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Seeking to Be Filled with the Spirit
Inwardly and Outwardly

First, we have to pray that we may be blended with others in love. Second, we must seek after the Spirit. We should pray continually, “Lord, fill me up. Transfuse Yourself as the Spirit into my being, my constitution, and pour out Yourself as the Spirit of power upon me.” We have to pray every day. This should be our practice until the Lord comes back.

Praying Unceasingly by Exercising
Our Spirit to Redeem the Time

Third, we have to pray unceasingly (1 Thes. 5:17) by exercising our spirit (1 Tim. 4:7) to redeem the time (Eph. 5:16). We need to practice this every day. A sister who is a housewife can pray while she is cooking or washing the dishes. This is to pray unceasingly.

We need to watch unto prayer because we are in a warfare every day. A mother may lose her temper with her children, but even if she would confess her defeat to the Lord, it is not a good model. The children may receive an impression that they cannot forget. Thus, they are offended, and the mother is a defeat before Satan. Daily our Christian life is a warfare. We are not fighting against blood and flesh but against the principalities, powers, and rulers in the heavenlies (Eph 6:12). Satan and his subordinates are observing what kind of life we live. They are watching to see how a sister treats her children and deals with her husband. This is why we need to pray all the time.

The unique way that we can release our spirit is to pray. We should not pray in our habitual, natural, repetitious, and composed way. We need to pray new items. If a sister has children, she can mention her children’s names to the Lord three times a day. We can also pray for all the saints in the vital groups. Each saint should have a printed list of the names of all the saints who are in the vital groups. While a sister is washing the dishes, she can have this list nearby and pray, “Lord, remember Sister So-and-so; remember Brother So-and-so....” This is real prayer. This is not a composition. This is not long prayer that wastes our time and exhausts our energy. We can pray for the churches in Orange County, the churches in Southern California, the churches in the rest of California, the churches all over the United States, and the churches throughout the world. We need to pray unceasingly.

We should also pray to be renewed, transformed, and conformed to the image of Christ. Then we will gain a certain amount of transformation every day. We will not be the same as we were three years ago or even three days ago. Every day we need to be renewed, transformed, and conformed. This is the way for us to live Christ and to be built up as the organism of the Triune God. This is the real church life.

We should not think that it is enough to have left the denominations and to be meeting together on the ground of oneness. What about the content of the church life? Should we be satisfied with a church life in which we have a routine way to meet and a scheduled way to serve with all things done in our natural way according to ourselves? The elders may know that they need to do something, but they may not dare to touch or adjust some of the saints because these saints are easily offended. This is why I was forced to have such a training to raise up the vital groups. I have been speaking about the new way, the God-ordained way, for eight years, but not many practice it in a full way. In this training I must be faithful to speak the truth to you. I cannot cheat you. I hope that you would receive mercy from the Lord not to be offended but to be perfected.

Not Doing Things in Our Own Way
but in the Coordinated Way

Fourth, we need to be perfected to do things in the coordinated way, not according to our own way. We cannot become qualified and equipped members of the vital groups overnight. We need months to build ourselves up. We have to pray that we can be blended, that we can be filled with the Spirit, that we can redeem our time by unceasing prayer, and that we can do things in the service, not according to our own way but according to the coordinated way, willing to give up our freedom.

Dealing with Our Disposition,
Character, and Peculiar Traits

Fifth, we need to pray for the dealing with our disposition, character, and peculiar traits. These three things are the hardest things to deal with in the church life. We all have our self, and our self is constituted with our disposition, character, and peculiar traits.

I was glad recently to see some of us function who have been used to being silent in the meetings. Some of us have been coming to meetings for years in a silent way. We need to receive the Lord’s mercy to have an inward, metabolic change of our quiet disposition. We need to pray, “Lord, have mercy upon me. Renew me and transform me. Transform me in every part of my being, in my daily life, and in my service to You in the church life. Transform me in the way that I pray, especially in the meetings.” We need to realize that whatever we do out of our natural man is not acceptable to the Lord.

Some of the saints have been faithful to the Lord’s recovery for many years, but they have remained the same. Paul said in 2 Corinthians 4:16 that we need to be renewed day by day. We should not be the same as we were three days ago. We need to become different daily by being renewed. If we never shout, we should be transformed to shout, “Praise the Lord!”

Because we are remaining in our natural disposition, we cannot see the real church life among us. We have lost our impact and our influence. We are a group of people serving the Lord faithfully, but we are serving and meeting in a mere routine and scheduled way. As a result, there are no new ones under our care, and the church has come to a standstill. The remedy to this situation is with the vital groups. We all have to be transformed.


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Fellowship Concerning the Urgent Need of the Vital Groups   pg 42