Every saved person who lives before the Lord definitely has some spiritual requirements within him. Based on this principle, we need to know the requirements that are related to the church. As soon as we begin to live before the Lord, we can sense a spiritual requirement within to fellowship with other saints. This is a true fact, and we cannot avoid it. The Lord and His life within require us to fellowship with other saints. The life we have received, which is in each one of us, is not an individual life; rather, it is the Lord’s life, a great life. We are not the only ones who have received this life; many other people have received it as well. This life in us requires us to fellowship with other saints.
The saints meet together all the time in the church in Taipei, and they see each other frequently. Thus, they may not have much consciousness of the fact that life requires fellowship, and they may even feel that they have too much fellowship. Some saints have said that there are too many meetings, yet if they do not come to the meeting, they do not have peace. Some colleagues of the brothers and sisters say, “You are so busy. In the morning you are in a hurry to go to work. In the evening you are in a hurry to go home. Then after dinner you are in a hurry to go to the meeting. You are in a hurry every evening of the week, but it seems as if you never get tired of meeting. This is truly strange.” In reality, this is a matter of the life in us.
Recently more than ten brothers and sisters went to visit the church in Manila. The saints there were very warmhearted, and they invited the brothers and sisters to eat the best food every day. As a result, the brothers and sisters became tired of eating fine food. However, this did not eliminate their need to eat. The human life needs food, but people cannot eat too much; otherwise, their bodies will not be able to bear it. But if a person is without food for three or four days, he will immediately sense a need in his body for food. At such a time, it will not matter whether the food is plain rice or a gourmet meal. As long as there is a need and the food is edible, it will taste very good.
The saints in the church in Taipei attend meetings all the time; they may attend a meeting today and another tomorrow, and sometimes they even attend several meetings in a day. Thus, they may not feel that there is a demand within for fellowship. However, if they went to an isolated place and were unable to see a brother or sister for a whole week and were unable to attend a single meeting for two weeks, there would be a demand for fellowship with other saints within the depth of their being.
In the first year of the Sino-Japanese War, some brothers and sisters and I visited a place in northwest China. Before we went there, we often broke bread with many brothers and sisters to remember the Lord. Since we broke bread often, we took it for granted and did not feel that it was very special. However, when we were in northwest China, we had to wait for a long time before we could attend a bread-breaking meeting on the Lord’s Day. All of us inwardly longed for the bread-breaking meeting. This was something related to the requirement of life. We need to realize that the Christian life is not an individual life; the Christian life is a corporate life. Christians cannot be alone. This can be compared to the fact that bees like to be together. If there is a swarm of bees, all the nearby bees want to be with it; this is a demand of their life.
Please keep in mind the reason that we need the church. A Christian needs to meet because the life in a Christian requires him to fellowship with all the saints. This is a true fact. If we separated ourselves from the saints, did not go to the meetings, and had no contact with the saints for three to six months, how would we feel inwardly? Would we feel happy or unhappy? We would immediately sense a demand within us. This can be compared to a person who wants food because he is hungry. The demand in us requires us to participate in the church and to have fellowship with the saints. This is the first requirement of life with respect to the church.
If we live before the Lord and have fellowship with the saints, there will be a condition in us that requires us to serve and supply others. This is the reason some unbelievers think we are foolish when they see us going to meetings in the evenings, cleaning the meeting hall, or visiting saints in their homes even though we may be exhausted after working all day. They do not see that this is not a foolish matter but a matter of the life in us making a demand. Unbelievers may think we are foolish, but we feel very joyful within.
We can all testify that the life in us is truly a serving life. Around 1946 there was a sister in Shanghai whose husband was the manager of a bank. Since she was the wife of a manager, she had several maids in her house, and she did not need to do any housework. However, she liked to go to the meeting hall to mop the floor and clean the windows. After a while, her husband began to wonder why she went to the meeting hall every day. This seemed unusual to him, and he wondered what she could be doing at the meeting hall. One day he came to the meeting hall and discovered that his wife was mopping the floor. He could not understand her behavior and was very upset. Since he was a bank manager, he felt that it was demeaning to him for his wife to do such menial work. He could not understand why his wife would go to the meeting hall to mop the floor when they had several maids in their home.
We can all testify that when this sister was mopping the floor, her face was shining. The more she mopped the floor, the more the Lord’s presence was with her. We could not stop her from mopping the floor. This illustrates that the requirement of the life in Christians is very wonderful. This life requires us to serve others. Some people may think that the manager’s wife was silly, but actually, if she was asked, she would say that she could not be happy if she did not serve others. Her desire to serve others was like the hunger in man for food. When she served others, she was satisfied. This is a requirement of life in Christians. This requirement demands that Christians meet together and serve one another. Without this requirement, Christians cannot meet or serve together.