The second item we need to exercise is to call on the name of the Lord. Calling is different from praying. Whereas to pray is to ask or tell something to the Lord, calling is simply to breathe. We may tell the Lord, “Lord Jesus, today I will go to Keelung. Please keep me and let there be good weather so that I can arrive smoothly.” This is to pray, to tell the Lord what we want. It is different from calling. Calling is to cry out with a loud voice, “Lord Jesus! Lord! O Lord, I need to go to Keelung. Lord, You know that I need good weather.” This is calling, not praying. The Lord is our breath of life. If we want to take Him in more and more, we need to take a deep breath. If we merely say in a common way, “Lord, today I need to go to Keelung. Please let there be good weather so that I can see my friend,” we have not breathed very much. However, if we cry out, “O Lord Jesus! O Lord, I need to go to Keelung. Lord, You know this,” we will take a deep breath. Medical reports tell us that the best key to good health is to breathe deeply. If you want to be healthy, you need to take deep breaths every day. In the same way, calling on the Lord not only makes our spirit strong but also makes us healthy.
When we lead people to salvation through door-knocking, we help those who have believed and received the Lord to pray. At first the new one may say in a low voice, “Lord Jesus, I am a sinner and should go to hell, but You love me and saved me.” This kind of prayer may give no sense of the spirit and no sense that he has received the Spirit. If we would rather lead him to cry out, “O Lord Jesus! O Lord Jesus! O Lord Jesus, I love You,” he will pray himself into the spirit. Yes, the first kind of prayer may be able to lead a person to salvation, because the Bible says, “Whoever calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved” (Rom. 10:13). This verse does not say whether one should call in a loud voice or in a low voice. It simply says that whoever calls shall be saved. According to our observation, however, a person may be saved without a strong experience of salvation. On the other hand, if he calls with us two or three times in a loud voice and says, “O Lord Jesus, I am really a sinner. O Lord, save me,” we will have the assurance inwardly that he has received the Spirit and is saved.
When we go door-knocking, we need to exercise our spirit so that when the door is opened to us, the very first word we utter will allow the spirit to come out. This does not mean that we need to cry out loudly, “I am from the church in Taipei!” This will not work. Rather, we all must have the habit of exercising the spirit so that when we simply talk to people, our spirit comes out.
A proper and simple way to exercise the spirit is by calling on the name of the Lord. Regardless of our age, we all have to exercise to call on the Lord. This may not be easy for the older ones, but it certainly should not be difficult for the young ones. Those who seldom call on the Lord in the meetings often go home judging people, reasoning about who called well, who did not call well, who called wildly, and who called gently. This often happened in our early years when many people felt that sitting properly was more important than calling. However, they did not realize that their sitting properly deadened the meeting. Just as to take a deep breath requires us to stretch our whole body, our spiritual health requires us to breathe deeply by always calling on the name of the Lord.
Certain Bible-teaching denominations tell people that once they enter the meeting, they must remain silent enough to hear a pin drop. As a result, those meetings are not able to enliven people. Rather, they kill people. The quietest place in the world is a cemetery. It is very orderly where the dead are buried. However, Christian meetings should not be dead. Rather, they should be filled with joyful singing and praising. Psalm 27:6 says, “I will offer in His tent / Sacrifices of shouts of joy.” This is the proper way to meet.
The third item that we should exercise is prayer. It is when we exercise our spirit and call on the name of the Lord that we can pray properly. When we pray, we must continue to exercise our spirit and exercise to call on the Lord. Someone may say that since he shares a room with others, his crying and shouting will not allow them to rest. Please remember that we can exercise our spirit, call on the Lord, and pray quietly. We can use a voice that others cannot hear, including our wife or roommate. In a voice that only we can hear, we can call and pray softly, “Lord! O Lord, I love You. Do remember Your church.”
Godliness is God lived out through us. However, we must exercise the above three items before we can live out God. First Timothy 3:16 says, “Great is the mystery of godliness: He who was manifested in the flesh.” Godliness is God manifested in the flesh. We are the flesh, and godliness is God manifested and lived out from us. Paul encouraged Timothy to exercise unto godliness more than to exercise his body. Many of us exercise the body more than godliness. In our living, we must exercise unto godliness according to Paul’s charge.
The fifth item of exercise is to lay hold on the eternal life. This follows the above four items. Once we exercise to live out God, we will be able to lay hold on the eternal life, which is the life of God, God Himself. If we want to live out God, we must live by the life of God within us. If we live by ourselves, what we live out will definitely not be God, but if we live by the life of God, what we live out will be God. In 1 Timothy 6:12 Paul says, “Fight the good fight of the faith; lay hold on the eternal life...and have confessed the good confession before many witnesses.” This verse mentions two matters, to fight the good fight and to confess the good confession. To fight the good fight is to go against today’s situation, to go against the fashion of the age. According to the situation today, both Christians and non-Christians do not live by the eternal life of God, nor do they know what the eternal life is. People in the world think that this refers to everlasting life, the everlasting blessing that they will enjoy when they go to heaven. They do not know that eternal life is a life by which men should live today. The Lord has raised us up in order to bear this witness and fight the good fight of the faith.
When Christ was on the earth, the Pharisees and Sadducees hated Him because He fought the good fight against them. The Lord fought with them by laying hold on the eternal life. What He fought for was the testimony that God was being lived out on earth. Likewise, Christians on the earth today should also live out God by His life. This is our testimony.