Month: July 2018

In order to make us more valuable, God brings us through many trials and beatings

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“A piece of iron that is worth five dollars will be worth $10 when it is cast into a horseshoe. If it is made into needles, it will be worth $350. If it is made into fine blades, it will be worth $32,000, and if it is made into springs inside watches, it will be worth $250,000. Brothers and sisters, have you seen this? What is the difference between a piece of iron worth $10, $350, $32,000, and $250,000? It is the same material, but after many trials and much beating, it becomes stronger, more pliable, and more valuable. In order to make us more valuable, God brings us through many trials and beatings. In order to become a useful and valuable vessel before the Lord, we must not bemoan the things that God has allowed to come upon us. Instead, we should rejoice and rest. We should say to the Lord, “Father, I thank You, because everything You have allowed to come upon me is good.” If we submit to the will of God, our heart will find rest, and we will be filled with joy. Our mouth will be full of praise, and our burden will no longer be a burden.”

(General Messages, ch. 32)

Hank Unplugged podcast: We Were Wrong

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Hank Unplugged podcast: We Were Wrong with Chris Wilde (8/01/17):

This week Hank is joined on Hank Unplugged by one of his closest friends and brothers in Christ, Chris Wilde. Hank and Chris became friends as a result of the providential meeting between the local church and the Christian Research Institute that resulted in an extensive primary research project that resulted in the CRI Journal titled “We Were Wrong.” Years of research led CRI to amend their position on the local church from one of condemnation to one of commendation, as the group has played a significant role in the transformation of Hank’s personal life in addition to the moniker of the ministry. This is an emotional episode of Hank Unplugged that you cannot miss.

Topics discussed include: The unlikely origins of their friendship as a result of investigating the Lord’s recovery (4:30); The providential meeting between the local churches and the Christian Research Institute and the primary research project that ensued (8:30); The revolutionary impact the Lord’s recovery has had on Hank personally as well as the ministry of CRI (18:30); Brief history of Watchman Nee, Witness Lee and their ministries in China and beyond (21:00); A seminal moment in Hank’s life that caused the moniker of CRI to change to “Because life and truth matter” (26:30); A moving story of the meeting between Gretchen Passantino and a Christian Chinese man who suffered immense persecution as a result of her writings for CRI in the 70’s (33:00); The significance of the local church edition of the CRI Journal entitled We Were Wrong (42:00); The continued damage that misinformation does to the Local Church (53:00); Chris’s transformational testimony (59:30); The immense value of the Local Church to the body of Christ (1:07:00).

Other links:

The choice is yours

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Trust in God, not in your own understanding. (Prov. 3:5)

Serve God, not mammon. (Matt. 6:24)

Do not regard the temporary things which are seen, but the things which are not seen which are eternal. (2 Cor. 4:18)

Walk by faith, not by sight. (2 Cor. 5:7)

Live to God, not yourself. (2 Cor. 5:15)

We belong to the new creation, not the old creation. (2 Cor. 5:17)

Please God, not man. (Gal. 1:10)

Live by His life, not yours. (Gal. 2:20)

Only Christ is gain, all else is refuse. (Phil. 3:8)

The reason God allows us to fail

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“God has no need to know our failure and falling. Whether we are standing up and overcoming or falling down and stumbling, God knows that the flesh is corrupt all the same. God knows our natural form. God has no hope that we will fulfill His righteousness by our flesh. He knows that we have nothing but sin. When we do good, He knows we are corrupt; when we do evil, He also knows we are corrupt. He does not need to wait until we fail or fall to know we are incurable. But we need failures and falling because, if it were not so, we could not know the self. When everything is going smoothly, when favorable winds are in the sails and we are victorious and filled with happiness, we think we are quite good and have what others do not have. Although we dare not boast in an obvious way, when we have a slight advancement in spiritual life or a slight success in spiritual work, it is hard for us not to think of ourselves and consider that we are indeed holy, able, and far superior to others. At such times, we unavoidably lose our trust in God and become careless. Therefore, God allows us to fall from glory to dust. He allows us to sin, fall, and backslide, in order that we would know that the self is unbearably corrupt, beyond cure, and that we ourselves are the same as the worst and most evil sinner in the world. As a result, we dare not assume anything in ourselves or glory in ourselves or boast in ourselves; rather, in everything we trust God with fear and trembling. Brothers, we need failures and fallings to humble us, to cause us to know the self and to know the flesh.”

(Knowing the Self)

Overview of the New Testament

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“In the Gospels is the Christ who lived on the earth and died on the cross for the accomplishing of redemption.

In the Acts is the resurrected and ascended Christ propagated and ministered to men.

In Romans is the Christ who is our righteousness for justification and our life for sanctification, transformation, conformation, glorification, and building up.

In Galatians is the Christ who enables us to live a life that is versus the law, religion, tradition, and forms.

In Philippians is the Christ who is lived out of His members.

In Ephesians and Colossians is the Christ who is the life, the content, and the Head of the Body, the church.

In 1 and 2 Corinthians is the Christ who is everything in the practical church life.

In 1 and 2 Thessalonians is the Christ who is our holiness for His coming back.

In 1 and 2 Timothy and Titus is the Christ who is God’s economy, enabling us to know how to conduct ourselves in the house of God.

In [Hebrews] is the present Christ, who is now in the heavens as our Minister and our High Priest, ministering to us the heavenly life, grace, authority, and power and sustaining us to live a heavenly life on earth.

In the Epistles of Peter is the Christ who enables us to take God’s governmental dealings administered through sufferings.

In the Epistles of John is the Christ who is the life and fellowship of the children of God in God’s family.

In Revelation is the Christ who is walking among the churches in this age, ruling over the world in the kingdom in the coming age, and expressing God in full glory in the new heaven and new earth for eternity.”

(Heb. 1:3 footnote 4)

Being willing to be weak in the Lord

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“For indeed He was crucified out of weakness, but He lives by the power of God. For indeed we are weak in Him, but we will live together with Him by the power of God directed toward you.” (2 Cor. 13:4)

“The apostles followed the pattern of Christ and were willing to be weak in the organic union with Him that they might live with Him a crucified life. Thus they would live together with Him by the power of God directed toward the believers. Apparently, they were weak toward the believers; actually they were powerful.”

(2 Cor. 13:4, note 3)

Are we satisfied with the Lord Jesus alone?

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Brothers and sisters, what is the meaning of being thirsty? When one is thirsty, it means that he is not satisfied. Those who drink of the water that the Lord gives will never thirst again. Thank and praise the Lord! A Christian is not only a contented person but a person who is forever satisfied! It is not enough for a Christian to merely be contented. Everything that God gives to us makes us eternally satisfied. But how many times have we crossed the main streets without feeling thirsty? When we pass by the great department stores, are we thirsty? If we crave for this or that, is this not being thirsty? Are we thirsty when we consider our classmates or colleagues and envy their possessions? Yet the Lord said, “Whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall by no means thirst forever; but the water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water gushing up into eternal life.” [John 4:14] What He gives to us is one kind of life, yet we experience something else. The Lord says that He is all we need, but we say that He is not enough. We need this and that before we can be satisfied, but He said that He alone is enough. Is what we received from the Lord wrong or is our experience wrong? One of the two must be wrong. The Lord cannot possibly write us a bad check. Whatever He promises, He will surely give. Our experience in the past was, in the words of one hymn, “a half salvation” (Hymns, #513, stanza 2). Why does the Lord say that a believer will not be thirsty again? This is because he has become different inside. Within him, there are new demands and new satisfactions. Brothers and sisters, are we living before God and serving Him in holiness and righteousness all our days? Are we living before God every day in holiness and righteousness, as the priest Zachariah spoke of in Luke 1:75? Do we have something within that gushes forth all the time to quench others’ thirst? The Chinese have an expression, wu-wei, which means “to do nothing.” Christians have to be those who are asking for nothing. We can say that the Lord is enough for us. Are we satisfied with just the Lord? Are we really satisfied with the Lord Jesus alone? If we are not satisfied, it means that there is something wrong with our living.

(The Overcoming Life, chapter 2)

What is the number one thing we should do today?

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I care for only one thing—to carry out what the Lord has charged us to do. We all need to rise up and put everything of the unscriptural practice of Christianity under our feet. The number one thing we should do in these days is to visit people in their homes. This is to follow the pattern of the Lord Jesus. We must go to visit people.

(CWWL, 1986, vol. 3, “Elders’ Training, Book 9: The Eldership and the God-ordained Way (1),” pp. 38-39)

Our commission is not to overcome sin

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The Son of God came with the divine commission to seek the Father’s will and glory. We Christians are to live the same way. “Lord, thank You. I have the highest commission, that of living You out. How good it is that You are my life! What a privilege that I can take You and live You out! How I thank You!” Is not this life higher than having even three Ph.D.’s?

Young people, are you satisfied to be nobody? Rather, are you satisfied with the highest commission, that of taking Christ as your life and living Him? What a commission!

This is the Christian life and also the church life. It is no more I but Christ who lives in me. “Thank You, Lord, that You and I have one life and one living. The life is Yours; the living, mine. Hallelujah that I can have one life and one living with You!”

Do not be concerned about worldliness. Do not be troubled about your weakness. Do not be preoccupied with sins. When Christ is lived out, all these negative things will flee away. The more you try to deal with your sin, overcome the world, or gain the victory over your weakness, the more you will be troubled by these very things. You are not commissioned to overcome sin, weakness, or the world. Your commission is to live Christ out. When you see this vision and you are such a person, the Bible is for you. It will nourish and supply this life.

(Life Messages, Vol. 1 (#1-41), Chapter 40, Section 3)

What does it mean to love the Lord?

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“We need to see that to love the Lord is to allow Him to live in us and for us. He desires a dwelling place and a vessel so that He can be expressed. If we sincerely love the Lord, we need to say, ‘Lord Jesus, I stop all my doing and give You the free way to live in me and to live for me.’

To love the Lord is not to do good things or even spiritual things. Instead, to love the Lord is to be stopped from our doing and to let the Lord take full possession of our being. We need to pray, ‘It is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me. Lord, live in me and live for me. I repent that for many years I have not given You the opportunity to live in me and for me. Now I see that I need to love You, give myself to You, and let You have all the ground in me and a free course to live in me and for me.’

The best way to express our love toward the Lord is to say, ‘Lord Jesus, I open to You. Take full possession of me.’ Rather than needing us to do something for Him, the Lord needs us to be His dwelling place to express Him. He wants us to open to Him so that He can make His home in our heart. In order to properly express our love toward the Lord, we must stop any kind of doing based on good intentions, such as being a proper spouse or bringing many to salvation.

We need to stop our doing so that it is no longer we who live. We have been crucified, and a crucified person cannot do anything. Not only should we no longer do bad things, but we also should no longer do good things from ourselves. If we do anything, it means that we are not crucified. The way to love the Lord is not to try to do anything but simply to say, ‘Lord, I love You. I present myself to You. I am open to You. Possess me more and more until You reach every part of my being and make Your home in me.’ ”

(CWWL, 1973-1974, vol. 2, pp. 446-447, 453, 451-452)