Prayer: Lord, we are here by Your grace. We look unto You for a further visitation. Lord, we need Your fresh touch. Lord, we would not be knowledge seekers. We like to be Your seekers. We pursue You and we seek after You. Tonight, Lord, do bring us all into Yourself. Even in this training meeting, Lord, bring us all into Yourself. Oh, we need You! We need You even tonight. In this meeting, Lord, we need You desperately. Oh, come to touch us. Lord, we need Your touching. Oh, just touch us afresh that we may be fully brought into You. Grant us a clear direction. Lord, even clear up the situation that we may have a crystal flow of life. Oh, we do not like to have any mixture. We like to have a clear flow, a transparent flow, of Yourself. Lord, lead us on and grant us the liberty and the freedom in fellowship that we may utter something out of You. Do speak Yourself out of all of us. Amen.
We need three brothers to tell us their realization concerning the Perfecting Training. Either in the way of a testimony or realization or analysis, tell us your feeling concerning this kind of training.
First brother: I just feel that these Perfecting Trainings you have been sharing with us are really a graduate school. These Perfecting Meetings are not something on the basic matters of our Christian life. But this is something to help us grow in life after we have reached a certain point in life and in the church life and in the building. It seems that after we have been in Christ and in the church for some period of time, we grow to a certain point, and we become somewhat satisfied with our progress in the faith and in life. What we have seen in this Perfecting Meeting is that at a certain point there are elements in our being that become a kind of frustration. Unless we would pursue and break through in some of these matters, we would not grow anymore. Although the Lord is not satisfied with our progress, we may be satisfied. We come to a point where our growth in life levels off. I feel that these Perfecting Meetings are a real incentive for us to realize that we have much further to go and also that we could see the frustrating elements in our being so that we could break through.
Second brother: I cannot help reflecting how these meetings began and the burden from which these meetings came. These were the three things that Brother Lee observed and presented to us in the very beginning of these meetings. First, that there was a shortage of the growth in life. It seems that we have been growing in the Lord’s recovery, but we have come to a point that we are frustrated in this matter. We are slowed down; we are somewhat frustrated in the growth in life. Second, because of the shortage of growth in life, there is the lack of the real and solid building up among the saints in the churches. Third, there is also a lack of the proper and adequate functioning of the saints. I feel these are the three reasons that gave rise to the burden within our brother. I believe also that these are the points that the Lord wants to get through for our growth, for the building up among us, and also for the proper and adequate functioning among the saints.
We began, of course, in the matter of culture, but as the meetings have progressed, it seems that the leading of the Spirit is into deeper and deeper matters that are blockages within our being.
We went from the matter of culture into the matter of opinion. Although at first we thought that this might be the depth of our problem, later we found out even that was still superficial. We saw that the Lord still needs to touch us in a more subjective and even deeper way. Then we began to touch the matter of peculiarity. Through all the fellowship in the meetings there was one exposure after another. In a sense there was no answer, but there was much exposure. Brother Lee told us that there is no easy answer or quick solution to these matters. Our rescue, first of all, is to realize that we have these problems, and second, our rescue is in our willingness to go to the Lord for His mercy and grace to be rescued in a genuine way out of these great frustrations. I would even consider the training on Philippians as a furtherance of this burden. All during the Philippians training, I felt that the Lord was continuing on this same line. In that training we saw that there is a psychological tumor that needs to be removed. Also we saw that within us there is the domestic logic and the national philosophy. Although I do not fully see what these things are, the Lord has led us to this point. The fact that we are all sitting here must mean that the Lord wants to get through. I feel that we are in some critical times and in some crucial days. We really need to give ourselves again to the Lord for Him to go on further and deeper within all of us.
Third brother: I agree with what the brothers have said thus far. First, Brother Lee began to touch the matter of culture as something replacing Christ. Then he went deeper to touch the matter of our opinion frustrating us from experiencing Christ. Then he went on to say that culture is general and opinion is on the surface, but there is a root problem. In the recovery our need is to live Christ. We need to live Christ and to have His Body built. But there is something in us deeper than culture and deeper than our opinion, which resists Christ. We have not realized that it is there, and we do not know what it is, but it is there all the time resisting Christ. I am just barely beginning to see how much I resist living Christ. We saw that our problem is not so much outward sin or that we are not spiritual enough or that we are short of knowledge or that we are not overcoming. The test is: do we live Christ, and are we building the Body? When I check myself under this test, I feel dissatisfied. This peculiarity that frustrates us or resists us from living Christ is something in us that we do not know. It is invisible; it is small; it is real; even it is hidden and concealed. In the last Perfecting Training meeting, Brother Lee made a statement that it is risky to be in the church life and not grow in Christ. This shook me up. I feel that there is such a danger here—I am in the Lord’s recovery, I am in the church life, yet it is risky because if I do not grow in Christ, then automatically my peculiarity grows. I want to grow for God’s economy, but something else grows to resist my going on in the recovery.
These meetings have mainly left me with the sensation of how much we need the Lord’s mercy. One thing that helped me was that to realize we have this problem is ninety percent of the cure. I have never realized like I do in these days that I do not live Christ. I am satisfied if I simply do not sin. I believe that this is really in line with the Philippians training. Our need is to live Christ. Also, this little word that we need to open up our heart and our spirit is a real help. I know I do not live Christ, and I feel frustrated in this, yet I feel that this is where we are. We just pray that the Lord will bring us through. I feel that we all need to stand with the Lord and stand with our brother to take us through this problem. We need the Lord to get us through this matter of peculiarity so that we can live Christ and build the Body.
We all have to realize that in the Bible the kernel is Christ and His Body. This is the reason that we consider these four books of Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, and Colossians as the heart of the divine revelation. In no other book or books are Christ and His Body, the church, so thoroughly, adequately, and richly revealed to us. Paul even considered this kind of word as the completion of the word of God. He received a commission with a burden to complete the word of God, that is, to complete the divine revelation with these two mysteries: the mystery of God, Christ, and the mystery of Christ, the church. These two mysteries in Paul’s ministry are the word to complete the divine revelation. We must emphasize Colossians 1:25, which indicates that Paul was commissioned to complete the revelation of God, that is, to reveal these two mysteries to God’s people: Christ as the mystery of God and the church, the Body of Christ, as the mystery of Christ. I do believe it is the Lord’s sovereignty that through nearly eighteen years the Lord has brought us through so many messages to these four books. First, we covered Ephesians, then Colossians, then Galatians, and then Philippians. It is in these four books that the completion of the divine revelation is revealed. In all the trainings given on these four books, even we ourselves have seen something more. We cannot deny that we have seen something concerning Christ as the mystery of God and concerning the church as the mystery of Christ. The revelation is here, and the light is shining within us. We cannot deny this, yet my burden is that still too little of what we have seen has become our real daily experience. In our daily life we cannot say strongly that we live Christ. We can hardly say that even to some extent we live Christ. Regardless of how much we are out of the world, regardless of how much we would not touch any sinful thing, regardless of how pious we are, how godly our Christian life is, and how much we are for the Lord and for His recovery, we have to admit that in our daily life Christ has not been lived out as much as He should be. We must admit that in our daily life the portion of the element of Christ is not much. I would say that it is very little. This is the one thing that I have been condemned about day after day. This is the one thing that I am burdened to confess to the Lord and ask His forgiveness. I feel that day after day in our daily life there is not much element of Christ.
On the one hand, we do not live Christ, and on the other hand, the issue of our daily life is not much for the building up of the Body of Christ. The Body of Christ is just a term, and the building up of the Body of Christ is just a kind of knowledge. We have to admit that we do not have much building up of the Body of Christ in our practical daily life. In our practical daily life we do not have much Christ, and our daily life does not issue much in the Body of Christ. Although we may pray, we may pray-read, we may love the Lord, we may live outside of the world, we may not sin, and we may be quite godly and pious, yet we have to check how much Christ is really there. You may attend meetings and have the church life. Apparently you are blameless. But you have to check how much of Christ is there in your daily life, and how much of the building up of the Body has issued out of your daily life.
In other words, everything is fine and everything is good, but Christ is very lacking, and the building up of the Body of Christ is lacking. What we call the Body life may be just a kind of spiritual, communal, or social life. We may be Christian brothers standing on the proper ground, meeting together into the name of the Lord, and handling some spiritual things. You may consider these items as the Body life, but actually these are not the Body life. Actually, this is some kind of church life without that much of Christ and without that much of the Body of Christ. The Body of Christ is just the issue of the experience of Christ. It has to be altogether Christ. Look at the Word as a whole, and learn to be bothered by the Lord concerning these things. If you read the Bible again and again, you could see that all these things are revealed there. They have been revealed over nineteen hundred years. Paul completed this revelation.
After Paul’s ministry, of course, there is the mending ministry of John. Even John’s ministry has also been there over nineteen hundred years. Dear saints, would you not be bothered and troubled and burdened to see today’s situation? Where is Christ lived out? In the Orthodox Church? In the Catholic Church? In the Protestant denominations? In the small free groups? In the individual seeking Christians? How about among us? We have to admit that Christ is not lived out much even among us. If you and I were the Lord looking at this kind of situation, we would surely be very much disappointed. Where can you see a group of Christians who are really living out Christ and really having the Body of Christ as the issue of their daily life? If we have such a vision, we will be bothered. Matthew 5:3 says, “Blessed are the poor in spirit.” Verse 4 goes on to say, “Blessed are those who mourn.” Now we can realize why the matter of mourning comes after the matter of being poor in our spirit. When we are poor in our spirit, we will surely see some vision concerning God’s economy. Will we then be joyful? The situation would not allow us to be joyful. If we have seen the vision concerning God’s economy, we would surely weep day and night. We would mourn day and night because the situation is too sad.
Where is the thing that God is after, and what is the thing that God is after? Christ and the church! He is not after the doctrine or the theology but the real Christ lived out in your daily life with the issue of this kind of living being the Body of Christ. If you see this, you will be bothered and troubled and burdened and puzzled. It seems that there is almost no way out of the problem. For nearly two thousand years the Lord has not gotten through. Even with us in the Lord’s recovery, the Lord has not gotten fully through. Many of us have been here in the Lord’s recovery for over ten years. Where are we today? You may consider that this word is quite disappointing. Actually, the whole situation is disappointing. Today the Christians, including us, are poor. We talk about a lot of things in the name of Jesus Christ. We even talk about the Bible and spiritual things, yet how much is Christ in our daily life? And how much is there the issue of Christ, that is, His practical Body? We all have to admit that there is not much of these two things.
This is why we need to have such a Perfecting Training. Of course, this is not a church meeting but a meeting to see the completion of God’s revelation, that is, to actually and practically see Christ and the issue of Christ, the church. This training is to help all of us realize that there is a big lacking. Something is crucially lacking here, that is, Christ and the Body of Christ. We all have to humble ourselves. The enemy is so subtle to raise up this or that problem for us to talk about. He would try to catch our attention to this matter or distract our attention to another matter as long as he can keep us occupied with anything other than Christ and the Body of Christ. We need a lot of humble prayers. We need to pray, “Lord, as You have opened up Your Word to me and as You have opened up my eyes to see Your Word, I need Your mercy and I need Your grace to be brought into this reality. I need to live You for the issuing out of the Body. I need such a reality. Lord, would You give me the grace that I could forget everything else? I would forget every problem, and I would not care for anything else except for Christ and the issue of Christ, the Body.” We need such a prayer, a desperate prayer. If you do not have such a desperate seeking within you, these meetings will simply disappoint you again and again.
Let us consider our real situation. I know our real situation because I have learned it by my own experience. God’s intention is to work Christ into us. This word is very familiar among us, but how much Christ is actually and practically in your daily living? We must check this. For over forty years I have been ministering to people that Christ is our life and that Christ must be our life and that God’s intention is to work Christ into us as our everything. But even now every time that I check before the Lord concerning how much Christ is in my daily life, I have to admit that I am not satisfied. I have to admit that there is not much Christ. By His mercy I can boast that I do not love the world, and I do not touch sin. I cannot deny that I really love the Lord, and I do live a godly life. Yet whenever I check my real situation before the Lord concerning how much Christ there is in my daily life, not once have I had a satisfactory checking. Every time after such a checking I have to confess, and I have to pray mourningly. I have to ask for forgiveness even today. Christ is not so adequately lived out in my daily life. Here is a big lack. Nearly every day I have been bothered by this.
I must tell you that all the environment, the oppositions, and the dealing with the oppositions do not bother me that much. But one thing bothers me very much—the lacking of Christ in the daily life. I do not mean that I do not have Christ in my daily life. I do have Christ but not that much. Out of fifteen waking hours, how much of Christ is in your daily living? How many hours or how many minutes do you live Christ? I believe you will have to admit that ninety percent of the time you do not live Christ. You live yourself. Not only do you sisters live yourself when you are cooking, even when you talk with people about the Bible, you live yourself. Even when you talk about the church life, you live yourself. Sometimes even when you pray, you live yourself. Only at the time that you pray yourself into the spirit and pray out from the spirit do you not live yourself. At that time you live Christ. If you came to stay with me, you might find little fault, but I am very bothered by the lacking of Christ. We all have to see the real situation. How much has Christ really gained us? Not how much has He gained you out of the world or out of sin or out of self, but how much has He gained you to live Him? Many of you have been with the Lord for years, but if you check your daily life in this way, you will discover that there is not much Christ.
Furthermore, we have many gatherings, as many as five a week. But how much of the real and practical Body of Christ is here? We all have to admit and realize that there is not much. Although in the brothers’ houses or the sisters’ houses there may not be much gossip, yet neither is there much Christ. This is why I am bothered. This is the Lord’s recovery, but in the Lord’s recovery how much Christ could God see? In the Lord’s recovery how much Body life could God see? It is hard to answer. Even if we could be perfect in our human living, what does that mean if there is no Christ? Do you think God would be satisfied with the perfect human life without Christ in it or with Christ in it only a little bit? Surely not!
In no other book of the Bible is the writer so serious as Paul is in those four books of Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, and Colossians. When you read the book of Philippians, you can especially realize that Paul is serious. In that book he is very sharp and even impolite. He uses the term dogs. “Beware of the dogs” (3:2). I do not think that any good, refined, or polite writer would write a book using this term dogs. If such a term were not written in the Bible, and I had written such a term, surely people would say that I am from a barbarian country. Paul also uses the word concision, which, language-wise, is even worse than dogs (v. 2). Concision means to cut yourself foolishly, to mutilate a part of the body foolishly. The Judaizers considered their circumcision as their glory, but Paul uses a word that means mutilation. It means to cut yourself foolishly and to make yourself ugly. If you cut off your nose, that is not circumcision; that is concision. Paul is altogether not polite, because he is desperate regarding the lacking of Christ. Because he is desperate, he uses other terms, such as thinking the one thing (2:2). No other book has been written in such a desperate way. This kind of desperate aspiration represents God’s desire. God is desperate. Look at the situation. Not only in the first century but also in the twentieth century, where is Christ? How much Christ can God see in His chosen people? Not much.
In our life-study of Revelation 2 and 3 I pointed out that Judaism is satanic, Catholicism is demonic, and Protestantism is Christless. Although some may have been offended by this, this is not my speaking; this is the study of Revelation 2 and 3. Revelation 3 shows us that Christ is outside the door of the church in Laodicea. This means that they were Christless. You may consider that others are Laodicea, but you have to realize that you yourself might be also in Laodicea. Why? Because Christ is not so much in your daily life. So we have to condemn ourselves that our daily life is somewhat Christless. Christ is actually not so much in our daily life. This is why I have become bothered. I am bothered by the little amount of the element of Christ in our daily practical life. Even the more, the church life, the Body life, is lacking. We do not have much Body life in our daily life.
For a number of months I have been practicing one thing—to live Christ. During this time I have confessed a few times daily. After a certain period of time I would confess, “Lord, forgive me. During this period of time I did not live You.” I did not do anything wrong or bad. I did not offend people. I just habitually, spontaneously, unconsciously lived myself. After rising up in the morning I had a good time with the Lord, but right after that I habitually and unconsciously lived myself. There was no warning and no reminder. If I lose my temper, right away the warning rises up from within. But if I do not do anything wrong and everything is fine, I just live myself habitually. There is no warning, no condemnation, and no reminding until after two or three hours. Then I realize, “O Lord, forgive me; again I am not living You.” Because I am used to it, I do not need any kind of exercise or intention to habitually, spontaneously, unconsciously live in this way. I simply live myself; I do not live Christ. Today the Lord is after a group of people who actually and practically live Him. This is not a small matter, and it is not a light matter for Paul to say, “To me, to live is Christ” (Phil. 1:21). Paul had the boldness to declare this, but today I do not have the boldness. I have to admit that, to a certain extent, to me, to live is not Christ. To me, to live is mostly just myself. I do not live a sinful self, a worldly self, a defeated self, a self that loses its temper, but I do not live Christ that much.
Among Christians today there is not much speaking concerning the matter of living Christ. You can hardly hear a message about this matter. The charismatic Christians may speak about speaking in tongues, healing, the lengthening of the legs, or other things. But you can hardly hear a message on living Christ. You can hardly hear a message that it is no more I who live but Christ (Gal. 2:20). People do not have this kind of living. Although I have been speaking concerning this for years and years, I did not pay attention that there was such a serious lacking of Christ in the saints’ daily life. But within the past few years I have become seriously bothered by my own situation because in every section of the day I checked my life, and I discovered that there was not much Christ. In the past most of my confession was concerning wrongdoing, but now most of my confession is concerning the lacking of Christ. I have done nothing wrong during the day so that after the whole day when I go to sleep, I do not regret anything. But although I have done nothing wrong, I deeply regret and am bothered because there was not much of Christ lived in my daily life. There was no sin, no worldliness, no self, no temper—nothing on the negative side. Still there was not much of Christ on the positive side. What God is after is not a life without any negative things; God is after a life that is full of Christ. This is lacking.
