Among God’s children, there are two kinds of Christian life. One kind is filled with things, and the other kind is just Christ. Outwardly, both kinds look equally good. One cannot detect much of a difference between the two. One talks about humility; the other also talks about humility. One talks about meekness, and the other also talks about meekness. One talks about love, and the other also talks about love. One talks about forgiveness, and the other also talks about forgiveness. Outwardly, both are more or less the same. They appear to be the same. But with one, we just have a list of things, while with the other, we have Christ. In reality, the two are entirely different.
I would like to point out that when we have things, we do not need the cross anymore. With Christ, there is the need of the cross. The cross restricts us not only from sin, but from our own activity as well. The cross not only tells us that we should not sin, but forbids us from our own activities. The problem with God’s children is that they think everything is fine as long as they do something well. They have not seen that the good things are only things. God cares for Christ. Christ is the very good thing. He is the life. If He does not move, we cannot move. It is easy for us to say many comforting words to others. But if He has not said them, we should not, because once we do, we will touch death; we will be inwardly weakened and deflated, and we will collapse. We can help others in many ways. We can be very gentle, and others may consider us nice men. But when we act this way, something within us collapses, and we become weakened. Here we see the need of the cross. The many things we gain through good works do not require the cross. When we allow the Lord to live in us to be our everything, and when He becomes our things, we need the cross. When He does not move, we cannot move. We have to ask the Lord to deliver us from good and righteous acts as much as we ask Him to deliver us from sins. It is easy for us to ask God to deliver us from sins, because we have condemned sins already. But it is not easy to be delivered from the natural life, because many of us have not condemned the natural life in us. We have not seen the natural life, and we have not rejected it.
What does it mean for Christ to be our matters and things? What is the significance of having Christ as our matters and things? I think we can draw a good analogy from our physical body. Many people are very weak physically. They ask God to heal them. We find three kinds of results or three kinds of faith in this asking. Some people believe that God is their Healer. Others believe that God will give them health and heal them. But a third group believes that God is their healing.
How does a person pray when he has an illness? What does he seek after? He expects God to be his Healer. God is living, and he wants God to be his Healer, to touch him with His power, to be his Physician and demonstrate His healing power and healing ability. If this is the case, his God is as far from him as his doctor is from him. I wonder if you have heard what I said. This is a crucial word. Many people want God to be their Healer, but the distance between God and such people is as great as the distance between them and their earthly doctors.
Other people are a little bit better. They want God to heal them and give them health. Then one day God heals them, and they recover. Many people pray, make supplications, and expect healings. But why are they continually weak? There are still many weak ones among us today. Many people expect God to be their Healer or to heal them. But having God as the Healer and being healed are outward experiences; they are merely things.
What is the result of these experiences? Many times God is willing to heal us. I am not saying that God will not heal us. God can deal with little children this way. But many times, He will not deal with us this way. When we first believed in the Lord, God might have been willing to be our Healer, and He might have been willing to heal us. But after we have believed in Him for a while, He will put us in His hands, and He will educate us and teach us. Then God will no longer be our healer and will no longer heal us. God reserves the best for those whom He considers the best; He becomes healing to them. He does not give them healing, but becomes healing to them. He does not become the healing God to them; He becomes the living God who is healing to them. God is our healing. I do not know how to put this in any better way. I can only say this most reverently before the Lord, that Christ is our healing.
The trouble is that many people only see healing as a thing. They think that this is something apart from Christ and that everything is over after He has performed the healing. You may remember the story of the woman who touched Christ and how He felt the power go out from Him. The Bible says that He perceived that power had gone out from Him (Luke 8:46). I take the liberty to make this word more plain by saying that Christ Himself went out. He was not performing a healing. Rather, He was the healing. When He became the healing, men were healed.
We often may be weak and may still have physical ailments. But we can lift up our head and say to the Lord, “Lord, I do not expect You to be my Healer, only to go away after my sickness is gone. I do not expect You to heal me, and then find You gone even though the healing remains. Lord, I expect You to be my healing. It is true that You are my Healer, but I want You to be the Healer in me. It is true that You are my healing, but I want my healing to be something personified. My healing should be a person; it should be something personified. It is a person who becomes my health.” God becomes my health. Christ becomes my health. Is there a difference between being healed and knowing Christ as my healing? The difference is great! When I learned this lesson, I found that I not only possessed something called healing, but I possessed a person who has become life to my body. Once I saw this, all problems were solved, and I saw that my body has much to do with the Lord. When I have a problem with the Lord, my body immediately has a problem with Him. If He wants to put us through His test or do anything else to us, there is nothing that we can do to resist Him. Everything that we have depends on the Lord. We can only look to Him; we can do nothing. This is absolutely different from making healing a thing.
I thank the Lord for healing me many times. I can say that I was sick on a certain day of a certain month of a certain year, and God healed me on a certain day of a certain month of a certain year. I can tell you many stories about how I was healed at a certain hour of a certain day in a certain month and a certain year. I can count many cases of healing. But those healings were small healings. They were isolated things, and they can be counted. Whether there is one case, two cases, ten cases, or twenty cases, they can be counted. But I can also tell you another story, that at a certain hour of a certain day in a certain month and certain year, God opened my eyes to see that Christ is my healing. This is something that cannot be repeated; it is something that cannot be quantified. Once is enough. It is not a thing that can be counted. It is a person, a personified healing. My healing is a person who is in me as my healing all the time. Praise the Lord that this is a fact. Having God heal me and having Him as my healing are two entirely different things. One is a thing; the other is a person.
Paul was not healed, but he received the healing. Can we see the difference between these two? Paul showed in 2 Corinthians 12 that he was not healed (v. 9). He did not receive the thing which we call healing. But with Paul, we see One who was his healing continually. His weakness remained with him, but his healing also remained with him. His weakness was chronic, but his healing was abiding. What is a healing? To us, a healing is the removal of something. No, healing is not a removal; healing is acquiring something. Healing is not the removal of weakness but the presence of strength.
When I first saw this matter, the light came very slowly because my mind was filled with things; everything around me was a thing. I did not realize that the Lord wanted to be my thing, and I did not know that healing was not a thing. I only knew that the Lord promised me something; I did not know that the Lord wanted to be my healing. I only knew about the Lord’s promise; I did not know about the Lord as my healing. One day I read Paul’s story in 2 Corinthians. It was very strange to me. It would have been an easy thing for the Lord to grant him the healing. Removing the thorn was as easy for the Lord as a doctor removing germs. But why did the Lord not heal Paul? I prayed about this, and while I was praying, the Lord showed me one thing. In 1923 Brother Weigh invited me to preach at a certain place. In order to get there, I had to take a little boat along the Min River. The boats often became stuck to the riverbed because the water was too shallow and the rocks were big. The boat owner often had to tug the boat along. While I was praying, this scene suddenly appeared in my mind. I said, “God, it would be easy for You to remove the rocks. Would it not be wonderful if You removed the rocks, and the boat floated on the water instead?” I read 2 Corinthians 12 and realized that this was exactly how Paul prayed. The water was too shallow, and the rocks were exposed conspicuously; Paul prayed that God would remove the rocks so that he could sail on the water once again. But God answered by saying that He would not remove the rocks. Instead, He caused the water level to rise. When the water rises, the boat can pass over the rocks. This is what God is doing. Our problem and our prayer are that we are only for a thing—healing. But His answer is for Him to be our healing. When He is present, we can glide over our problems. Paul’s weakness was still there; he did not use his own strength to fight it. If he fought with his own strength, he could only say that his own strength had tabernacled over him. But it was the power of Christ which tabernacled over him (v. 9). It was God who was working. There is a basic difference here. One is God giving me a thing, and the other is God Himself becoming my thing. God in me becomes the thing that I need. God Himself is that very thing.