Death always goes with sin. Death is the issue of sin. Sin is the cause and death is the effect. Whenever we have sin, death is there. Death is the shortage of ability to fulfill God’s requirements according to His divine standard. God requires that we honor our parents. If we cannot honor our parents, that is death. In the eyes of God, death is with us because we cannot fulfill His requirements. The Lord also tells us, “You shall be holy, because I am holy” (1 Pet. 1:16). If we cannot be holy, this means that we are dead. God wants us to be diligent. If we are sloppy, this is death. God requires that we be watchful, but we may always be sleeping. This means that we are short of the ability to fulfill God’s requirements and that death is with us. God desires that we be careful persons, but we may be careless day after day. Many young brothers may seem to be living, but actually they are dead because they are short of the ability to fulfill God’s requirements according to His divine standard.
From 1920 through 1925, the Lord did something miraculous in China by saving a number of college and high school students. During that time a real change was taking place in China due to the young generation. Their concept was being revolutionized with the thought that man has to be free. The Chinese people had many teachings, customs, habits, traditions, and regulations. Young people in the early 1920s in China desired to abandon these regulations so that they could be free. In the 1920s in China a young person was required to rise up when an older person entered the room. A teenager did not have the freedom to say anything in the presence of his elders, and he could not sit down until they left his presence. It was under this kind of environment that we young people in China were saved by the Lord. Because of the desire to be free from regulations, some who were saved had the concept that Jesus never regulated others and that He was not under any regulations. To them real freedom meant no regulations. Actually, however, to have no regulations is looseness and death. By reading the Scriptures, we can see that the Lord Jesus was a very careful person. He was neither sloppy nor loose.
The Gospels give us a record of the Lord’s feeding five thousand people at one time (Matt. 14:14-21). These people were enjoying the Lord’s teaching, but the hour became late, and they became hungry. The disciples asked the Lord to dismiss the people so that they could go and get something to eat. But the Lord charged the disciples, “You give them something to eat” (Mark 6:37). The Gospels record the miracle of the Lord’s feeding five thousand with only five loaves and two fish, but we can also see that the Lord did everything in a very careful way and in a good order. The disciples presented the Lord Jesus with the loaves and the fish, and He told the disciples to have the people sit down in companies of hundreds and fifties (John 6:10; cf. Mark 6:39-40). This shows how orderly the Lord Jesus was. Before the people ate, He required that they sit down in an orderly way in companies.
After such a great miracle of feeding the five thousand, the Lord Jesus instructed the disciples to pick up what was left over of the bread and of the fish. Mark 6:43 tells us that the disciples “took up twelve baskets full of broken pieces and of the fish.” If we were there with the disciples, we probably would not care about the fragments of bread and of fish. But the Lord Jesus was not careless. When He was on this earth, He was so orderly and did everything in a careful way. God’s creation testifies of His orderliness. There is nothing chaotic about God’s creation, but everything is in order.
If we are sloppy, careless, or loose, this proves that we cannot fulfill God’s requirements according to His divine standard, so death is with us. We need to be saved in His life. We need His life so that we can be living, capable, and full of energy and ability to fulfill God’s requirements according to His divine standard. To be living does not mean that we are merely active or lively but that we are able to fulfill God’s requirements. It is good for us to say, “Hallelujah! Praise the Lord!” But suppose that God wants us to be quiet. If we cannot be quiet, that means that death is with us. If we are required to be at certain places on time and cannot be there on time, this is death. The shortage of ability to be on time means that death is with us. When the Lord tells us to jump and shout, we should be one with Him. When the Lord wants us to be quiet, we need to be quiet. Our being one with the Lord proves that we are full of life because we are full of the ability and capability to fulfill the Lord’s requirements. If we are short of the ability to fulfill God’s requirements, that is a strong proof that we are dead. How we all need to be saved in His life!
We need to have some fellowship with the Lord concerning our need to be saved in His life. In our daily life, do we have the ability to fulfill the Lord’s requirements? If we do not, we are short of life. A shortage of ability to fulfill the Lord’s requirements according to His divine standard means that we are short of life. It means that death is with us and that we need the Lord’s life to save us. Much more, we shall be saved in His life. To be saved is not a matter merely of being justified, forgiven by God, and saved from the lake of fire. We need to be saved from the shortage of ability to glorify Him, to please Him, and to fulfill His requirements. We need more life. We need life abundantly. We need to be saved in such a rich way. We need to bring the fellowship in this chapter to the Lord in prayer so that we can be saved in His life in our daily life.
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