In order to deal with difficult situations in the home meeting, we first need to be respectable persons, persons highly regarded by others. Even though the host of a home meeting may be a successful, famous, retired person over sixty years old, when we go to his home to lead the home meeting, we need to have his high appraisal as we stand or sit before him. We must be persons with weight and dignity. Even before we speak, by our expression, appearance, and posture, people may realize that we are persons with weight. This cannot be purchased with money or gained in a day. This takes a long time to cultivate.
We should be respectable before men. Where does this weight come from? Our weight comes first from life and second from the truth. If we grow in life and pursue the truth every day, year after year, little by little the element of life within us will increase spontaneously, and so also will the element of the truth. Thus, we become persons with weight and gravity. According to the Bible, life is the Lord Himself, and the truth is also the Lord Himself. Therefore, our weight is the Lord Himself. He is adding Himself into us more and more continuously. The addition of life and the truth is the addition of the Lord Himself. When people look at us, whether in our speaking or conduct, they will not find us light because there is weight within us.
Such a weight comes from the Holy Spirit’s changing in us and His gradual growth in us since our salvation. If you young ones go home weekly or monthly, your parents will be very happy to see that you have such a change and growth. They will not think that you are pretending, because you live out such a life spontaneously. This is like our saying, “Sincerity within is expressed without.” Since we have been saved, day after day we have been growing in life. Thus a weight increases within us that the people around us can perceive.
Home meetings require skills, such as how to study Life Lessons, how to read the Scriptures, how to sing hymns, and how to speak. All these are skills and are necessary. However, these are still not primary. The most important thing is whether or not we have a spontaneous outflow of weight and gravity before others. Once others see us, they will find us to be weighty persons. This is not by pretense but is spontaneous. Your manner of speech is spontaneous, and out of this spontaneity there is something weighty. Such a weight is not from without but from within, which is the Lord Himself who has been added into us.
For this purpose, we need to pray and be filled with the Holy Spirit. This Holy Spirit is the Lord. To be filled with the Holy Spirit is to be filled with the weight of the Lord. We all know that it takes time for life to grow. Growth cannot be attained instantly. It does not take much time to produce artificial flowers. A thousand pots of artificial flowers can be produced overnight. Yet after you have sown the seeds of real flowers, they still need two to three months of watering and fertilizing before they can grow. Therefore, all the activities in our church life must be the addition of weight within us. This weight and gravity are very useful in the home meetings.
Even a robber shows respect to a weighty person. Once there was an elderly sister, a Norwegian missionary, who took a boat from Shanghai to Tientsin in the north. On the way the boat came across pirates who were armed with swords and spears to rob the boat. When the owner of the boat and the captain were captured, the pirates took control and gave the orders. However, it was very strange that when those pirates saw the elderly sister, they all showed respect to her because she was filled with the weight of life in the Lord. Eventually, this Norwegian missionary became the “commander-in-chief,” and all the pirates listened to her. This was because she was a weighty person. Even just standing there, she was full of weight, which made the pirates respect her and listen to her.
This is the most important thing we must have when we go to practice the home meetings. Being young is not a hindrance; some people are light even though they are older. Whether we are young or old, once we go to practice the home meetings, the first thing we need to remember is that we must be weighty and that this weight needs to increase daily. We must pursue and learn in life and accept all kinds of dealing, restriction, and discipline. By learning in life, being freed from the habits in our behavior, breaking away from the influence of others, exercising to pray more and more, and allowing the Lord to fill us, we will become weighty over time.