural, dispositional way in speaking.” Because of this, the Lord has had the ground to change my way of speaking over the years.
First Timothy 3:1 says, “If anyone aspires to the overseership, he desires a good work,” but to be an overseer requires that our disposition be dealt with in many directions. Otherwise, we are not qualified. We cannot be too slow or too quick, too strong or too soft. When there is the need to be strong, we must be strong, and when there is the need to be soft, we must be soft. Different situations require our disposition to be adjusted in different ways. An elder must truly be flexible. A good elder can speak a strong word of adjustment to a brother and then speak with him in a very pleasant way. However, this is not to play politics. We must be genuine. Even a small child knows whether or not someone is genuine. If someone loves a child genuinely, the child knows it, but if that love is not genuine, he knows this also. People are able to discern. Therefore, we must not play politics; we must be what we are. The only way to be able to adjust a brother and then be pleasant with him is by having our disposition dealt with. The best way to be dealt with is to hate our disposition. Our disposition is the depth of our self, which must be denied. If we are not useful in the Lord’s hand for taking care of people, it is due to our raw, natural disposition.
It is easier to deal with our disposition when we are young. Brother Nee once told us that by the time someone is fifty years old, it is difficult for his disposition and natural life to be touched by the Lord. We must not wait until we are too old to have our disposition dealt with. The earlier we deal with it, the better. Dealing with outward wrongdoings is not as important as this. The most important thing that must be dealt with in our life with the Lord is our disposition. We must learn to have our disposition dealt with by the Lord. If we pay adequate attention to the Lord and pray much about this, it will be easy for us to care for others, bear fruit, and make a profit by using our talent. Then our entire situation will be radically changed.
Many in today’s Christianity teach that the reason we do not bear fruit is that we are short of power from on high. They say we should pray and fast for a certain number of days until the power comes as the baptism in the Holy Spirit. I observed this kind of practice for many years, but I still did not see much remaining fruit. For the branches of the vine tree to bear remaining fruit is not a matter of this kind of revival; it is a matter of growth. When branches receive a sufficient supply of life-juice, they bear fruit as the overflow of the inner life supply. This, not revival, is what the Lord needs. In the Gospel of John there is no hint of revival. Rather, what is revealed in this book is the genuine, growing life out of which comes fruit as the overflow. Fruit is the overflow of life. If we do not bear fruit, it is because we do not have the overflow of life; we are short and undersupplied by the inner life. For many years the Lord has restrained us from emphasizing revival. Even when we did have a revival, it was in a restricted way. What the Lord requires in His economy is the genuine growth of life. Then out of this growth, we have an overflow of life, which is fruit that remains. Brother Nee once told us that if every one-talented person in the church would use his talent, we will have a true remaining revival. What the Lord needs is not the kind of revival that comes and goes but the exercise of our talent with the growth in life. In order to have this, the basic condition is to deal with our disposition.
