How can we know if what we are doing to please God is from ourselves?

First of all we must see that God wants only Christ, not our good works nor our good behavior nor even our spirituality. All the veils of our concepts must be taken away. Then we must pray unceasingly, breathing Christ in as the air, the pneuma. However well we eat, if we do not breathe the proper air into every part of our being, we shall not have good health. Christ is likened to the water we drink, the food we eat, and the air we breathe. As we receive Him into us in all these ways, we are living by Him and He is constituted into our being. What we do then pleases God, because it comes from His life in us.

In our daily living some of us have jobs which keep our minds occupied the whole day; others have work which doesn’t require concentration. If our minds are free, should we exercise to memorize verses and pray?

By exercise and by practice we must learn to abide in the Lord. If we think in terms of turning back to the Lord, we are indicating that we do not abide in Him. However busy we are in our work, however concentrated we must be, we should still be abiding. This is not easy, for we were not born this way. But we have been reborn as branches of the vine. The vine today is the life-giving Spirit. Even while we keep using our mentality to do our work, we still can remain in the life-giving Spirit. Don’t think that after you do your work you will come back to abide. There should be no need to return. Practice abiding. Begin in the morning by opening the Word. Memorizing Bible verses is good, but it is better to have that happen in a spontaneous way, while you are praying over them. As you pray-read, some sentences or verses will be impressed upon your mind, and these will be your daily nourishment, helping you to keep abiding. Coming to the Word throughout the day is like recharging your battery so it doesn’t run out of electricity. Do this at specific times during the day, besides constantly opening to the Lord in unceasing prayer, whether you are away at work or home tending to household duties.

It is not easy to explain how to enjoy Christ and how to take Him as our life. Mankind has been on the earth for thousands of years, yet the matter of diet is still being investigated. Some of the substances in our food are still unknown or not understood. I often consider how I can best help the saints in the matter of enjoying Christ. It is only since 1958 that we have been using this term. Now, “enjoying Christ” and “practicing the church life”-another term we introduced-have come into common usage. I believe other Christians have also begun using these terms.

How can we know what kind of testimonies are suitable for the meetings?

In the denominations the terms worship or service are used instead of meetings. They have a Sunday morning worship service and an evening service. It is in the recovery that the word meeting is used. The whole concept of Christian meetings, in denominational thinking, is off. If we want to know what the proper meetings should be, we can consider the Old Testament type.

The Israelites gathered together seasonally, seven times a year. The main gatherings were three times a year: for the Passover, for the feast of weeks, and for the feast of tabernacles. Three times a year all the males had to appear before the Lord in the place of His choosing (Deut. 16:16). That place was Mount Zion, where the city of Jerusalem was built.

How did they gather? They first labored on the land until the harvest time arrived. Then they came together with the rich produce, not to kneel down, nor prostrate themselves, nor sing a hymn, nor offer a prayer. Rather, they offered the top ten percent of their increase to God and then ate together what they had offered to God in His presence. What then was the nature of their coming together? They met to feast on the produce of the good land. Their eating together in the presence of God was their worship and their service.

For us today it is the same. We come together at certain times appointed by God. Before that we must labor on Christ, our good land, so that we have a harvest of experiences of Him. Daily we experience Him. These experiences become the surplus of His riches, which we bring to the meetings. No one is to appear before the Lord empty-handed (Deut. 16:16). We must be full of the rich experience of Christ. This Christ we then offer to God and enjoy Him together.

The testimonies are part of our enjoyment of Christ. We offer these experiences to God as food to satisfy Him and one another as well. The testimonies must come out of our daily walk. Our living is what determines how rich a meeting we shall have.
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