And He died for all that those who live may no longer live to themselves but to Him who died for them and has been raised. (2 Cor. 5:15)
“Living to the Lord is deeper in significance than living for the Lord. Living for the Lord implies that I and the Lord are still two; living to the Lord indicates that I am one with the Lord, as the wife is one with the husband in married life.”
(2 Cor. 5:15, footnote 2)
“I would like to speak to the responsible brothers. You have a natural habit of using only the two-talented ones. The history of the church has always been like this. The five-talented ones can advance by themselves; there is no need to take care of them. But as for the one-talented ones, it is really hard to help them. A word or two to them and they bury their talent again. The two-talented ones are the most available ones. They have some ability, they can do things well, and they do not bury their talents. But if you can use only the two-talented ones and cannot use the one-talented ones in every place, you have failed completely. I have said this in Foochow, I have said this in Shanghai, and I will say it again today. What is the church? The church is all the one-talented ones coming forth to partake of the church service on the practical side and on the spiritual side. You cannot shake your head and say, “This one is useless, and that one is useless.’’ If you say that this one is useless and that one is useless, the church is finished and you fail completely. If you think someone is useless, he will really be useless. You can tell him that according to himself he is indeed useless, but the Lord has given him one talent, and He wants all the one-talented ones to go out and do business. The Lord can use them. If you cannot use the one-talented ones, it proves that before the Lord you cannot be a leader. You have to use all those brothers and sisters who are “useless.’’ This is the job of the brothers who are workers. They must not only use the useful brothers and sisters but also make the useless brothers and sisters useful.
The basic principle is that the Lord has never given less than one talent to anyone. In the Lord’s house there is not one servant without a gift; everyone has at least one talent and cannot have less than one talent. No one can excuse himself by saying that the Lord has not given him a talent. I would like you to realize that all of God’s children are servants before Him. If they are children, they are servants. In other words, if they are members, they have a gift; if they are members, they are ministers. If we think that there is someone whom the Lord cannot use, we do not know the grace of God at all. We must know the grace of God so thoroughly that when God calls someone His servant, we would never stand up to say that he is not. Today if you did the choosing, perhaps you would pick only three or four persons from the whole church. But God says that all are servants. Since God says this, we must let them serve.
Brothers and sisters, from now on whether or not we have a way in our work and whether or not the way will succeed depend upon what we can say about our work before the Lord. Are there only some who are working? Are only some specially gifted ones doing the work? Or do all the Lord’s servants participate in the service, and is the whole church serving? This is the entire problem. If this problem cannot be solved, we have nothing.
The Body of Christ is not a doctrine; it is something living. We all must learn this one thing: Only when every member functions is there the Body of Christ. Only when every member functions is that the church.
Our problem today is that we have inherited the priestly system of Roman Catholicism and the pastoral system of Protestantism. If we are careless at the present time, there will also appear a certain kind of mediatorial system among us. We will be the only ones who take care of the matters in God’s service. Merely preaching the Body of Christ is useless; we must let it work and show forth its functions. Since it is the Body of Christ, we need not fear that it will lack the functions. Since it is the Body of Christ, we can place our faith in it. The Lord wants every member in every locality to rise up and serve.”
(Further Talks on the Church Life, chapter 5)
“Every Christian should know that he is only a member. If he does not have the other members, he will not survive. In the Body all the members must be joined together before they can become the Body. All the members in the Body are related to one another, and they cannot be separated from one another. Between the members there must be a mutual supply and a mutual relatedness. Only then can the members survive. If a Christian lives an independent life, sooner or later he will weaken and dry up…. In order to go on with the Lord, we must recognize His supply for us in the Body and avail ourselves of it. The whole Body is built up through the interdependence among the members.
… Many of us have the experience when we are dry and have no way to go on, we need other brothers and sisters to intercede for us before we can get through… The supply of the Body of Christ is a reality. You cannot get through in many things no matter how much you struggle. But once you give the matter to the Body, the problem is solved.”
(CWWN, vol. 44, “The Mystery of Christ,” pp. 800-801)
“Man is communal. Christians are all the more communal. None of us would like to live by himself on a high mountain. We like to see people and to speak to people. Once we have the life of God within us, we spontaneously love other Christians. We cannot explain why this is so, but it is a fact. It does not matter what color skin they have, whether they are black, white, red, brown, or yellow. As long as they are brothers, we love them. Some have asked me, “Brother Lee, how many brothers and sisters do you have?” How should I answer? How many brothers and sisters do I really have? More than hundreds of thousands! They are countless! Wherever I go today, I have brothers and sisters!
Christianity has robbed the Christians of this great blessing. When they go to the worship service, even those sitting beside them would not acknowledge them. After the service is over, everyone goes home. I attended a worship service for two years in a denomination. Besides the pastor, I did not talk to anyone. I was not the only one who was like that. All the others were the same. In that kind of setting, no one needs to speak to another. But if you come to a home meeting with eight brothers sitting in a brother’s living room, it would be impossible for you not to speak. At least you have to greet each other. Once you greet each other, the blessing comes. In time you begin to know me, and I begin to know you, and we become acquainted with each other’s condition and difficulties. Spontaneously a mutual love and care will be developed.”
(Key Points on the Home Meetings, chp. 2)
“Question: How is it that after so many years of being a Christian, there does not seem to be any change in me? Why do I still lose my temper? Should we expect to improve?
Answer: I understand your problem. Day after day a mother takes care of her children, but she can see very little change in them. She does not do anything purposely to make them grow, but by feeding them properly and by regulating their behavior, exercise, and sleep, little by little they are changing. The time will come when they will be full-grown.
Why is our Christian growth stunted? It is from our failure to take in the Word. Our eating and drinking are deficient. If the main point of our meetings is guitar playing and singing the psalms, we may enjoy ourselves, but year after year there will be no change in us. Just as our human life requires that we eat, drink, sleep, and breathe, so for our spiritual life we must contact the Lord and take in His Word. Our meetings must also supply us with the solid food. The result will be transformation. We will change not by any outward doing but by the life supply dispensed into us from within.”
(Life Messages, vol. 1, chapter 16)
“Your emotions are unreliable. Indeed, they are like the waves. But you can abide peacefully by your will. What God wants to give is not a happy feeling every day. His purpose is for you to live by your will and your spirit. “I love the Lord, not because of what I feel, but because I want to love Him.” Just as we would read the Bible, pray, preach, and serve the Lord when we are joyful, in the same way we should read the Bible, pray, preach, and serve Him when we do not feel anything and our heart is as cold as ice. Please understand that the most important thing is to live by the will and not by the emotions. The most deceiving thing is for a person to take his feelings as an indicator of his spiritual life. From now on, please learn to exercise your will to control your whole being and your feelings. If God rewards you with feelings, thank Him. If He does not and you feel lost at heart, go on as usual. Until you have overcome your habit of living by your feelings, God cannot greatly use you. He needs solid vessels, those who do not change due to circumstances.”
(Collected Works of Watchman Nee, Vol. 7, pp 1106-1108)
Only do not rebel against Jehovah, nor should you fear the people of the land, for they are our bread. Their protection has been removed from them, and Jehovah is with us; do not fear them. (Num. 14:9)
“Every time you meet a difficulty, every time you find yourself in an impossible situation, ask yourself this question: Am I going to starve here, or am I going to eat? If you are relying on the Lord for victory and allow His overcoming life to be manifested in you, you will find fresh nourishment and increased vitality, and you will be fed once again. Bear in mind that people who do not eat well cannot grow into maturity. Our bread is not only the word of God, our meat is not only to do His will, our bread is also the Anakim — the difficulties that are in our way. Many people take the word of God as their bread and the doing of His will as their meat, but they have not eaten the Anakim. Many eat too little of the Anakim. The more we eat the Anakim, the stronger we will become. Caleb is a grand illustration of this. Because he accepted the Anakim as “bread,” he was still full of vitality at the age of eighty-five. His strength was the same at eighty-five as it was at forty. So many Anakim had been assimilated by him over the years that he had developed a constitution which showed no trace of age. This is also true in the spiritual realm. Some brothers and sisters have met few difficulties, but it is obvious that there are many weaknesses in their lives. They are weak before the Lord because they have not consumed enough Anakim. However, there are those who have met and overcome difficulty after difficulty, temptation after temptation; they are full of vigor because they have fed well on Anakim. We have to eat our difficulties and our temptation. Every difficulty and every temptation Satan puts in our way is food for us. This is a God-appointed means of spiritual progress. The sight of any trouble strikes terror into the heart of those who do not have faith, but those who trust Him say, “Here comes my food!” Praise and thank the Lord, all our trials, without exception, are bread for us. Every trial brings in growth after we have eaten of it. As we accept one trial after another, we are more and more richly nourished.”
(God’s Keeping Power [booklet], pp. 6-8)
“Christianity today exhorts people to improve their outward behavior, but what God pays attention to is far higher than this. God is not after a mere change in man’s outward behavior; rather, He desires man to have an inward transformation in life. He does not want us to merely change our outward living. He wants us to be broken in our inward disposition. The outward change of behavior gains the praises of man, but it cannot please God. What God desires and what pleases Him is not the improvement of our outward behavior but the transformation in life and the breaking of our inward disposition. Mere behavior improvement makes us good persons but not spiritual persons. In order to be spiritual, we need to be broken inwardly. Without being broken, without suffering any blows, and without passing through death, we can be persons who are whole but not persons who are full of life.
What others see in your outward behavior improvement is your morality but not your spirituality. Many times, just as your immorality can become your covering, so your morality can also become your covering. The unbelievers require us to have a high morality, which is reasonable and right. Yet God’s requirement in us is much higher than this. God requires that we be broken and crushed so that the Christ within us — the glorious Christ, the Christ of holiness– may be lived out through us.
…Christ does not need whole vessels; instead, He needs broken vessels. This is because only broken vessels can be channels of living water. Whole vessels can only be cisterns of dead water. The biggest problem today is that it is hard to find any wounds or scars in most Christians. Most of us do not have any wounds, scars, marks of death, or experiences of the cross. Even though we have been saved and truly have Christ’s life in us, this life has no way to come out. The reason is not that our behavior is too poor or too good but that we are too whole and too impregnable. Because we have no wounds, Christ has no way to be released from within us.
…No one who is a good vessel in God’s hand can be whole; rather, he must be full of scars and wounds. A certain sister may have believed in the Lord for over a decade, yet because her life has been easy and smooth, she has no wounds at all. She got married to a husband who is considerate, she gave birth to a son who is obedient, and she found a job that is easy and smooth. Everyone says that she is very fortunate; actually, it is not so. Many times the work that God carries out in someone who is truly in His hand is the work of breaking, smiting, and splitting. Jesus the Nazarene, the One who was the most acceptable to God, also experienced many sufferings while He was on the earth. He was called “a man of sorrows” (Isa. 53:3), and He was full of bruises and wounds. Hence, a person who is in God’s hand, if he is highly regarded or esteemed by God, will have many wounds as the result of God’s work in him. What kind of work is this? This is the work of breaking. If God favors us, His hand will work in us in many ways, and we will thus have many scars and wounds. These scars and wounds will become outlets for the flow of living water.”
(The Crucified Christ, chapter 1)
Livingly Wrong 