Question: Is walking in Christ related to contacting the Lord through the Word?
Answer: Yes, in order to walk in Christ, we surely need to come to the Word daily, even a few times a day, because Christ is embodied in the word of the Bible. I never knew a Christian who walked in Christ without daily contacting the Word.
We need to see this truth for the church life. The proper church life is not a matter of certain concepts or opinions about how and where we should meet. The church is a lampstand (Rev. 1:11-12, 20). The way and the place where we meet make no difference. As long as the lampstand is shining, regardless of where it is placed, it still shines. However, if it is not shining, it is in darkness wherever it is placed. As the Spirit, Christ is the oil within the lamp, and His expression is the light shining out of the lamp. Having the proper church life depends entirely upon how much Christ we have—how much oil we have and how much light we shine out. Therefore, we must live and walk in Him all the time by contacting Him through the Word.
Question: I have a time with the Lord in the Word in the morning, but I lose my contact with the Lord as the day goes on. Is there a way to stay in contact with the Lord for the whole day?
Answer: Yes, there is surely a way to remain in contact with the Lord throughout the day. Whenever we lose our contact with the Lord, we need to regain it. We may contact the Lord in the morning and receive something of Him. If after ten minutes we lose our contact with the Lord, we need to immediately pray to contact Him again.
There are two kinds of prayer. One kind is prayer at set times. This kind of prayer is for spiritual drinking. The other kind of prayer is unceasing prayer. First Thessalonians 5:17 says, “Unceasingly pray.” Unceasing prayer is spiritual breathing. Physically, we need to drink a few times a day, but we must breathe unceasingly. Spiritually, it is the same. In the morning we should have a set time to pray to the Lord for at least ten minutes. We can touch the Lord during this time by drinking prayers, and then we can maintain our contact with Him throughout the day by breathing prayers. This is the way.
Just as man cannot live physically without unceasing breathing, as believers, we cannot live without unceasing prayer. We need to breathe the Lord all day long. We should not think that because we know many things or because we have been in the church life for many years, we are safe and do not need to pray. If we do not pray, we are not breathing and are dying spiritually. Many Christians think that they know everything and therefore do not need to pray. However, regardless of how much we know or how much we have experienced, we still need to pray all the time.
Question: Do we need to have a topic or subject to pray about in our breathing prayer?
Answer: No. Actually, even in the drinking prayer it is better not to begin with a subject. Coming to pray with any subject frustrates our ability to pray properly. In order to pray properly, we simply need to go to the Lord to contact Him and allow Him to initiate what we pray about.
Question: Could you please give an example of unceasing prayer?
Answer: As we are doing a task at our job, we can pray, “Lord Jesus, be with me.” This kind of prayer rises spontaneously from within us. Although we may be quite busy, and there may be many people around us, we can still contact the Lord. We need to practice this. We need to be ready at any time to say a word to the Lord. If we are typing, we can say, “Lord, I need You in my typing.” We need to learn to pray in this way in everything. We should not trust in ourselves to do anything apart from the Lord. Even in what we know how to do, we still should not trust in ourselves. Whatever we do, we need to trust in the Lord. This is constant, unceasing prayer.
Question: In my set times of prayer, after a few minutes I run out of things to pray for. Do you have any suggestions?
Answer: The best thing to do is to pray-read some verses, making the verses our prayer. We will never be short of words to pray, because the Bible is our living prayer book. George Müller said that he needed the Bible to instigate his prayer. After a few minutes of contacting the Lord by pray-reading, we may enter into the spirit of prayer and receive a burden to pray for certain things. Then we may pray for half an hour or more if we have the time. This is the way we can have a set time of prayer for a longer time. Regularly, we may have only ten minutes of prayer. It is difficult to enter into a real burden in such a short time. It is best not to try to compose anything but rather to simply use the words of the Bible for the words of our prayer.
Question: Can we also use the words of the hymns for prayer?
Answer: To pray according to the hymns is also a help, but the best way is to pray the verses of the Bible. To pray the words of the Bible is much better than to pray the words of the hymns.
Question: Since the proper church meeting is an exhibition of the Christ we experience, if we have failed to live Christ during our daily life, should we still come to the meeting?
Answer: Even if we have failed to live Christ, we still need to come to the meeting. In the meeting we can have a good prayer of confession. We may even publicly confess our failure to the Lord and ask Him to cleanse us with His blood. Such a confessing prayer is living and will lead many others into the realization of their wrongdoings. If we take the lead to confess, many others may follow us to make confessions. This is the proper way to come to the meeting. We need to come to the meeting in a genuine way, not performing or pretending. If we are sorrowful after quarreling with a brother or sister, when we come to the meeting, we need to forget about our tears and say, “Lord, forgive me. I suffered a defeat.” This is genuine. If we are defeated, we should not perform by shouting, “Praise the Lord! Hallelujah! Amen! Jesus is Victor!” Yes, Jesus is Victor, but we are defeated. As a defeated one, we need to be genuine to confess our defeat. This will bring the meeting into life.
Question: I have trouble entering into the prayer in the corporate prayer meetings because I find it difficult to follow along with what everyone else is praying. What should I do?
Answer: We do not need to be legal in trying to follow along with others in corporate prayer meetings. We should simply express whatever is on our heart. A new believer may not know how to cooperate with others’ prayers. This is not a problem. He will gradually learn how to cooperate as he participates in the corporate prayer. He will learn by doing. In the meantime, he should not be frustrated; he should continue to participate.
Question: When I come to the Lord in prayer in an open way without any subject, it seems that my prayer is often weak and directionless. As a result, I fall under condemnation. What should I do?
Answer: Our feelings are like the weather. It is difficult to know when the weather will be cloudy, when it will be clear, when it will snow, or when it will rain. However, students, businessmen, and housewives do not depend on the weather in doing their work. A housewife may say, “Dear weather, if you like to be cloudy, that is your business. My business is to cook food for my children. When you are clear, I will cook. When you are cloudy, I will still cook.” If a business manager works only when it is not raining, he is not managing but being managed. Just as these people are not managed by the weather, we should not be managed by our feelings. We are strange people—in the morning we may be so happy that we feel like we are in the third heaven, but for no apparent reason, ten minutes later we may be so low that we feel like we are in hell. We never know how we will feel. Moreover, our feelings are unreliable. When we feel good, things may actually be bad, and when we feel bad, things may actually be good. We do not know when things are truly good or bad; only the Lord knows. Therefore, we need to learn to forget about our feelings. We should not be affected by a clear sky or by a cloudy sky. We need to learn to contact the Lord regardless of the kind of feelings we have.
This matter is especially difficult for young Christians. When I was young, I also had a difficult time with this. However, now I have neither cloudy weather nor clear weather. Every day is about the same. When the saints are happy in the meeting and receive my message, I am happy, but when they drop their countenance, I am still happy. It makes no difference. In a recent training some negative things were said about my speaking. Some dear saints who heard these things were very concerned for me. They thought that I would surely be affected and that my spirit would not be released in the remaining messages. Eventually, however, they saw that my spirit was fully released. We should not care for the weather, the unreliable, changeable condition of things. We simply need to do our duty to contact the Lord each morning by ten minutes of pray-reading and five minutes of prayer.
Question: Do negative feelings within us insulate us from contacting the Lord?
Answer: Our feelings never insulate us from the Lord. What may insulate us is something negative, such as a sin that we have not confessed to the Lord.