In order to advance, a Christian must have a conscience without leaks. If a Christian’s conscience has leaks, it is like a car with a leaky engine. A Christian’s conscience must not have any leaks. Many people who have been saved may have a conscience that has never been whole but has always had leaks. Someone like this may have cheated someone else of a dollar before he was saved. Now as a saved one he has twenty dollars, yet he is still unwilling to return the dollar he stole. His sin has already been forgiven, yet the fact of sin, the scar of sin, is still there. The reason for this is not that there is no accusation within him but that his conscience is deflated. Therefore, when we lead others in dealing with the past, we must help them understand that this is not for them to “go to heaven” but for them to properly walk the path before them.
We also have to help the newly saved ones to consecrate themselves to God and to know that the meaning of consecration is not mainly to work for God but to be gained by God. God intends to do a great deal of work in us, but He requires our consent. We give Him our consent by consecrating ourselves to Him so that He may work freely in us. If we want to bring people before God in this way, it is not sufficient to merely have the doctrine. We must have the real experience and the real way.
We have to lead people to know that the Lord dwells in us as the Spirit and as life, causing us to have an inner sense concerning many matters. We must obey this sense, and we must also see that being a Christian is not an outward matter but an inward matter. As Christians, we behave ourselves not according to the outward letter but according to the living Person-the living God-within us. This living God within us gives us a sense. Therefore, we should live according to this inner sense.
At the same time we also need to help people learn to have fellowship with the Lord. The Lord in whom we believe and whom we serve is living. Furthermore, He lives in us and is with us in every place and at every time. Hence, we must always be in union with Him, approach Him, and enjoy Him.
In addition to the above four points, we also have to help the newly saved ones know through prayer that the One in whom they believe is the true and living God, and we must also help them experience Him in prayer.
In summary, we need to help and lead the newly saved ones in these five points: first, dealing with the past; second, consecration; third, obeying the sense of life; fourth, having fellowship with the Lord; and fifth, having a prayer life before God and learning to know God in prayer. When they learn these five points they can be considered to be advancing in life.
In addition to the above five points, we have to go a step further to practically help them to know that the Christ who is within them is their life and their light of life. Furthermore, we have to help them to know that although they were previously in Adam, they are now in Christ and have been united with Christ to be one with Him. Upon seeing this union, they will then realize that Christ is their life.
Today there are thousands and thousands of saved ones, but not many have experientially seen the fact of their position in Christ or of their union with Christ. Many people zealously love the Lord and preach the gospel. They also pray frequently, deal with their sins, and often obey the sense of life. However, very few truly know what their salvation means-that in Christ they have been united with Christ and that Christ today is in them to be their life and power, enabling them to be delivered from themselves, to deny themselves, to reject themselves, and thereby to live Christ. We need to know the Christ who is within us, to know that once we were in Adam but now we have been transferred into Christ and have Christ as our life. Therefore, we can reject ourselves and live in Christ.
The first step in leading people in the Christian experience is to lead them to salvation. Then we must help them to have the assurance of salvation, to deal with the past, to consecrate themselves, to obey the sense within, to have fellowship with God, and to pray. These are the initial experiences of a Christian. The second step is to help people see that they were originally in Adam but now have been transferred into Christ and that Christ is dwelling in them to be their life. With such a realization, a person will then be able to reject his self and live in Christ. Salvation is a Christian’s experience in the first stage whereas rejecting the self and living in Christ is his experience in the second stage.
From the book of Romans we see that the Christian experience begins when a sinner is saved and consummates when he is mature in life. The first stage of the Christian experience is salvation, and the second stage is being in Christ. In the church life today most of the believers are lingering in the first experience and have not yet entered into the second experience. They remain only in their consecration, their zeal, their limited fellowship with the Lord, and their limited prayer. We need to lead the brothers and sisters into the second experience of a Christian-being in Christ and realizing that to be in Christ is to experience His death and resurrection.
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