Colossians 2:6 is a great word. Christ is the all-inclusive One who includes both God and man, yet we can walk in Him, for He is now the Spirit in our spirit. We need to forget about our ways, our doing, our striving, and our endeavoring. Instead, we simply need to walk in Christ. Some may ask, “What about the preaching of the gospel?” My answer is, “Walk in Him.” Most Christians think that in order to preach the gospel, they need to find a way. They think that during the week they can walk in the self and live by the self, even doing things such as gambling and going to night clubs, dancing parties, and movies. Then because they want to preach the gospel on Saturday, they seek for a way, such as playing rock music. Rather than life, Christianity seeks for a way. The Bible does not say that a certain kind of music is the way to preach the gospel; the Bible says to walk in Christ.
We need to walk in Christ every day of the week and every hour of the day. Walking in Christ should be our daily living. Seemingly, we may not preach the gospel, but our daily walking in Christ will spontaneously be a living testimony to our family, neighbors, classmates, colleagues, and friends. Everyone we know will see that we walk in Christ, that we have a different way of living from that of others. Outwardly, they may criticize us, despise us, and say that we are crazy, strange, or peculiar, but deep within they will admire and respect us because day after day they see that our living is different from that of the worldly people. Such a testimony will be our preaching of the gospel.
Eventually, the sovereign Lord will cause something to happen in the circumstances of one of our acquaintances. At that point the Holy Spirit will remind him of us. He will want to have a talk with us. We will visit him, and he will open up and eventually pray, “Lord Jesus, I am a sinner. I believe in You. Lord, come into my heart.” Thus, this person will be saved not by our energy, endeavoring, and striving but spontaneously through our living testimony. Perhaps within a year one person will be saved in this way; one fruit will be brought forth. After another twelve months another acquaintance may be saved through the Lord’s sovereign arrangement of his or her circumstances and the testimony of our daily living. If we continue in this way year after year, from the age of twenty to the age of eighty, at least sixty people will be brought to the Lord through us. Gradually, all our relatives will be brought to the Lord. This will produce a great increase in the church, and those who are brought to the Lord through our testimony will be remaining fruit. This is the way of life.
Not only in preaching the gospel but also in everything in the church life we do not have a way; we have only Christ. We do not need to know how to pray. If we walk in Christ, we will spontaneously pray throughout the day because we will be one with Christ. Christ is our way to pray. Similarly, we do not need to learn how to be humble. The humility that we learn will become our pride because we will think that we are more humble than those around us. The humility that we work out is not real humility. Real humility is Christ. If we daily walk in Christ, He will become our humility. Although we will be very humble, we will not have any consciousness of our humility. We will not have any sensation or feeling that we are being humble. Our sensation will only be that we are walking in Christ. This is the proper Christian life.
Recently, a brother asked me what the normal Christian life is. To go to movies and bars is certainly abnormal. The normal Christian life is simply to walk in Christ. Some may ask, “What should we do to avoid losing our temper?” The word temper is not in the “dictionary” of the Christian experience. In our dictionary there is only one word—Christ. Even the words love,humility, and kindness are not in our dictionary. The only word in our dictionary is Christ. Whenever we pick up a new word, it causes problems and gives us trouble. We should not try to be humble or loving. Husbands should not try to love their wives. The more a husband tries to love his wife, the more he will lose his patience with her. Likewise, wives should not try to be submissive to their husbands. The more they try, the more they will fail. Trying to exhibit Christian virtues does not work. We simply need to walk in Christ, who is the life-giving Spirit in our spirit (1 Cor. 15:45; 2 Tim. 4:22). We do not need to listen to any concepts or pick up any new words. The only word we need is Christ, and the only thing we need to do is to walk in Him. Whoever walks in Christ is blessed.
We should not try to do anything; we should only walk in Christ. We can walk in Christ by contacting Him, spending time in the Word, praying, pray-reading, and worshipping Him. All these practices help us to walk in Christ. Early in the morning, the first thing we should do after rising up is to contact the Lord, pray-read His Word, fellowship with Him, and pray by talking to Him. This will usher us into walking in Him. We should not pay attention to disturbances from within or distractions from without. We simply need to walk in Christ. When others come to us with a question or a problem, this may be a temptation from Satan, just as he tempted Eve in the garden of Eden. Whenever someone comes to me with a question, on the one hand, I listen to the question, but on the other hand, I walk in Christ. My answer may not be related to the question because I avoid Satan’s temptation and walk in Christ.
Wives often ask their husbands tempting questions. The husbands should not be quick to answer. If they answer, they will be caught. The more questions the wives ask, the more the husbands need to walk in Christ by walking in the spirit. It is not easy to refrain from answering, but if we answer quickly, we are not walking in Christ. We should not be distracted by anything. Regardless of what happens, we should still walk in Christ. This is the truth according to the Word and according to our experience. We all need to learn to walk in Christ, who is the life-giving Spirit in our spirit. We do not need any ways or activities. We need only one thing—to walk in Christ.
If all the saints practice daily to walk in Christ, our meetings will be enriched and uplifted because we will all be full of the experiences of Christ. Every morning we need to rise up early and immediately contact the Lord, pray, pray-read a few verses for nourishment, worship the Lord, talk to Him, and fellowship with Him. This will enable us to walk in Christ for the whole day. If we practice this, we will experience the Lord every day, and when we come to the meetings, we will come in Christ and with Christ—with the rich experiences of Christ. Whenever there is the need in a meeting of a certain aspect of the experience of Christ, we will immediately be able to share a testimony to meet that need because we will be rich in the experiences of Christ.
The key to the Christian life for the church life is to walk in Christ. If we walk in Christ, we will eventually be rooted in Him for growth in life and built up in Him for God’s building (Col. 2:7). The growth in life and the building up both depend on one thing, that is, our walking in Christ. When we walk in Christ, we grow and are built up. This is the normal Christian life. To be normal is simply to walk in Christ.