The Lord did something more: when He met with His disciples after His resurrection He gave them a commission (Matt. 28:19-20; Mark 16:15; Luke 24:47-48; Acts 1:8). He told them to go and preach repentance and remission of sins. Moreover, He told them to go to be His witnesses, His living witnesses. And He told them to disciple the nations and baptize them into the Triune God. This is the Gospel preaching; in the Bible the Gospel preaching includes all these things—the preaching of repentance and forgiveness, the reality of all the preachers as living witnesses of Jesus Christ, and the baptizing of people into the Triune God. To bring the Triune God to people and to bring people and put people into the Triune God is the Gospel. We are not bringing people into Christianity or a kind of religion, but into the Triune God. This is the commission the Lord gave to His disciples.
Today, if we meet in the proper way, surely we will be commissioned with something by the Lord. In John 21:15-23, after the disciples had dined together, the Lord asked Peter three times if he loved Him. And then the Lord said to him, “Feed my lambs” and “Feed my sheep.” This is the commission in the meetings. It not only includes the Gospel preaching, but also the feeding of the lambs, the younger ones, and the sheep, the older ones. If we meet properly in all the meetings, there should be some kind of burden transmitted from the Lord to us. We will be burdened by the Lord with something for His move. If we can meet week after week and year after year without receiving any kind of commission, we are wrong. I am not urging you to get busy in some kind of Christian activity, but I am saying that if we meet in a living way, the Lord will commission us time after time with some of His work. We will be commissioned with something of the Lord. In the proper meetings the Lord is acting all the time to commission people.
In Acts chapter one we see that after the disciples met with the Lord Jesus, after they saw Him ascend to the heavens, they returned to Jerusalem and were occupied continually in prayer (Acts 1:12-14). What kind of prayers did they pray? Did they ask the Lord to give them good jobs? This is the kind of prayer in today’s poor Christianity. We need to pray for the Lord’s move. We need to pray for the fulfillment of God’s purpose. We need to pray for the building up of the churches. If we seek first His Kingdom and His righteousness, all we need will be added to us (Matt. 6:31-33). We need not and must not spend so much time and energy praying for jobs or housing, etc. Forget about this. There is no need sometimes even to pray for health. If we care for the Lord’s Kingdom, He will care for all we need. If we seek His Kingdom, He will give us His Kingdom with so many other things added. We all have to learn how to pray. This is one of the principles concerning the matter of how to meet. We need to meet in this way: to pray in one accord for the Kingdom, for the spread of the Lord’s recovery, for the building up of the local churches.
On the Day of Pentecost when the disciples met together, suddenly the Holy Spirit filled the room where they were sitting, and they were all clothed with power from on high (Acts 2:1-4). In so many meetings we do need this kind of empowering. While we are meeting in a proper way, suddenly we will simply be empowered from the heavens.
Pray over these chapters of the Gospels and the book of Acts again and again to be deeply impressed with these principles. It is useless only to know them. May the Lord be merciful to us that we may put them into practice. This is the proper way for us to meet with the Lord.