When I was a young Christian, I thought that God would bless us by giving us many good things since we had become His children. Some preachers promise people that if they believe in Jesus Christ, they will not only be saved but also receive many blessings. They may say that these blessings are outward happiness, peace, and joy. Many people believed in Jesus Christ for this reason. What human being does not want earthly blessings so that he can have happiness, peace, and joy? Many Christians, however, can testify that when they believed in the Lord Jesus, they did not have any outward peace in their environment. Some may have been promised that they would receive peace and joy after believing in the Lord Jesus. Instead, they may have lost their job, or they may have been in a car accident. The Christian life does not seem to be a life of outward blessings but of sufferings.
I have been a Christian for sixty-four years, since 1925. In the long period of my Christian life, I have suffered more than I have enjoyed outward peace and joy. Most of us can testify that in our Christian life there has been more suffering than outward peace and joy. When a couple gets married, this is a joyful time, but many can testify that in their marriage life they suffer more than they enjoy outward peace and joy. After getting married, many people later have the thought that they married the wrong person. The reason for this is because we suffer in our marriages. To have children is also a joyful matter. Our little children are precious to us, but those of us who have had children and who have watched our children grow into adulthood can testify that our children have brought us more suffering than joy. We may think that the Apostle Paul was blessed because he did not have a wife or children. Paul did not have children according to the flesh, but he had many spiritual children. He had more children than all of us. Second Corinthians reveals that Paul’s sufferings mainly came from his spiritual children.
When Brother Nee told us that 2 Corinthians could be considered as the autobiography of Paul, I thought I understood, but actually I did not understand. Gradually, I began to understand what Brother Nee told us. In God’s design all of us who are His chosen people have to go through sufferings. There is no exception to this because He wants us to be a new creation. He wants us to be transferred from the realm of the old creation into the realm of the new creation. This transfer is a process of suffering. You may think that you made a mistake in your choice of a partner in marriage, but regardless of how much wisdom you exercised in choosing a spouse, eventually your choice was a “mistake.” After hearing this fellowship, some who are not married may feel that it is better not to marry, but not to marry will bring us more sufferings. Then what shall we do? We have to be inwardly happy in our sufferings. The Apostle Paul said that he rejoiced in his sufferings (Col. 1:24) because he realized that all sufferings are the process to make us new.
The context of 2 Corinthians 4:16, which says that our inward man is being renewed day by day, shows us that this renewing takes place through sufferings. Paul called the sufferings that he passed through “the putting to death of Jesus.” In 4:10-11 Paul said, “Always bearing about in the body the putting to death of Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be manifested in our body. For we who live are always being delivered unto death for Jesus’ sake, that the life also of Jesus might be manifested in our mortal flesh.” According to the Greek, “the putting to death” is “the killing.” The killing of Jesus means that Jesus kills us, puts us to death, all the time. Putting to death here equals the cross. The putting to death of Jesus is the working of death, the working of the cross.
The Lord Jesus told His disciples that if they were going to follow Him they must take up their cross (Matt. 16:24). If we are going to follow the Lord, we must take up our cross and follow Him. Without taking up our cross, we cannot follow the Lord. Our young people may be looking forward to a promising, flourishing future, but Jesus never promised such a future. He told Peter to take up his cross and follow Him. Later He told Peter: “Truly, truly, I say to you, when you were younger, you girded yourself and walked where you wished; but when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will gird you and carry you where you do not wish to go. Now this He said, signifying by what kind of death he would glorify God. And when He had spoken this, He said to him, Follow Me!” (John 21:18-19). What the Lord wanted here was to prepare Peter to follow Him to death. The sufferings we pass through are a process to transfer us from the realm of the old creation to the new creation.
Paul, who was a pattern of a victorious, overcoming Christian, suffered much more than we do (Acts 9:16). He told us in 2 Corinthians 4:11 that he was always being delivered unto death. He was under the killing of the cross every day. He was dying every day so that he could be renewed every day. This is why Paul told us in 2 Corinthians 4:16 that we do not lose heart, we are not discouraged, and we are not disappointed. This is because “our momentary lightness of affliction works out for us, more and more surpassingly, an eternal weight of glory” (v. 17). The suffering that we pass through to be renewed does not compare with the glory of our being new. Actually, the Christian life is not a suffering life. The Christian life is a life of being renewed day by day. Still, this renewing is by suffering. God does not like to see His children suffering, but we have to go through the process of suffering.
We always dream about having a glorious church life. The chorus of a hymn in our hymnal begins this way—“Glorious church life” (Hymns,#1221). On the one hand, the church is glorious, but on the other hand, no church is glorious outwardly. None of the churches that Paul established were glorious outwardly. They all had problems. When I was a young Christian, I heard someone give a message saying that the best church was the church at Philippi. When I studied the book of Philippians, however, I saw that two sisters were dissenting from one another (4:2). There were also murmurings and reasonings among the Philippians. This is why Paul charged them to do all things without murmurings and reasonings (2:14). If we read Paul’s Epistles closely, we can see that the churches he established were not glorious according to our expectation.
When I came into the Lord’s recovery, I came with an expectation that everything would be glorious. I was called by the Lord to give up my job and serve Him full-time. I was brought by the Lord into the center of the work in Shanghai, and I began to see that every day suffering after suffering came to the leading one in the work, Brother Watchman Nee. He was a big “umbrella” that received all the persecution and attacks. Some saints who knew Brother Nee said that he never had one day of peace. He suffered his entire life.
The situation in the church life at times may seem very poor, but we should not lose heart because we are going through a process of renewing. When we pass through certain sicknesses, our physical body develops resistances to those sicknesses to make us stronger. We even learn how to take care of ourselves in a better way when we pass through physical illnesses. Many years ago I developed a stomach ulcer. I also contracted tuberculosis. That disease brought me very close to death. Through that disease, however, I became strong. After a person is sick for a certain time and he is healed, he becomes strong. Therefore, we should not lose heart. After the church has gone through much suffering, we should be assured that the church will be stronger.
In the work on mainland China when I was there, Brother Nee was the “umbrella,” so he became the target of the enemy’s attacks. Since the work began from the island of Taiwan and has spread to all the continents in these past thirty years, I have spontaneously become the “umbrella.” Since I have been the “umbrella,” all the arrows of the enemy have come to me. I must testify, however, that despite all these attacks I am stronger than ever. I work much more today than I did twenty years ago. I read through nearly every book that we put out. After being edited, the publications come to me so that I can read them. Just to read them takes much time, but often I have to labor more to make the writings satisfactory. In addition to this, I also hold many conferences and meetings, and this involves much travel. Some who are close to me are concerned about my working so much since I am over eighty years of age, but we all have to realize that we are destined to suffer so that we may be renewed.
Paul told the Thessalonians in 1 Thessalonians 3:3, “That no one be shaken by these afflictions; for you yourselves know that we are appointed for this.” Note 32 on this verse in the Recovery Version says: “God has destined, appointed, that we should pass through afflictions. Hence, afflictions are God’s allotted portion to us, and He set us, located us, in the situation of afflictions.” We have been appointed to sufferings. Madame Guyon said that she kissed the crosses that came to her, but I would not say that. I thank God for sufferings, but I would not say that I welcome them. However, I do not fight against the sufferings. The reason that I am calm in the midst of sufferings is because I realize that the real blessing is not outward peace and joy but the actual renewing in our Christian life.