The purpose of the messages in this series is to train us to be proper Christians and even proper human beings. We must grasp and treasure our current opportunity and redeem the time to be trained and built up. Many students may attend the same school, and even the same class, and may even have the same professor. However, the outcome of their schooling depends on the students’ labor.
In order to be proper Christians we must firstly be built up with the divine truths, the scriptural knowledge in the divine way. We must also be built up with the divine life, the life of God, which is God Himself in His divine Trinity and in His processes. We have to know Him, experience Him, and enjoy Him. If we know Him, experience Him, and enjoy Him, we will possess Him and be able to minister Him to the lost world. Lastly, we must know the church and be brought into the proper practice of the church life. We have passed through many turmoils in the church, but we are still here. On the one hand, this is because of the Lord’s mercy and grace. On the other hand, it is because of the proper knowledge of the truth concerning the church as the Body of Christ and the truth concerning the proper practice of the church life. This proper knowledge has preserved many of us.
We must be built up as proper human beings. This is a matter of our character, that is, our behavior and habit. A person who has been properly built up is a right person with a right character. Today, many young people have been damaged with respect to their character. It is because of this that we have a children’s work for the children. We need to build up our children’s character. From their youth they must learn to honor their parents, love their brothers and sisters, and respect others. We do not need to give the young ones too much knowledge of the Bible. We should rather build them up with the proper ethics and morality that will constitute a proper character. Many people today are short of such a proper training.
In our sleeping, in our rising up, in our dressing, and in every detail of our life we should be very strict to be built up in a good character. We must be punctual and learn to take care of even the small matters in a proper way. We must be strict in our speaking. We have to learn what to say when we talk to others; we should not be free and loose to express ourselves. Every matter related to our life should be in order.
It is a blessing for young people to be under authority. It is a shame that ambition, the desire to be over others, still exists in the church life. Nearly all the turmoils in the Lord’s recovery are due to ambition. If the “gopher” of ambition could be killed, there would be no further turmoils. It is ugly for one to consider that since he is older than others, he cannot be under them. Regardless of who we are or how old we are, we must learn to be under others. When we are under someone, we should learn to check with them before we do certain things. In turn, those who are over us will be instructed by those who are over them. In this way we will all learn something. We should not consider that we are so free to do as we please. If we do not keep the order among us, we will be in chaos.
Since my youth I have always been under someone. In this way I have learned much and received help. I was in the Lord’s ministry with Brother Nee for eighteen years. During this time I never did anything by myself. I always put myself under him. I will never regret this. Rather, I worship the Lord that I was under him. Brother Nee was only two years older than I. However, I always treated him as a father, and I received much help from him. It is difficult for those who are rebellious to learn anything. Rebellion robs people of the opportunities to learn. No child can learn anything if he is rebellious against his parents. Likewise, a student who rebels against his teacher in school will have difficulty learning his lessons. Every student must please his teacher that his teacher may be happy to teach him. Nothing is so blessed as submission. We must learn to submit ourselves to someone else according to God’s arrangement.
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