Since the church is the assembly called out by God from the world, it should meet continually. Meetings enable God’s called out congregation to be supplied, established, and perfected, that the goal of God’s calling this assembly may be accomplished.
1)“Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together” (Heb. 10:25).
Here the assembling of ourselves together refers to our Christian meetings. God has ordained the way in which every living thing in the universe should exist. God’s ordination is the very law by which a particular species lives. If the living thing obeys that law, it will survive and be blessed. God is the same toward us who have believed in Christ. God’s ordination for us, which becomes our law of existence and blessing, is the meetings. As water is to the fish, and air to the birds, so are the meetings to the Christians. As the fish must live in the water and the birds must exist in the air, so the Christians must maintain their spiritual existence and living by the meetings.
1)“...sheep...be one flock” (John 10:16).
Every kind of life has its own characteristic, and usually, many characteristics. The spiritual life we believers have received, being the life of God in us, also possesses many characteristics. For example, the hatred for sin and the separation from sin are characteristics of this life. The desire to draw near to God and the willingness to serve Him are also its characteristics. One of the many characteristics of our spiritual life is to flock together, to meet together. John 10:3 and 16 show us that since we are saved, we are the Lord’s sheep. The characteristic of the sheep’s life is to flock together and to dislike isolation from the other sheep. Hence, the Bible says that we are not only the Lord’s sheep, but even more, His flock (Acts 20:28; 1 Pet. 5:2). In order to be a sheep which shares in the blessing of the flock, we must meet together with the flock. The characteristic of the spiritual “sheep life” within us requires this of us.
1)“For where two or three are gathered together into My name, there I am in their midst” (Matt. 18:20).
Here the Lord especially promised that wherever two or three of us who belong to Him are gathered together into His name, that is, meet in His name, He is in our midst. When we meet in His name, we enjoy His presence in a special way. His very presence undoubtedly brings us enlightenment, grace, supply, and all kinds of blessing. How precious this is! What a blessing this is! We can only enjoy such rich blessing by meeting together.
2)“And rising up that very hour, they returned to Jerusalem and found the eleven and those with them assembled together...and as they were speaking these things, He Himself [Jesus] stood in their midst and said to them, Peace to you!” (Luke 24:33-36).
This speaks of the two disciples who left Jerusalem to go to Emmaus. On their way, when they discovered that it was the Lord who had appeared to them, the Lord disappeared from them. Immediately they returned to Jerusalem, where they should have remained originally. When they arrived, they found the apostles and those with them assembled together, and the Lord appeared among them. They and the apostles and the other disciples all enjoyed the Lord’s appearing and experienced the blessing of the Lord’s presence when He returned among the disciples for the first time after His resurrection. This is also an evidence of the importance of meetings.
3)“And when the day of Pentecost was being fulfilled, they were all together in the same place...and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit” (Acts 2:1-4).
After He ascended, the Lord Jesus sent the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit was poured upon the disciples when they were meeting together, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit outwardly. The outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost was not upon the disciples who were by themselves. Rather it was upon those disciples who were meeting together. Anyone who did not participate in that meeting missed an unprecedented blessing outpoured from the heavens. Again, this shows us the importance of meetings.
4)“And let us consider one another for inciting to love and good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together...but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the day [of the Lord’s coming] drawing near” (Heb. 10:24-25).
What is mentioned here shows us that meetings can cause us to consider one another for inciting to love and to exhort one another for good works. This causes us to have spiritual fellowship with the saints to receive the life supply from them. Thus, we must not forsake the meetings, and so much the more as we know that the Lord will soon come back. Our Christian life is not like the life of a butterfly, which does well on its own; our life is like the sheep’s life, requiring that we flock together and live a meeting life. Consequently, we need to meet, and the meetings are crucial to us.
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