Daily Church Life

We need to come to the Bible daily and even hourly

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“Because the word in the Bible embodies God, Christ, the Spirit, and life, we Christians need to come to the Bible daily and even hourly. We should not take the excuse that we do not have time. Finding time to spend in the Word depends on our realization of its importance. We all find time to eat every day, no matter how sloppy, lazy, or loose we may be, because we realize that eating is a life necessity. If we do not eat, we will die. When we see that reading the Word is a life necessity, we will find time to do it.

We need to spend time in the Word every morning… Everyone can make it because life necessity teaches us. Contacting the Bible is much more important than keeping a job or eating breakfast. There is no excuse for not contacting the Lord through the Word every morning.”

(CWWL, 1978, vol. 3, “The Recovery of Christ as Everything in the Church,” ch. 7, p. 273)

Four crucial points

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“Concerning the spiritual and divine things for the church, we must keep in mind four crucial points. First, we must go through the cross. Our native flavor should be crossed out by Christ. Both the Americans and the Chinese should be crossed out. In the church there is room for no natural person, but Christ is all and in all (Col. 3: 11). On the cross both the Jews and the Gentiles were crossed out. Second, everything should be by the Spirit. Third, this is to dispense Christ to others. Fourth, everything is for the building up of the church. In other words, whatever we do should be through the cross and by the Spirit to dispense Christ to others for the building up of the church as the Body of Christ.”

(CWWL, 1994-1997, vol. 4, “The Divine and Mystical Realm,” p. 157)

What is the proper way to meet?

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“…In accord with the whole book of 1 Corinthians, the proper way for us as Christians to meet depends upon the proper living, the proper life. First Corinthians 14 is not the first chapter or the last chapter of this book. There are so many chapters preceding it, telling how Christ is everything to us and how we must exercise our spirit to enjoy and experience Him in so many ways. Following chapter 14, we still have two chapters, telling how Christ is the life-giving Spirit, how our spirit needs to be continually refreshed with Christ, and how we need to live, move, and do everything in love. If we are such persons, taking such a way to live day by day, we are qualified to meet together; then we have the right foundation, the right basis, for our meeting. Do not pick out a verse here and there in the book and speak about gifts, tongues, and healing, etc. That is not the message of 1 Corinthians. Where there are saints who mean business with the Lord, who have the real experience in their daily walk of taking Christ as their life, the meetings will be so proper and living. There is the life to support the meeting.

What is the proper way to meet?
(1) We must have the proper life. We must exercise our human spirit all the time to take Christ. We must be so accustomed to exercising our spirit. It is not just a matter of doing this in the meetings, but in our daily walk with our children, our husbands, our wives. We must forget about exercising our minds and turn rather to exercising our spirit. Then our spirit will be so strong, living, and aggressive. By taking Christ as our life and experiencing Him as everything day by day, we will have a spiritual savings account. We will continually deposit something of Christ into this account and have a rich surplus of our experience of Him. We will come to the meeting with a strong spirit and a rich surplus.

Then, (2) we only need to exercise our spirit to stand up in the meeting to function, to prophesy. It will be so spontaneous for us to do so; it will simply be an overflow of what we have been experiencing of Christ all day. There will be no strain; it will just be a continuation of our normal, daily experience of Christ. Whatever we do in the meeting will be living and rich with Christ in the spirit. Of course, it is also necessary in the meeting to drop all our old background. We must be delivered from the influence of thinking we are not capable of saying anything in the meetings, delivered from thinking we are not qualified, we are not committed with something from the Lord. No one else can function on our behalf in the meeting. We need to come to the meeting with a new concept, realizing that we are in something new, that we are out of the old Christianity. We need to come in a new and living way, accustomed to exercising our spirit, with Christ as our life and with a rich surplus of Christ. This is the way to meet.”

(How to Meet, pp.103-104)

The church meetings should be a continuation of our daily life

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“The church meetings should be a continuation of our daily life. We should sing and praise in our daily life and then continue our singing and praising in the meetings. But if we praise the Lord in the meetings without praising Him in our daily life, our meetings will be a performance, and we shall be actors. We should come to the meetings not to perform, but to express what we are in our daily life.”

(Life-Study of Exodus #58)

Open Letter from brother Andrew Yu (May 29, 2020)

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Download Open Letter from Brother Andrew (29_5_2020)

An open letter (Fellowship from Brother Andrew Yu on May 29, 2020). Translated from original in Chinese, not verified with speaker.

NOTE: An updated version of this letter is available at https://www.churchinalhambra.org/en/2020/05/31/br-andrew-yu-an-open-letter2020-5-29/. Reprinted here:

Dear brothers and sisters,

“The time of the Lord’s return is at hand. For this reason we are reevaluating many matters in the light of the judgment seat.”

The above quote is from “An Open Letter” in Issue No. 1 of The Present Testimony by Brother Watchman Nee published in January of 1928. Today, ninety-two years later, we are even closer to the time of the Lord’s return. Today, seeing all the things happening around us, we feel even more deeply that the time of the Lord’s return is closer than any of the previous ages. The instability of the world situation, the global spread of the pandemic, the panic in people’s hearts, the uncontrollable environment, and the economic crisis all indicate that this age is nearing a fundamental turning point. At this solemn moment, it should be a time for us to have a reevaluation. To reevaluate means that what was formerly the standard can no longer be the standard for today; what’s considered acceptable living can no longer be our living today; the former goals in our lives can no longer be our goals today; our former mode of valuation can no longer be the mode of valuation today; and our former ways can no longer be our ways today. Everything needs to be reevaluated in the light of the judgment seat. This means that everything needs to be reevaluated according to the Lord’s return and the consummation of the age. Our former church life, former services, and former ways of living all need to be reconsidered and reevaluated.

First we need to reevaluate our living. The Lord said, “Do not be anxious for tomorrow,” but “seek first His kingdom and His righteousness” (Matt. 6:33, 34). Do we trust in God in everything to live the life of the tent on the earth, having a living that is uprooted from the earth and storing up our treasures in heaven? Or are we still anxious for tomorrow? The young people are anxious for their employment after graduation, as well as their marriage and family. The middle-aged people are anxious for their career and their business performance for the next quarter or next year. The elderly people are anxious for their health, savings, and relationship with their children and grandchildren. We need to reevaluate. The apostles called people to be delivered from sins and turn to the Lord, but the Lord called people to be delivered from mammon to follow Him (Matt. 6:24). Many preach the gospel of prosperity, but the Lord preached the gospel of poverty. The age is coming to an end, and one of the signs of the Lord’s coming is that people are storing up treasures (James 5:3). The ten virgins are “going out of the world” to meet the bridegroom (Matt. 25:1, note 5). The harvest needs to be “dried of all the earthly water” (Rev. 14:15, note 2) to be ripe for reaping. Brother Lee, in his diary right before the great revival in Chefoo, wrote on December 23 of 1942: “We should not be concerned with what we will eat, what we will drink, or what we will be clothed with; this is what the worldly people seek. We should care only for God’s kingdom and His righteousness. The worldly people lack clothing and food because they care only for their own living and not for God’s kingdom and His righteousness” (CWWL Vol. 2, p. 28). A day earlier, he wrote: “How desolate is the situation on earth today! Even more desolate is the condition within man! How many hearts and souls have suffered to the extreme? How many souls are perishing every day? The church has lost her function…The church is like this because her consecration in the past was not thorough” (p. 27). On December 26, he wrote: “The reason we are quiet, have no aspiration to spread the Lord’s kingdom, have no power and courage to spread the Lord’s gospel, have no living faith, and are timid is all because we have not had a thorough consecration, have not stopped living for ourselves, and have not lived entirely for the Lord!…If we live entirely for the Lord like Peter on the day of Pentecost, we will also be able to say as Peter said, ‘In the name of Jesus Christ the Nazarene rise up and walk’ (Acts 3:6b). But to say this, we must also be able to say, ‘Silver and gold I do not possess’ (v. 6)!” (p. 29)

We need to reevaluate: does our living today have dispensational value? Do we, our person, have a dispensational significance before the Lord?

In order to have this kind of living, we need to be filled with the Spirit inwardly and outwardly every day (see The Way to Practice the Lord’s Present Move, ch. 2). If a balloon is not filled with air, it cannot ascend. Why do we need to have much and thorough prayer? It is for us to be filled both inwardly and outwardly. Why do we need to confess our sins and repent? It is because they are the requirements for us to be filled with the Spirit. Without a living that is daily filled with the Spirit both inwardly and outwardly, we cannot have a living that has dispensational value. In order for the virgins to meet the bridegroom, the requirement is that their vessels be filled with oil (Matt. 25:4). In order for us to redeem the time, we must be filled with the Spirit (Eph. 5:16, 18).

During these days, the more difficult the outward environment is, the stronger we feel inwardly that now is the time for God’s children to be uprooted from the world and to live the life of the tent. The benefit of migration is to cut off our old background and to learn to simply look to God to live a life of faith. The spreading of the kingdom is inextricably linked to being cut off from the world. The persecution in Acts 8 suddenly uprooted all the disciples and scattered them everywhere, which put the Lord’s command in chapter 1 into action. In order for the gospel of the kingdom to be preached to the whole inhabited earth, there is the need for some to live the kingdom life. For the Lord’s return to become real, man must “go out of the world” as the virgins did in Matthew 25. One hundred fifty years ago the gospel of grace was preached to China. One reason for that was that some in that age saw that the Lord might return in that generation and that the gospel needed to be preached to the whole world in that generation. Today, the gospel of the kingdom needs to be preached to the whole inhabited earth because the time of the Lord’s return is even closer. At this juncture, should we not reevaluate how we should spend our remaining days on the earth? Should we not cut off the old ties at this time to practically live the life of the tent, live for the gospel, and move for the Lord?

At this moment, we also need to reevaluate our church life. Whether the Lord is satisfied with our church life is one thing, we should first ask ourselves whether we are satisfied with our current church life. True, we have very good truths, and we also have a church life that we have been comfortable with for many years. However, what we need to reevaluate is whether or not this kind of church life can satisfy the Lord’s need, whether it can usher in the Lord’s return. In the church where we are, has the number of saints grown? Are the saints vital?

In 1992 and 1993, Brother Lee was deeply dissatisfied with the church life at that time, so he released the messages on the vital groups, hoping to produce the overcomers outside of the infrastructure of the church life at that time, who would be delivered from the three great enemies of death, lukewarmness, and barrenness. Unfortunately, although the messages were released, the practice has yet to be seen. In the past twenty-three years, although the church life in each locality has gone on steadily, they are still mainly composed of meetings and mainly carried out by way of asking people to come to the meetings, and what is treasured among us is still the great number of attendance. Please consider: in the light of the Lord’s return, shouldn’t this kind of church life be reevaluated?

Since the outbreak of the pandemic, the brothers and sisters have been limited physically. All physical meetings have stopped, and the saints can only communicate mostly over the internet in smaller settings. But in this process, many found out that brothers and sisters actually prefer this new mode of church life. Over the internet, everyone prays for one another, has mutual fellowship, and cares for the new ones. Everyone is able to function, and everyone practices begetting, nourishing, perfecting, and building in an organic way. This is actually the vital groups that Brother Lee talked about, which is for everyone to function and for everyone to serve as a priest. In this way, many new ones have been saved, and many who have not been meeting have been reconnected. In many localities, the number of people has increased, and many members of the Body have been enlivened. It turns out that this is the way for the Body of Christ to be built up. Of course, we are not saying that we should not resume the physical meetings after the pandemic. However, in light of this new situation brought in by the pandemic, isn’t it worthwhile for us to reevaluate our church life? Shouldn’t we turn more from “meeting” to “people,” from “coming” to “going,” and from “big” to “small”?

In the light of the Lord’s return, we should also reevaluate our service. The ultimate goal of our service is to perfect people. The work of the ministry is to perfect the saints unto the work of the ministry, unto the building up of the Body of Christ. Today our work is not to raise up a work but to raise up people. The effectiveness of our work today is not measured by how much work is done but how many people have been raised up. Strictly speaking, our work today is not to do the work but to distribute the work. Today the question is not how much we ourselves have done but how much others have done. The parable of the slaves in Matthew 25 reminds us that the question is not how much we have maintained but how much we have reproduced. The five- talented one perfected another five-talents, and the two-talented one perfected another two-talents. Thus, they received the Lord’s approval. But the one-talented one did not perfect anyone, and he was cast into the darkness. The Lord is coming to settle an account with each one of us.

Today in the light of the Lord’s return, we all need to reevaluate our service and see whether our service, in the light of the judgment seat, will be approved or not. The good and faithful slaves were not those who merely maintain their portions but those who reproduced themselves. The evil and slothful slave was not one who abandoned his service but one who did not reproduce himself. Whether in the church or in the vital groups, our duty is to perfect others unto the work of the ministry, unto the building up of the Body of Christ. We need to use all wisdom to perfect others. We need to use all those whom people regard as useless. We need to dig out all the one-talented ones from the earth, so that their talents are no longer buried in the world. The growth in life is gradual, but the trading of one’s talent is immediate (Matt. 25:16). In the light of the Lord’s return, we need to evaluate our service to see whether it is up to the Lord’s standard.

Lastly, in the light of the Lord’s return, we need to reevaluate our work. There are two basic questions: whether our work is of a maintenance nature or of a pioneering nature, and whether our work is static or dynamic. The pattern of the brothers who went before us is that they were always moving and progressing. At the outset of the Sino-Japanese War, Brother Nee founded the magazine called The Open Door. He reminded the co-workers that they should not merely try to cope with the environment; instead, they should preach the gospel everywhere to spread the Lord’s testimony. The co-workers should not stay in one place but should travel everywhere. Actually, the testimonies today in many places throughout Southeast Asia were all started at that time.

The Lord’s testimony has been on the island of Taiwan for over seventy years. From the beginning Brother Lee’s hope was that Taiwan would be a starting point where the Lord’s testimony would spread to the whole world. Today in this special time, should we not reevaluate the direction of our work? Actually, just in Taiwan alone, there are still quite a few cities and towns that do not have a church and require propagation there. The needs outside Taiwan are even greater. Now is not the time for us to stick to our own place. Now is the time for us to spread the gospel of the kingdom with a view of the whole earth. Should we allow ourselves to be stuck in one place till the Lord comes? If Abraham had not left his own land and his own country, God’s move on earth could not have begun. What the Bible gave us is not the biographies of the apostles but the acts of the apostles. Recently after the three rounds of 24-hour prayer and the 30-day global prayer, a brother in China saw lightning and heard voices of thunders in his prayer and immediately consecrated himself and migrated with his factory to a place in Southeast Asia where there is not yet a church. Is this a precursor of the Lord’s move?

May the Lord cause us to see the opportunity afforded to us today to cooperate with His move. At a time when the whole world is facing an unprecedented challenge, may we reevaluate our living, meetings, service, and work in the light of the Lord’s return.

Andrew Yu

May 29, 2020

(keyword: Zoom)

The church life is not for a good time; it is for something solid

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“Suppose the young people in a locality come together only to have a good time, playing the guitar, singing hymns, and releasing their spirit, but they do not spend time in the Word of God and are not exercised in the spiritual experiences. Several years may pass, yet nothing will be built up. Such a situation would be worse than the situation in denominational Christianity, for Christianity at least has seminaries to train some leaders. To only have a good time is a waste of time. We need to come to the church meetings to learn something, to be built up, and to be trained. This is worthwhile. We should mean business in the church life. The Lord’s testimony is the most important thing in our life today. Therefore, we need to spend our time, our energy, and even our being to be constituted for the Lord’s recovery.

I encourage all the saints to spend a solid time to enter into the solid things. We should not relax or only seek to have a good time. The church life is not for a good time; it is for something solid. We need to pick up this burden and go to the Lord. We should not use the excuse that we are weak. We are all weak, but He who is in us is strong. We do not have the energy in ourselves, but His grace is sufficient for us (2 Cor. 12:9). We all need to look to the Lord for His grace that we may come up to His standard. I hope that all the saints will legally spend time in the Word of God. If we all practice this, the church life will be healthy, strong, rich, and genuinely living. We all need to honor the headship of Christ, bear the truth, exercise ourselves unto godliness, take care of the healthy teaching, and study the Word. By spending time in the Word, we will be filled with the knowledge of the divine Word and will know how to conduct ourselves in the house of God.”

(Crucial Principles for the Christian Life and the Church Life, Chapter 8, Section 4)

The Lord’s life and His precious promises

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“In the last chapter we saw that the divine power of God has granted to us all things related to life and godliness and has also granted to us precious and exceedingly great promises. Hence, we should not worry for the needs of our daily life. Rather, we need to calm down our desire and concern, so that we can escape the corruption that is in the world through lust and be partakers of the divine nature, to enjoy God Himself. The tide of this age, the pressure of living, the bondage of human affection, plus our own lust, both inwardly and outwardly are seducing us, constraining us, in order to ensnare us into corruption through lust. But we have the Lord’s life and His promises. When we live by these, we can live peacefully and contentedly in the practical situation of our living. Our money and our time should also have proper arrangement and balance, affording help to man’s need and God’s business through proper means. Then we will have a living that really enjoys human life.

Only the life of Christ and His precious promises can cause us to live this kind of normal yet miraculous living. Through this we can save much money as well as time for prayer, fellowshipping with the Lord, enjoying the Lord in His Word, going out to preach the gospel to people by visiting them, and caring for the saints. I always bow my head to worship the Lord for what He has allotted to me. Due to His sovereign arrangement, He caused me to be born in a poor village and grow up in a poor home. From my youth, I learned to be hard working and enduring, endeavoring to move forward. Hence, I was also preserved. Afterwards in my studies, I came in contact with missionaries from whom I learned English and had more opportunity to know the Lord. After my graduation, the Lord caused my living to be not too poor nor too rich, but just right for serving the Lord. Because I knew English, I could know the Bible in a more convenient way, even making footnotes to the Bible, and expounding the truths. Nevertheless, I did not know English to the point that I could become an English professor or scholar. If I had pursued that, I would not have been able to concentrate on being the Lord’s worker. For the Lord’s sake, I have been in poverty, and I also have been in abundance. The Lord still caused me to be at peace. Speaking of earthly achievement, I do not possess anything today, and neither am I anything. I am just an ordinary person, preserved by the Lord and enjoying the genuine human life.

The Lord created and redeemed us, not for the purpose of making us someone special. What the Lord desires is that we live a proper and normal life, experiencing, enjoying, and expressing Him. The highest philosophy of human living is in the Bible. This kind of human life is normal yet miraculous because it is not something that we can live by ourselves, but God must enter into us to be our life in order for us to live out this kind of life. When the Lord Jesus was a man on the earth, He lived this kind of life. Before He came out to minister at the age of thirty, He was growing up in a despised city, in a carpenter’s home. The Bible does not record what He did or said; He was just there living. That God who created everything, including mankind, would become an ordinary and humble human being in the flesh, without anything outstanding is a real miracle.

I can testify in this way: the Lord Jesus lives within me as my life. I am very satisfied in my living today. I feel that I am enjoying human life the most. I go to bed, rise up, eat, and drink on time. Hence, I have no woes or sicknesses. By the Lord’s grace, I am already over eighty years old. I am still healthy. Not only can I take care of many business affairs, but I can also memorize the words of the Bible. I am speaking this word to you working ones so that you may know that our being able to live the church life on the earth is a most blessed matter. The church life is the most normal and miraculous living. Therefore, none of us saved ones may say that we do not have time to live the church life. If someone does not have time to live the church life, it is because he does not enjoy the Lord enough. As long as the Lord’s supply within us is adequate, our church life will surely be proper and satisfying, and time will not become a problem.

Although we saved ones live in the world, we should not belong to the world. We were saved and delivered from the worldly falsehood and deceit. In this current of the world, not only do we not join others in their evil, but we also are able to stand and become a pillar in the midst of the current. I hope that these words can help you so that you can be strengthened in the Lord’s grace. He has already granted to us all the supply. We should live in His living and stand on His promises, allowing His life and His promises to calm all the desires within us and remove all our demands. Then we can live our days in quietness and stability, living a normal church life, that we personally, our family, our relatives, and friends, and even the society may be blessed. This is what the Lord spoke in Matthew 5 when He said that we are the salt of the earth and the light of the world (vv. 13-14). We are salt because we can remove the corruption of the earth. We are light because we can enlighten the people in darkness. Nevertheless, any time we do not live the church life, we lose the taste and do not shine. Therefore, in order for us to maintain our status and function as salt and light, we must practice the church life in a good way.”

(Messages Given to the Working Saints, Chapter 4)

The Christian life should be a rejoicing life

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“In the book of Leviticus we also see how God trained His people to live a holy, clean, and rejoicing life. A holy life is a life which is like God, a godly life. Here we mention a clean life, not a pure life. To be pure is not to be mixed. To be clean is not to be dirty. We do not realize how dirty we human beings are. Leviticus tells us that even our birth is dirty (ch. 12) and that every little discharge out of us is dirty (ch. 15). We need to live a clean life, a life which is not dirty.

According to the Old Testament type, we have to contact God through the offerings of the bronze altar and through the laver. Paul told us that we are cleansed by the washing (lit., laver) of the water in the word (Eph. 5:26). In the word of Christ there is the water of life to cleanse us. This is typified by the laver situated between the altar and the tabernacle (Exo. 38:8; 40:7). The laver is the place where we wash away our earthly defilement and are made clean.

We also need to live a rejoicing life, a happy life. We all have to be “hallelujah people,” who rejoice in the Lord always (Phil. 4:4). Sometimes the most restful thing is to sing a hymn. Singing a hymn fills us with joy and helps us to enjoy Christ as our rest. The chorus of Hymns, #308 says: “This is my story, this is my song,/Praising my Savior all the day long.” A rejoicing life is a life of enjoying God in Christ as everything; this enjoyment makes us happy and causes us to exult all the day. The Christian life should be a rejoicing life.”

(The History of God in His Union with Man, p. 172)