Author: livinglywrong

Never contact anyone with a cheerless countenance

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LEARNING HOW TO NOURISH PEOPLE

The members of the vital groups have to learn how to nourish people to continue their cherishing of people. Cherishing without nourishing is in vain. When a mother wants to feed a naughty child, she will first make him happy by cherishing him. But without nourishing him, her cherishing is meaningless. After cherishing the child, the mother nourishes him with food. This is the way that Christ as the Head takes care of His Body, the church. He nourishes us after cherishing us.

Revelation 1 shows how Christ cares for the churches. Revelation is a book of signs. A sign is a symbol with spiritual significance. The first sign in Revelation shows Christ in His humanity as the High Priest, and the last sign is the New Jerusalem. As the Son of Man, Christ as the High Priest is taking care of all the churches as lampstands (1:12-13). On the one hand, He is cherishing the churches in His humanity; on the other hand, He is nourishing the churches in His divinity. The members of the vital groups have to learn these two things. When we visit people, invite them to our home, or contact them before and after the meetings, we must be one with Christ to cherish and nourish them.

THE MEANING OF CHERISHING AND NOURISHING PEOPLE

To cherish people is to make them happy and to make them feel pleasant and comfortable. We must have a pleasant countenance when we contact people. We should be happy and rejoicing. We should not contact anyone with a cheerless countenance. We must give people the impression that we are genuinely happy and pleasant. Otherwise, we will not be able to cherish them, to make them happy.

Then we should go on to nourish them. We do not nourish people when we speak to them about marriage, courtship, politics, the world situation, or education. To nourish people is to feed them with the all-inclusive Christ in His full ministry in three stages. When we speak to people about Christ, we should not speak to them in an incomprehensible way, in a kind of language that they do not understand. We have to find a way to present the all-inclusive Christ to everyone.

(The Vital Groups, ch. 11)

Christ was made man that we might be made God

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Athanasius, one of the early church fathers, said concerning Christ, “He was made man that we might be made God,” and “The Word was made flesh… that we, partaking of His Spirit, might be deified.” This is the principle of God’s move on earth. God’s move is in man and through man. God’s move is to deify man, making man God in life and in nature but not, of course, in the Godhead. (Life-Study of Job, message 24)

“For the Son of God became man so that we might become God.” (Saint Athanasius, On the Incarnation)

How fruitful we are depends on whether we have an intimate concern

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In 2 Corinthians 7 Paul was very emotional. In verse 13 he says that he “rejoiced more abundantly over the joy of Titus.” …Paul was very human and emotional in his ministering of life. Paul was so emotional because his concern was so deep and intimate. Without this kind of concern, we could never be abundantly rejoicing in the way Paul was. Instead, we may be as cold as a freezer, altogether lacking in concern for the saints. Instead of warming up others, we make them even colder. Nothing can grow when it is in such a frozen condition. We need the weather of spring to come to thaw us out and warm up our life. Once again there is a need for a ministering life. Do you know what a ministering life is? It is a life that warms up others. Learn to warm others. This is to have an intimate concern for them.

Many have read 2 Corinthians 7 without touching the matter of Paul’s intimate concern. If we do not have this kind of concern for others, we will not be fruitful. If I would minister life to the saints, I must have a genuine concern for them, a concern that is emotional, deep, and intimate. I must be so concerned that, at times, I may appear to others to be foolish or beside myself.

(Life-study of 2 Corinthians, message 44)

Fact, faith, feeling

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“In that greatest event of this [the 19th] century, the emancipation of our slaves, there is a wonderful illustration of the way of faith. The slaves received their freedom by faith, just as we must receive ours. The good news was carried to them that the government had proclaimed their freedom. As a matter of fact they were free the moment the Proclamation was issued, but as a matter of experience they did not come into actual possession of their freedom until they had heard the good news and had believed it. The fact had to come first, but the believing was necessary before the fact became available, and the feeling would follow last of all. This is the divine order always, and the order of common-sense as well. 

  1. The fact. 
  2. The faith. 
  3. The feeling. 

But man reverses this order and says, 

  1. The feeling.
  2. The faith.
  3. The fact.

Had the slaves followed man’s order in regard to their emancipation, and refused to believe in it until they had first felt it, they might have remained in slavery a long while.”

(From Hannah Whitall-Smith’s “The Christian’s Secret of a Happy Life”, chapter 6)

We all must be properly emotional and full of expression

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“In [Romans 12:15] Paul says, ‘Rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep.’ We must be transformed before we can rejoice and weep with others. Some people were born in such a way that they are unable to weep or to rejoice. Regardless of how happy or joyful you are, they remain expressionless, resembling the statue of Mary at the entrance of a Catholic church, which never changes its expression. Some brothers and sisters are like this. They do not know how to rejoice or to weep with others; they seem to be stones without human affection. However, the church life needs emotional people. We all must be properly emotional and full of expression. I would like to have a face that can express all my emotions properly and adequately. We cannot put together people with stone faces and call it the church life; we must be living stones, stones full of affection. We must learn to rejoice and to weep with others.”

(Life-Study of Romans, pp. 315-316)

The divine life is needed for family life

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“Suppose we did not have the divine life within us. This would certainly make family life very difficult, especially in relation to our in-laws, and particularly, to the mother-in-law…. For both a husband and a wife, a mother-in-law can create a difficult situation. For this reason, humanly speaking, it is better that a married couple not have a mother-in-law live with them.”

(Life-study of 1 Peter, pp. 173-174, 182)

What does it mean to serve God?

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“The dictionary tells us that a priest is a person who serves God professionally. Most Christians would tell us that a priest is one who serves God. This is right, but what does it mean to serve God? Today’s Christians would answer that to serve God is to work for God. This answer is wrong! To say that a priest is a person who serves God is right, but to say that to serve God is merely to do something for God, is wrong.

To realize what a priest is, we must first see God’s eternal plan. God is a God of purpose. He has a purpose which He wants to accomplish. According to the revelation of the Scriptures, God has a plan to work Himself into a group of people in order that He might be their life and they might become His expression. Based upon this plan, God created man.

Man was destined to receive God, to be filled, saturated and permeated with God, and to have God flow out of him that he might be the living expression of God. This is a brief definition of a priest. He must contact God, be filled with God, and be possessed by God completely that he may be built up with others in the flow of the life of God. Then the priesthood will be God’s living, corporate expression.

Christianity’s concept is that if we love the Lord, we must work for Him. This is a natural, religious concept, not the revelation of the Bible. God never intended to call us merely to work for Him. God’s intention is that we must first open ourselves to Him that He may come into us to fill and flood us until He has taken possession of every part of our being. Our whole being must be saturated and permeated with Him. Then we will be one with Him. We will not only be clothed outwardly with Him as power, but permeated inwardly with Him as everything. Then spontaneously, God will flow out of us, and we will be built up with others in this flow of life.

I must repeat that a priest is not one who merely works for God. God has no intention of calling us to do something for Him. His intention is that we answer His call by opening ourselves to Him and saying, “Lord, here I am, not ready to work for You, but ready to be filled and possessed by You and to be one with You.” Not until we are one with the Lord can we ever work for Him and be a real priest. The main function of a priest is not to work but to spend time in the presence of the Lord until he is one with Him in the spirit. The priesthood that God plans to have is a corporate man who is saturated and permeated with Himself.”

(The Priesthood, chapter 1)

God does not want us to be always up or to be always down

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God does not want us to be always up or to be always down. Even in nature the alternating of day and night testifies of this. There is no such thing as an unending day or night. Rather, there is the alternating of day and night, night and day. God did not create us so that we would have a day or night that would last for many years. This may be according to our way, but it is not according to God’s way.

Young people, you must know your rule, your limit. This means that you must know how much God has measured to you, how much He has apportioned to you. This restriction, this limitation, is a very practical dealing with our flesh. Our natural man wants to be without limitation. However, God knows our problem. Therefore, He sets up boundaries and restrictions so that we may stay within the measure that He has apportioned to us.

(Life-study of 2 Corinthians, pp. 444-445)

The Christian’s happiness is not to be found in external things, but in learning to enjoy God Himself in the midst of trial

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“What is the significance of suffering? This, that the devastation it brings to the old creation provides an opportunity for the God of resurrection to impart Himself to His creatures, so that they emerge from the death process with a divine element in their constitution. The primary purpose of suffering in this universe, particularly as it relates to the children of God, is that through it the very nature of God may be wrought into the nature of man. “If indeed our outward man is decaying, yet our inward man is being renewed day by day” (2 Cor. 4:16). Through a process of outward decay an inward process is taking place that is adding a new constituent to our lives.

Beloved brothers and sisters, through hardship and pressure a divine element is being wrought into the very fabric of our beings, so that we cease to be colorless Christians, but have a heavenly hue imparted to our lives that was lacking before. Whatever else suffering may effect in this universe is incidental; this is primary — to bring those whom the living God has made possessors of created life into the uncreated life of the God of resurrection. It is in the death experiences which come through suffering that the life of the creature is blended with the life of the Creator. We may know the living God without such drastic experiences, but only through death can we come to an experiential knowledge of the God of resurrection.

Suffering is the God-appointed lot of the Christian. The Christian’s happiness is not to be found in external things, but in learning to enjoy God Himself in the midst of trial. Paul and Silas could rejoice and sing His praises while they were in prison, because their happiness did not come from outer circumstances, but from an inner enjoyment of God. In Paul’s short letter to the Philippians, written during his imprisonment, there are over a score of references to joy. In deep distress he could still be joyful because in his affliction he was learning to know Christ, to appropriate Him and to enjoy Him. His outward circumstances were all conducive to sorrow, but it was in sorrow that Christ was imparted to him as the source of his joy.”

(The God of Resurrection)

If we would bear fruit, we must do so corporately

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THE PRACTICAL WAY TO BEAR FRUIT

While we need to enjoy the Lord by pray-reading His Word, this alone is not sufficient; there should be a practical result of our exercise in the Word. The practical issue of our enjoyment of Christ in the Word is fruit-bearing. If we do not bear fruit, we will not have good spiritual digestion. To bear fruit is to pass on to others the portion of Christ that we have enjoyed. Instead of keeping Christ locked up within us, we should pass Him on to others. Bearing fruit is more than simply preaching the gospel. Bearing fruit is the result of enjoying on a daily basis the Christ whom we have received. As a result of enjoying Christ, we spontaneously pass Him on to others, bearing them as fruit.

We should check ourselves in these two areas.

  • First, we should check to see whether we are enjoying Christ throughout the day. If we are enjoying Christ, then we are a branch in the vine.
  • Second, as branches in the vine, we should spontaneously bear fruit.

We need to ask ourselves whether we are bearing fruit or not. Regarding this matter, many of us have a problem. Our problem is that we do not pass Christ on to others. To enjoy Christ is to receive Christ into us; to bear fruit is to pass Christ on to others. Fruit-bearing involves a flow: Christ flowing in through our enjoyment of Him, and Christ flowing out through our fruit-bearing. All the brothers and sisters should bear the responsibility of bearing fruit. None of us has an excuse for failing to bear fruit. We should not say that we have no possibility of bearing fruit.

Forming a Nucleus

Although we have fellowshipped in the past concerning how to bear fruit, a number of saints may not be clear concerning this matter. Hence, I wish to pass on a few points that we should put into practice if we are to bear fruit. First, we need to form a nucleus with the saints to whom we are related. The reason we need a nucleus is that as branches, we cannot bear fruit individually. Trying to bear fruit individually is not effective. If we would bear fruit, we must do so corporately, and the first step in bearing fruit corporately is to form a nucleus.

Praying Together

Once we have formed the nucleus, the primary matter that we should attend to is prayer. It would be very good for the members of the nucleus to meet once a week simply to pray. Such meetings are very important. In principle, these gatherings are just as important as the meetings of the church.

After we have formed our nucleus and have begun to pray, we should list the names of our acquaintances. Our acquaintances include our relatives, classmates, friends, neighbors, and co-workers. Each member of the nucleus may have a list that contains dozens of names.

After composing our lists, each of us should pray over our list, seeking the Lord’s guidance so that we can select two or three people—four at the most—for whom we should begin to care. By seeking the Lord’s mind in this way, we will become clear concerning which persons are the right ones for us to care for at the present time. After we have the Lord’s leading concerning certain ones on our list, we should pray for them, contact them, and try to bring them into the nucleus.

Adding People to the Nucleus

Once we begin praying, we should not expect quick results. Only after praying and endeavoring for a period of time will we bear fruit. After we have prayed together for a period of two or three weeks, we should seek to bring those for whom we have prayed into our nucleus one by one (bringing more than one at a time is generally too difficult). From then on, whenever we meet with our nucleus, we should come with new ones. This is the easiest way for us to bring people to Christ. If we succeed in bringing those for whom we are praying into the nucleus, they will be gained for the Lord.

If we put these points into practice, it will be easy for people to be gained. Of course, there are other things that the nucleus can and will do, but they are not nearly as important as the things I have outlined above: forming the nucleus, praying together, and bringing our friends into the nucleus. By praying as a nucleus and inviting our friends to it, our friends will gradually be brought to Christ and into the church life.

The nucleus is like a little fishing boat, and the members of the nucleus are like hooks that can catch people and bring them into the nucleus. To bring our friends into the nucleus is to bring them ninety-five percent of the way to Christ, Eventually, it is through this nucleus that our friends will also be brought into the church life. If we try this, we will discover that each member of our nucleus will bear at least one fruit every six months.

(Collected Works of Witness Lee, 1967, vol. 2, “Enjoying the Lord in the Word to Bear Fruit”, ch. 2)