We all need to have a proper concept of the meetings. We do not come to the meeting to “worship”; we come to the meeting to enjoy. When we enjoy God together, God is satisfied. When we read the Old Testament, in Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy we do see numerous instances where God told the Israelites that their center of worship was to be Mount Zion in Jerusalem. They could not set up another center in another place. However, we cannot find a verse that tells the Israelites how they should worship or bow themselves before God. The Bible does not give us a record of how one should worship God.
The Bible clearly tells us that when the people went up three times a year to worship God, they could not go empty-handed. They must bring a great amount of rich food to satisfy God. When God was fed, He fed them in return. The worship of the children of Israel was a kind of eating. We see this type in the Old Testament. Unfortunately, because of man’s deep religious concept, when he comes to the Bible, he does not see any of these things.
Brothers and sisters, we need to change our concept. Our real worship to God is our enjoyment of Him. This is like your coming home from a journey. Your mother hurries to cook for you. If you are home for a week, she will feed you the best food every day. She is so eager to see you eat. This is God’s concept. When we were in mainland China we did not use the term “eating God.” It was not until 1958 that I spoke in a conference concerning the way to enjoy God by eating and drinking. Since then the term “enjoying God” became popular among us.
When we come to the meetings, if we do not enjoy God, but are instead keeping a kind of religious formality, our meetings will become a kind of suffering. I attended a church school when I was young. If we did not attend the chapel hour, we would have points taken off from our record. However, to sit and listen to the sermon was surely boring. If the meeting went on half a minute past the scheduled time, and if the preacher was still speaking, all the students would shuffle their feet on the wooden floor. This was a sign to the speaker that time was up and that he ought to stop. As soon as the preacher would leave the room, everybody was happy and ran out to play. I describe this to you to show you that our meetings should not be like that kind of worship service. Our meetings are to enjoy God. The Lord Jesus said that whenever two or three are gathered into His name, He is with them. Perhaps you would say, “Is not the Lord with us individually all the time?” That is right. But we can all testify that the Lord’s presence with us individually cannot compare with His presence with us corporately in the meetings.
I said yesterday that if you come to the home meetings, it proves that you love the Lord. Since you love the Lord, surely you would fellowship with Him and spend time with Him. When the Lord enlightens you, you would confess your sins and would ask the Lord to cleanse you with His blood. This brings you into a deeper fellowship with the Lord. Naturally, when you come to the home meeting in this way, you will bring this fellowship into the meeting. This shows that our personal spiritual condition has very much to do with the home meetings. This is not all. Our living must be one of walking according to the Spirit. If we are filled with God every day, we will surely go to the home meetings. Tonight we want to go deeper into this matter.
Ephesians 3:16-17 says, “That He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit into the inner man, that Christ may make His home in your hearts through faith.” This verse says that we must let Christ make His home in our hearts through faith. Merely to allow the Lord to live in us is not enough; we must let the Lord make home in our hearts. This is not a light thing. If it were a light thing, Paul would not need to pray for us. For this cause, Paul bowed his knees unto the Father, beseeching the Father according to the riches of His glory. The riches of God’s glory are the manifestation of everything God is. According to these riches, God is strengthening us with power into the inner man through His Spirit.
We all have this kind of experience: During morning watch we pray-read, praise, and pray. Our whole being is turned from the outward man to the inward man. But after morning watch we may meet a classmate. After talking to him for a few minutes, our whole being is distracted from the inward back to the outward. To turn us from the outward to the inward, there is the need for prayer, for the Father of glory to strengthen us according to His riches through His Spirit and with His power into our inner man. This is not easy. But for us to be distracted from the inward to the outward is too easy. It is like rolling a stone down the hill; it is downhill all the way. A few words from our classmate will easily lead us out of our spirit. But for us to turn back to the spirit is like climbing uphill; we need the Father to strengthen us according to the riches of His glory through His Spirit and with power into the inner man. When that happens there will be a result: Christ will make home in our hearts.
The word “that” in verse 17 means that God’s strengthening us into our inner man with power according to the riches of His glory through His Spirit is for a purpose. The cause is your being brought into your inner man; the result is that Christ makes His home in you. If you have not thoroughly prayed before the Lord for three weeks, even though you may have been busy attending meetings, pursuing the truth, working on the campus, and doing all kinds of spiritual works, you will not sense that Christ is making His home in you.
I hope that all of you, including the newly saved ones, would at least once a week put everything down, leave all your busy environment behind, and calmly quiet yourself before the Lord to have a thorough time of prayer. This is very precious. This will make you feel that your whole being is in the inner man. You will have a deep sense that the Lord Jesus is very much at home within you. Whatever room He wants to enter within you, there will be a place for Him. He will be able to go in and out freely in any part of your being. This is to have the Lord making home in our heart.