What about friendships among Christians? And, how does fellowship relate to oneness?

If I keep having special fellowship with a certain brother day after day, this fellowship will become a friendship. Among the saints friendship is to be avoided. It is like honey, which is prohibited in the meal offering (Lev. 2:11). When fellowship becomes friendship, it has leaven in it, because underneath is a personal, natural preference. Our fellowship is common, unless for a particular reason there is a need for more contact. If there is no reason, there should not be more contact.

Oneness and fellowship are the same. Our practical fellowship is just the oneness. Because we Christians are all one, we can have fellowship together. This fellowship is the indwelling Spirit Himself. The electricity that goes through the overhead lights is like oneness and fellowship. Without the electricity the lights are separate and apart from each other. What makes them one is the current of electricity. That current is fellowship, or the Holy Spirit indwelling us. The indwelling Spirit is our oneness and our fellowship. If we add honey or leaven to the fellowship, we change it to friendship. This will bring corruption and rottenness into the church life.

Sometimes when I share with someone what I have enjoyed of the Lord in the Word or in a message, he adds what he has been reading, and what I wanted to share gets lost. What is the best way to fellowship about our enjoyment of the Lord?

Even in this kind of sharing, you need to learn to be restricted by the Spirit. As you grow, you will sense that the Lord wants you to share only a certain amount. This is another way we are kept from being corrupted. We would like to tell others what we saw in a message, and they want to say what light they have received. Talking too much about what we have seen is also honey. Many times when I would like to tell the brothers about some light I have received, the Lord says no. Even in spiritual things we need to be restricted. Not to obey this restriction is an offense which sooner or later we shall have to confess to the Lord.

Are the law of life and the anointing the same thing as the Lord’s speaking?

Both could be considered as the Lord’s speaking, but actually the law of life is rather a principle, giving us a certain taste. The anointing is a speaking. The law of life does not change, but the anointing does. The law of life will always prohibit you, or any child of God, from attending a movie. The anointing, on the other hand, may tell one brother to take a plane and another to go by car. The difference is that the law is related to morality or ethics, while the anointing concerns activities.

Is this the same speaking we get from the Lord in prayer?

Yes. Prayer will strengthen your sensitivity to the law of life. If a child has a heavy cold, when you put something into his mouth he may not be able to tell whether it is sweet or bitter. The law of life is not functioning because he is sick. If you do not contact the Lord in prayer and in the Word, your sense of the law of life will be weak. Some Christians can go to a movie without feeling troubled, not because there is no protest from the law of life, but because their sensitivity to it is weak through lack of exercise. If they will go to the Lord to confess, to pray, and to study the Word, the sense will soon return.

I want to go on with the Lord, but the more I am with Him the more I am fearful of His holiness, because of all the sins I, as a fallen person, have committed.

There are two kinds of fear of the Lord. One is wholesome; the other is to be rejected. If we contact the Lord through prayer and His Word, we shall have a proper, holy fear lest we offend Him by disobedience. We need such a healthy fear. The other fear is that the Lord may punish or reject or forsake us. This is of Satan, and we must overcome it. We must declare, “I am a child of God, chosen, redeemed, and cleansed by the precious blood. I have nothing to fear. God will not forsake me nor cast me away.” This second fear is the enemy’s threat to rob you of your rest. If you are not at rest, you cannot enjoy the Lord nor grow. You must be at rest from all such unnecessary fears. Challenge the enemy by telling him you are God’s child and under the blood, that God is your Father and loves you, and that you do not believe He will cast you off. The only fear you need is a holy fear not to offend the Father by grieving Him.

How can we determine which things need the attention of the elders and which things we should not pass on any further?

This is a good question. Concerning the saints in the church, the less we know the better. There is a lust in our natural life to know others’ affairs. It is not healthy and damages the church life. But there is another side. We need to know where the saints are spiritually, so that we can get their help or supply some nourishment to them. The church life requires a high standard of exercise, not that we snoop into the saints’ affairs, but that we find out their true situation in order to be helped by them or to help them.

Is this information about the saints for the elders to know or for all the saints?

Everybody should be the same. If all the saints would exercise in this way, the church would be healthy, having all its weaknesses taken care of. Even in the churches in the Lord’s recovery there are far too many phone calls. Spreading unnecessary information has a deadening effect. Do not give out or seek to get any information except what will enable you to supply others or be supplied by them. Then the church will grow, be built up in a healthy way, and be spared the killing that comes from knowing what we do not need to know about others.
Home | First | Prev | Next