To enter in the good land is not for individuals but for a corporate body

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“We can never possess the all-inclusive Christ by ourselves as individuals. Absolutely not! Brothers and sisters, let us not dream. Such dreams can never be realized. This is the business of the Body; it is to be apprehended with all saints. Christ is too great; His spaciousness is unlimited and His riches are unsearchable. This principle is firmly established by the Lord: to enter in and take possession of the good land is not for individuals but for a corporate body. The Lord never asked the children of Israel one by one to gradually, singly, and individually cross the Jordan and enter the land. It was never God’s mind that one should enter this month, another next month, and still another the following month. This is impossible and contrary to the divine principle. It must be possessed by a corporate body; it must be entered corporately, not individually.”

(The All-Inclusive Christ, chapter 8)

Hymns #279: Through the Cross O Lord I pray

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“A stanza of a hymn in our hymnal says:

‘When we see the ripened harvest
Of the golden countryside,
We may know that many seeds have
Fallen to the earth and died.’

Before there can be a harvest, many grains need to fall into the earth and die. But who is willing to die? Instead of dying, nearly everyone wants to receive glory. Thus, no life is imparted into others. It is easy to have a crowd, but difficult to impart life into others. To do this, we need to die. This is my burden in this message. In the Lord’s recovery we do not need a crowd; we need the death that releases life. We need to experience this aspect of Christ’s death.”

(The Experience of Christ, chapter 18)

Excerpts from “Twelve Baskets Full” by Watchman Nee

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“Sin yields sorrow; salvation yields peace and joy.

If you love the Lord Jesus, you should tell Him.

God says He will bless us when we obey Him.

To have fellowship with the Lord Jesus is far more important than to work for Him.

May every morning become your life’s new beginning.

The Bible was given to us as a teacher for this present age. Have you read it?

For the continuous growth of life in Christ, you need ceaseless prayer.

God says, “I will keep thee.” Faith answers, “Lord! I thank You because You surely will keep me.”

If God puts the tears of His people in a bottle, how could He not listen to their prayers?

The mercy of God, the love of Christ, and the coming glory are all calling God’s children to offer their lives.

To have a true walk with God just one time can cause your heart to marvel and worship more than a hundred years of walking on this earth by natural sight. Your duty is to be at rest in God’s hand under whatever circumstances there may be.

God reveals Himself when we are in need (Exo. 15:22-26). When we consider ourselves to be strong, we rely on our own strength, resulting in spiritual weakness. When we know how useless we are and thus rely on His strength, we are strong.

Difficulties provide the atmosphere for miracles and are the initial step to miracles. If there is to be a great miracle, what is encountered must not only be something hard, but something absolutely impossible to overcome. Whether the Lord has spoken or not, we can fully trust in a Savior who is without worry or fear.

If God leads you to walk a way that you know, it will not benefit you as much as if He would lead you to take the way that you do not know. This forces you to have hundreds and thousands of conversations with Him, resulting in a journey that is an everlasting memorial between you and Him.

Your Leader will lead you to walk an untrodden way, to go down a path you never dreamed of. He is afraid of nothing, and He wishes you to be afraid of nothing also. He is with you. In desperate situations it is His joy to see His children grasping His hands.

…

It is abnormal for a saint to seek worldly glories. Those who love the Lord do not wish to be great in this world. Among the saints in the church of God, however, many still crave for a high position and to be called Rabbi. The crisis with the saints is not in the world but in the church!

How wise is the Lord! He told us to call each other only brother and to use no other title. It is regrettable that many, even among the brothers, want to be a great brother! If we have not allowed the Holy Spirit to work the Spirit of the cross in us, we cannot avoid a wicked heart to pursue a name.

Many consider that the world is in the world, without realizing that the world is also in the church and in the hearts of the saints! Unless one is truly dead to the world, it is hard to rid oneself of this kind of heart. Only those saints who have truly died with the Lord on the cross can be dead to the world in the church and in their hearts.”

What is the best way to preach the gospel?

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“We have to encourage all the saints, no matter what their situation, to open their homes for the gospel. We even have to motivate the saints who are weak and the saints who have not been meeting for a long time to open their homes…This will not only recover those saints who have not been meeting for a long time but will also cause their unsaved family members, friends, neighbors, classmates, and colleagues to be saved through hearing and believing the gospel…This is the best way to preach the gospel. I hope that from now on, every saint would open his home for the preaching of the gospel, and every saint’s home would be a gospel station for the preaching of the gospel once a week or at least once every two weeks.”

(Truth, Life, the Church, and the Gospel—The Four Great Pillars in the Lord’s Recovery, Chapter 10)

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)

Whether or not the church goes on depends more on the sisters than on the brothers

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“I say this not to belittle anyone. We respect all the mothers. Humanly, they are the source of mankind, and in the Bible they are admired and uplifted as the mothers of the children of God, the Lord’s people, the saints (Rom. 16:13). Whether or not the church goes on depends more on the sisters than on the brothers. As long as the sisters are in a healthy spiritual condition, the church will go on very well. However, if the sisters are not healthy, there will be problems in the church no matter how strong the brothers are. The sisters are a crucial factor in the church life.”

(CWWL, 1975-1976, vol. 1, “The Crucial Function of the Sisters in the Church Life,” pp. 129- 130, as cited on the Sisters Training website)

Genuine spiritual life grows in desolate circumstances

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“Genuine spiritual life grows in desolate circumstances. We should not expect to always receive light when we read the Bible, to have the Lord’s presence when we pray, to save many sinners, or that our wife, husband, children, parents, and siblings will be spiritual. These expectations are unrealistic. Those who are genuinely spiritual pitch their tent between Bethel and Ai. God does not allow us to be free of desolate situations, that is, to become a monk or an ascetic, nor does He want us to become mystics. God desires that we remain in the status in which we were called (1 Cor. 7:20). Those who have a wife, a husband, children, or a family should remain where they are. They should learn to labor and work with their hands. If we can be normal human beings in our troublesome, complicated, and fallen situations, then we will have the genuine exercise of spirituality. Living between Bethel and Ai should be our normal experience.

We all want the church in our locality to be spiritual, free from problems, full of harmony and God’s presence, and in a glorious situation. However, no matter how much we try to maintain the situation, a storm may come, there will be discord, or the flesh surfaces. In other words, Ai always accompanies Bethel. Like Abraham who followed God, we must pass between Bethel and Ai. We will see God’s house on one side but a heap of ruins on the other side. No matter how we pray or labor, we should be prepared for desolate situations. The church may be Bethel today but Ai tomorrow. This is a picture of our true situation.

Our outward circumstances in coordination with the operation of God give us the opportunity to develop a genuine spiritual life. We should not expect to be in a situation that is heavenly and without any problems. God did not create us to be human beings in heaven. He ordained that we be human beings on the earth. His desire for us to be genuinely spiritual does not mean that we should break away from human relationships. Rather, we need to live and conduct ourselves properly in these relationships.

No matter how much we grow in life and no matter how many visions we see, there will always be a feeling of desolation in us, because we live on the earth, remain in our old man, and have the flesh. As long as we are on the earth, our circumstances will give us a sense of desolation, a sense of Ai. We are in between Bethel and Ai, and we seek progress. On the one hand, we have a sense of desolation, but on the other hand, we are in the house of God and have the presence of God. On the one hand, we are not satisfied with the ministry of the word, but on the other hand, we receive grace and are supplied. We have weaknesses and desolation, but we also have the Lord’s blessing. We must leave our spiritual longings and learn to experience God in our desolate situations so that we may have genuine growth in life.”

(The Suffiency, Pursuit and Learning of the Lord’s Serving Ones, Chapter 2)

We should call hymns by following the flow and atmosphere of the meeting

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“We need to learn how to enter into the particular atmosphere of each Lord’s table meeting and stay on one line. Once the meeting begins, we should sense the atmosphere and follow it. We should not have more than one beginning by trying to change the atmosphere or direction of a Lord’s table meeting well after it has begun. There should be a smooth transition from one hymn to the next. We should not take this word in a legal way, but we need to exercise our spirit and our mind with its function of understanding to recognize, enter into, discern, and taste the flavor and atmosphere of a meeting. This requires learning.

We should not call hymns and offer praises in a [Lord’s] table meeting according to our personal feeling but should follow the corporate flow and atmosphere. In a particular Lord’s table meeting, someone may call Hymns, #86, which is not high but is deep and tender. This hymn praises the Lord for His human living. Many Christians do not know how to enter into the feeling of such a hymn because they do not know how to appreciate and praise the Lord for His human living. There will be a lack of continuation if soon after we sing this hymn in a Lord’s table meeting, someone calls a hymn such as Hymns, #142, which begins, “Crown Him with many crowns.” After a hymn has been called, we should spend some time to taste and digest the hymn. At least four or five prayers of praise are needed to digest most hymns. The dishes in a feast are not served in rapid sequence; instead, there is time between each dish for enjoyment. To call a hymn with a different feeling soon after another one has been sung is to not sense the atmosphere but only take care of one’s personal feeling. Our hymn calling should build up a proper spirit of remembering the Lord in His presence. We all need to learn, but no one should be discouraged or take this fellowship as a legal regulation.”

(CWWL, vol. 1, 1979, Fellowship During Various Lord’s Day Meetings, ch. 5)

Singing hymns frees us from our soul

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“The best way to exercise the spirit is first to pray and second to sing. Hymn singing is very effective in freeing people from the soul. It causes them to forget the soul. Before you go to preach the gospel, it is best to sing one or two gospel hymns. When you sing or pray, your spirit will be strengthened. ”

(Messages in Preparation for the Spread of the Gospel, p. 37)