We have now come definitely to a very crucial point; that is, for us to live Christ, we must practice the one spirit with Him. And for us to practice the one spirit with Him, we must exercise our spirit to pray unceasingly. First Thessalonians 5:17 says we should pray without ceasing, and Ephesians 6:18 says that we should pray at every time. These two verses indicate to what extent our prayer life should be. Our prayer life should be all the day long and at every time. We must pray continually and without ceasing. For many years it was very difficult for me to be clear how to practice this kind of prayer life. Previously, I indicated that before doing anything, you had better pray. Before saying anything, you had better pray. Before going anywhere, you had better pray. Even before thinking something, you had better pray. Now I would add something more: even before you love, you have to pray. Before you weep, you have to pray. Before you lose your temper, you need to first pray. Before you criticize, you need to first pray. Before you gossip, you need to first pray. We need two brothers to represent all the trainees and to tell us what they have learned concerning this matter during the past seven days. After you tell us what you have learned, I will tell you what I also have learned during these past seven days.
First brother: Personally, I was very much impressed with the word last Friday. Several things that were shared have really stayed with me throughout at least a part of the week. One thing we saw was that this matter of living Christ has to be a habit. The Lord really spoke to me that I have a lot of habits inwardly and outwardly, but one habit that I surely do not have is a habit of living Christ. And until this becomes a habit, the Lord cannot be satisfied, and my practice will always be very deficient. Throughout this last week I found myself praying, “Lord, build up such a habit in me.” I found myself opening to the Lord and confessing to the Lord that I am very short as far as having any kind of real habit, even of praying. As you mentioned, to live Christ habitually, we have to pray without ceasing. To build up a habit of living Christ is directly related to building up a habit to pray. We need to pray in the way of contacting the Lord and of being one spirit with Him before doing anything. I was definitely reminded by the Lord and through the word that was ministered last week to turn to the Lord. Even a few times before speaking or a few times before doing things, I was reminded.
You also mentioned last week that most of us are not condemned because of our lack of living Christ. We are condemned for sin or for other things, but we are not condemned when we do not live Christ. I would have to confess that this is my experience. I am rarely condemned that I do not live Christ. But at least this last week on a few occasions I sensed a kind of condemnation at the end of the day that I had not lived Christ. Why had I not lived Christ? Because I had not been praying without ceasing. What you shared about prayer really gave me a handle for the matter of living Christ. This whole week I have checked one thing: how much have I prayed, and how often have I prayed? By that I knew how little I had lived Christ.
Finally, one thing that was shared last week is very encouraging to me; that is, at least within me there is a seeking to live Christ, and this seeking has been intensified. I was especially aware this week as I endeavored to practice to pray more often that the thirst within to live Christ was greater, and this was an incentive to practice more and more this matter of prayer. My only sense after one week is that, as you said, this will take many failures. I just hope that after two years I could be a person who prays before doing things and saying things. But I realize that this is altogether dependent upon our daily practice and that I have to make this a daily matter. If I do not make it a daily practice, I will be at the same point two years from now. I also appreciated that we have to watch and pray. The reason we do not pray is because we do not watch. Within our being we have this threefold sleepiness—physical, psychological, and even spiritual. I was more aware this past week that there is a tendency to forget to contact the Lord and to forget to pray. At times my mind is on other things, and I am not watching unto prayer. The only way to keep the life of prayer and to build up the habit of prayer is to increase the watching. I do not know how the watching can be strengthened, but at least through this word I was more infused that I need to watch unto prayer in order to live Christ. At least this last week I was more consciously practicing to pray and to watch and to live Christ. I feel I have just had a beginning in this matter. The more I endeavor to practice, the more I realize how little I live Christ and that this is not an easy matter. It needs a daily, hourly practice.
Second brother: I feel that these meetings should help us in two areas: First of all, they should help us in our realization concerning this matter of living Christ. I think we all have to confess that before Brother Lee got on this matter, we did not even have the understanding that what God is after is for us to live Christ. I can testify that my realization for the need of living Christ and the praying unceasingly has definitely deepened. Second, I feel that these meetings should help us in our practice, that is, in our day-to-day actual outworking of living Christ and praying unceasingly. I have had much consideration this week that it is so easy for us to do something for Christ, but it is so difficult for us to live Christ by praying in an unceasing way. For example, this week I was considering my future. I have a job offer that would be very demanding, and my tendency is to stay away from that kind of job because I think I should spend more time in the church life and so forth. In other words, I would like to spend more time for the Lord. But because of last week’s fellowship, I began to realize that what the Lord is after is for me to live Him rather than for me to be for Him. I had some realization that it might be of the Lord for me to get a very busy job so that I could learn to live Christ in that situation rather than to take another job where I might have more time to be for the Lord. At any rate I had the realization that what the Lord is after in these days is just for us to live Him.
I had a further realization this week. At the end of each day I checked my day, and I came to the realization that although I was so busy, I did not have too much time to sin; I had a horrifying realization of how little I lived Christ during the day. So I realized that this is really a matter of habit. Not only am I short of the good habit of living Christ, but I have a bad habit of not praying and not living Christ and not checking with Christ before I do everything. I must admit that in my practice I have found myself coming back to the Lord after a period of time and confessing that I had failed to live Him during this period of time. I was encouraged to realize that even as a person can gradually be recovered back to health physically, he can also gradually learn to live Christ. I feel that through our daily practice eventually the Lord will surely bring us into the full practice of living Him by praying unceasingly.
Very good! Now it is my turn to tell you what I have learned within this past week. I practiced a lot this past week, and through this practice I have been brought to a kind of understanding by the Lord, which is that unceasing prayer is not just to pray before doing something. Unceasing prayer is also to keep praying while you are doing something. This is the way to live even physically. We live physically by breathing. To live means to breathe. Breathing is the real, actual living. If you do not breathe, you die. As long as you live, you breathe. In the spiritual mathematics breathing equals living, and living equals breathing. In the Chinese language, when you say that a man is dead, you say that he stopped breathing. So when you stop breathing, that means you die. As long as you live, you breathe.
This matter of living Christ is altogether a spiritual living. Such expressions as to live Christ or Christ lives in me are only used in the heart of the divine revelation. Galatians 2:20 says, “It is Christ who lives in me,” and Philippians 1:21 says, “To me, to live is Christ.” No other verses even in Paul’s writings use these kinds of expressions. These are unique. Of course, Paul’s ministry is the completing ministry. It is the ministry that completed God’s divine revelation. Then John’s ministry came in to mend the broken ministry. So John’s ministry is the mending ministry. Paul in completing the divine revelation says that we need to live Christ and that Christ lives in us. In no other of Paul’s books does he mention these expressions. In the other writings of the New Testament, such as Peter’s and James’s writings, there is not such an expression. But in the mending ministry by John, this expression has been used again. In John 6:57 the Lord said, “He who eats Me, he also shall live because of Me.”
Because Paul’s completing ministry was damaged, John’s mending ministry came afterward to mend it. Within a short time during the first century the degraded church damaged Paul’s completing ministry. So in the latter part of the first century, John was raised up to mend the broken ministry. In his mending ministry he once more picks up this expression that was used by Paul in his completing ministry. John 6:57 says, “He who eats Me, he also shall live because of Me,” and John 14:19 says, “Yet a little while and the world beholds Me no longer, but you behold Me; because I live, you also shall live.” This verse indicates that the Lord will be in resurrection and will also be living forever in His resurrection. It also indicates that while He is living in His resurrection, we shall also live. We live with Him, we live in Him, we live by Him, and eventually we just live Him. Twice in John’s writing, the thought of to live or living is picked up. Thus, this expression is used not only in Paul’s completing ministry but also in John’s mending ministry. This is not a small thing.
In the divine revelation of the sixty-six books of the Bible, the climax, the top point, is nothing but to live Christ. Even in eternity we will live Christ. To live Christ is different from living for Christ. In eternity we will not live for Christ only, but we will live Christ. Our eternal job will be just to live Christ. To me this is so sweet. Eventually, even with the apostle Paul, God’s sovereignty put him in prison where he could do nothing but live Christ. In the prison he was neither idle nor busy; he was just living Christ.
In the mending ministry, which is much richer and stronger than the completing ministry, there is such a chapter as John 15. In John 6 and John 14 there is the plain word concerning living Christ, but in John 15 there is an illustration showing us what it is to live Christ and what it is to have Christ live in us. There we have the vine tree with its branches. The branches abide in the vine, and the vine abides in the branches. They two live together. So the branches are doing nothing but living the vine. The branch of the vine is neither idle nor busy. It is simply living. No fruit tree is busy in doing work. Two years ago a small peach tree was planted in my backyard, and this morning, to my surprise, a small peach was on a branch. It was fully ripened, so I picked it and washed it and tasted it. It was so sweet! The little tree had been there in my backyard for over two years, but I never noticed that it was busy. I never saw it running back and forth doing so many things. This illustration of the vine and the branches is so simple, yet it is profound. As a branch in the vine, you need to stop your working and learn to live. The branches of the vine do not do anything. They do not work; they just live. We must stress this one word—live. Some might argue that Paul said he worked and he labored. That of course, is another side, but now we need to stress the side of the living.
According to our physical life, we could understand and we could see a full illustration that to live is simply to breathe. Now we need to discover what is our spiritual breathing. No doubt our spiritual breathing is just our praying. But this does not mean prayer in the traditional way. Prayer in the Bible in actual practice is calling. I do not believe you can pray adequately without calling on the name of the Lord. At the very beginning of the ministry in this country, I strongly said that we do not need to exercise our mind merely to study the Bible that much. Some dissenting ones argued, saying that the Bible says we need to meditate. They pointed out that Psalm 1 and Psalm 19 use this word meditate several times. That really bothered me, so I spent further hours to study the word meditate in Hebrew. I found out that this is not a simple word. It is a very complicated word. Young’s Concordance tells us that this word includes the thought of bowing down. Then Darby in his New Translation for Psalm 55:17 translates this word as “pray.” So according to the biblical usage, to meditate is to bow down, to worship, and to pray. It is not just a kind of mental exercise to think about something, to ponder something, to consider something. At the end of Genesis 24, Isaac went out to meditate in the field toward evening. Some versions translate this as “to pray.” If you did not know the original Hebrew word, you might be bothered. How could one version translate it as “to meditate” and another translate it as “to pray”? It is because this one simple word meditate, in biblical use, includes bowing down to God and implies praying.
In the same principle, when the Bible says to pray, it implies to call on the name of the Lord. How could you pray without calling on the name of the Lord? When you hear the word call, you may understand that this means a kind of loud cry. It does mean this, yet many times we may call without crying out. But still we are calling. In Ephesians 6 this term is used: By means of all prayer. This little word all bothers the expositors. All surely indicates many prayers or many kinds of prayers. The best word studies all agree that all here in Ephesians 6 means all kinds of prayer. But what are the different prayers? I would say this: the kinds of prayers should have no limitation. You may say that we have only three kinds of chairs, but you cannot say and you should not say that we have only ten kinds of prayers or eight kinds of prayers. The number of the kinds of prayers should be innumerable. There are many kinds of prayers. You should not limit yourself in the kinds of prayers. You have to pray in any way. And to pray is to call. When you speak of praying, you may not realize that praying is a kind of breathing. But if you go on from prayer to calling, calling surely indicates some amount of breathing. So in the spiritual life to pray is to breathe, and to breathe is to live. What I have learned this past week is that to live Christ is to pray unceasingly, and to pray unceasingly is just to call on the Lord while you are doing anything.
Now I would add a word that is very crucial. You may ask, For what do you need to call on the Lord? During the last meeting I indicated that you have so many members of the church to pray for. That is right, but let me tell you that according to what I have discovered in this past week, while you are doing anything, you should pray. You should call on the Lord. While you are doing anything, you must spontaneously check with yourself: are you doing this very thing, or is the Lord doing this very thing with you? Are you doing this very thing by yourself, or are you doing this very thing by the Lord with you? We need to build up this good habit. As you talk with your wife and your children, you must exercise this habit: “Lord, is this just myself speaking, or are You speaking with me?” You must have such a spontaneous checking habit. That checking is the calling, and that calling is the prayer, and that prayer is the breathing. Even you have to drive your car with such a habit: “Lord, are You driving? Are You driving with me?” Previously, I told you not to do anything without first praying. But now I would add another word: do not do anything without praying. You have to pray. And to pray is just to call on the name of the Lord. And to call on the Lord is just to breathe. By this you will live Christ.
I would like to cut a way so that this word may have an entrance into you. Do not look down on such a word, considering that it is nothing. You need to breathe. If you look down on and despise this point, you will die spiritually. For so many years you have not been living Christ, because you have been lacking in this matter. You have learned so many things—how to do this and how to do that. But not one of the how-tos is workable. You learn how to overcome, but you have no overcoming. You learn how to be holy, but you have no holiness. You learn how to be patient, but you have no patience. You may have learned many how-tos, but you have neglected one thing; that is, you do not live. All the time, instead of living, you die. This simply means that you do not pray unceasingly. If you are an accountant working on your books, you have to keep praying. Do not do your accounting work by yourself. Do it with the Lord Jesus. Do it by having the Lord with you. The best way to have the Lord with you is by calling on Him. It is here that you have the victory. It is here that you are sanctified. It is here that you have everything you need, not only constantly but even instantly. If you live such a life, doing everything by having the Lord with you, how could you lose your temper? How could you gossip? How could you speak an idle word?
When I was a child, we had many three-legged races. Two people each had a leg tied to the other person’s leg so that they had to coordinate as one. You have to realize that today you and the Lord Jesus are bound together. You and He are racing in a three-legged race. Do not run just by yourself. If you do, you will fall. Do not forget that you are one with Him and that you are living with Him. Not many can run a three-legged race. You would not care for the other party. You would cut off the binding. You would free yourself. We all have done this concerning the Lord Jesus. In a sense we all have told the Lord, “Lord, You stay here. Let me go ahead. Do not come along with me. If You come, I cannot get my thing done. Lord, give me a little freedom for just half a day. Just for Saturday afternoon I am on vacation.” But we all have learned that regardless of how much we would ask leave of the Lord, He would never give it to us. You may cut the binding, but He would bind it again. Whenever we would try to take a vacation, we simply get in trouble. The point is this: God’s economy is just to put Christ together with us. We have no choice. This is our destiny whether this seems poor or whether this seems very much blessed. It depends upon our realization. This is our destiny.
For example, the marriage life should be a life always with two together. Although we love the marriage life, sometimes we realize that it is a binding and bothering life. If you open the window, your husband may complain. If you put some water on the plant, he says you put too much. Also, whatever you do, she would say something. In the marriage life we all are good complainers. What shall we do? The disciples told the Lord Jesus that it is better not to get married (Matt. 19:10-12). But the Lord said that it was not up to them. You must have the gift. You need a gift not to have a wife. But most of us did not receive such a gift. This is our destiny.
In like manner God has ordained that we must have a Husband, Christ. God does not want us to live single or as a widow. We must have a Husband. This is God’s ordination, and this is our destiny. We must live a life of two together. God had no intention for you to live a life just by yourself. If you try to live in that way, you will get into trouble. That is against God’s divine principle, and that is kicking against God’s ordination. You can never get through. So we have to take Christ as our life and live with Him like two persons who are living one life together. We have to live such a life, and to live such a life is to always call on Him. In other words, using our daily expression, we just talk to Him. Do not stop talking with Him. Talk to Him all the time. While you are talking to your wife, talk to Christ. While you are talking to your boss or employee, talk to Christ. Do not do any talking just by yourself. Do not forget that you should never be single. You are not destined to a single life. You are now living a marriage life, and your Husband is Christ. We all have Him as our Husband. We must live with our Husband. Do not go anywhere without Him. Do not do anything without Him, and do not say anything without Him. All the time you have to do things with Him. This is to pray unceasingly. Now I have the assurance that I know what it means to pray unceasingly and how we can pray unceasingly. It is this: all the day long you should call on Him; you should talk to Him. By this you are breathing. This is to live spiritually, and to live spiritually is just to live Christ. I do believe that this kind of fellowship hits the mark. You have to come back to this point: you must do all things by talking to the Lord, by praying to Him, by calling on Him. This is to breathe so that you may live Him.
