In order to take care of these two matters, we should not rely on arrangements, systems, or human methods. All arrangements, systems, and methods are supplementary. The Spirit and life are the real need. This is similar to the physical body being supplementary to the spirit and soul. Once the spirit and soul depart, the body immediately becomes worthless. In other words, a good system, arrangement, or method still needs the Spirit and life. Once we are short of the Spirit and life, even if a system, arrangement, or method is good, the result is still a corpse, not a living body.
I hope that the brothers and sisters will see this matter. May the Lord have mercy on us. In the arrangement of the responsibility for the district meetings, the more responsibility a saint has, the more he needs to learn the necessary lessons. The heavier the responsibility he has, the more he needs to receive a strong breaking. In regard to responsibility, we should pay much attention to procedure, but in another sense, we should focus altogether on the Spirit. Procedures are supplementary. In every procedure there must be the Spirit and life; otherwise, the procedure will be dead. When we serve in the church, for the sake of keeping the oneness of the church and avoiding friction, we should try our best to coordinate according to the existing procedures. However, the procedures are not our way. Our way is the Spirit and life. We must learn to live in spirit and in life.
Recently one of the saints told me, “I feel that I cannot serve now.” “Why not?” I asked. He said, “I do not have the way to serve.” Again I asked him, “Why not?” He said, “The responsible brothers have made no arrangement for me to serve.” On one hand, it is good that he acts according to the arrangement of the church. This is right according to procedure. On the other hand, it is wrong for him to act this way, because it indicates that he is altogether operating according to procedure and not according to the Spirit and life. Toward this kind of brother and sister, my reply is always, “You feel that there is no way for you to serve, but my feeling is that your concept is wrong. You should not consider the arrangement of the church to be your way. Your way must be in the Spirit. If you pray to the Lord and sense a burden to preach the gospel to your friends and relatives, who will prohibit you? If you contact the Lord in the morning and sense that you should go to visit some newly saved brothers and sisters, who will condemn you? If you pray something in the prayer meeting from your spirit that touches everyone’s spirit, will they not say Amen? If you are led in the fellowship meeting to rise up and give a testimony, and the brothers and sisters are all supplied, who will oppose? There is only one way of arrangement, and that way is in the Spirit.”
However, once we have preached the gospel and saved a number of people, there should be a procedure for handing them over to the church. We should never think that since we have preached the gospel and led some to believe and be baptized, we can then meet with them apart from the church. If we have not been asked to bear responsibility in a district meeting, we should not appoint ourselves as a responsible one. We should not try to establish a fact and then seek the recognition of the elders and the saints. If we appoint ourselves, everyone will recognize that this is our flesh. If we think that the church is not proper, we should help the church. If we think that the church is not spiritual, we should minister to the church. The church includes each one of us, and we are constituents of the church. Thus, we should help the church and minister to the church.
All spiritual supply in the church of God does not need to be rendered according to procedure. If we sense a need, we should rise up to supply and support it. When there is a flood, there needs to be a channel to let it flow out. A flood cannot be blocked. One who has learned this lesson does not act according to orders passively. Rather, when he has a feeling in his spirit, he preaches the gospel to others and leads them to be saved; when he has the burden to supply others, he ministers to them from the Word. He neither murmurs nor retreats but is simple and pure. Even if the church has not arranged for him to do anything, he saves some and hands them over to the church. Although the church has not given him any instructions, he endeavors to render spiritual supply to the church.
This simple speaking is to demonstrate that the service in the church cannot rely on procedure. If we have truly learned spiritual lessons and fulfill our spiritual function, we will know a proper procedure, and we will not damage the oneness of the church. We should never commit the error of leaning toward either extreme. We should not consider that everything is a matter of procedure and that whatever the arrangement is, we should simply follow. In other words, we preach the gospel only if it has been arranged that we preach the gospel, and we pray only if it has been arranged that we pray. This is to lean toward the extreme of being rigid and dead. We should not act in this way. Likewise, we should not say, “I do not care for arrangement. I just care to do whatever I think is best. If I want to preach the gospel, I will do it. All arrangement is but the human will. I will live in the Holy Spirit and not care about arrangement.” This is the flesh. If we are like this, the church will certainly be chaotic and disorderly. This is a serious lesson for us to learn as we are constricted by the matters of everyone functioning and the need to maintain the oneness of the church. The bigger a local church is, the more difficult the lessons are; however, the more difficult the lessons, the more valuable they are to learn.
I truly see a bright future ahead of us. There are many brothers and sisters who have received the Lord’s mercy to learn the serious lessons necessary to meet in one accord and to function in serving the Lord. One day there will be a testimony in the universe of several thousand people functioning yet still maintaining the oneness of the church. What a beautiful matter, what a bright testimony, and what a strong expression this will be! There is no problem on God’s side; rather, our future testimony depends entirely upon how many of us are determined to learn. We should all be willing to rise up to learn so that we can carry out our function while maintaining the oneness of the church. We should not live according to procedure but be led by the Spirit. In this way a strong testimony will surely be produced. We believe that in these end times God desires to, is able to, and will accomplish this matter. May we be the group of people who allows Him to have a way in us.