By the Lord’s mercy and grace, we in the Lord’s recovery do not care for our culture. Some may think that they are free from culture. But without exception every one of us has his personal and individual culture, a self-made and self-imposed culture. Furthermore, those who have been in the church life for a number of years may have a local church culture. After they came into the recovery and began to meet with the saints in the church, some spontaneously began to conform to the church life. Some refrained from using makeup or going to movies, not because they were living Christ, but because they were conforming to the church life. Some may cut their hair in a certain way for the same reason. Others may testify that they do certain things because they love Christ and the church. However, it is one thing to love Christ and another thing to live Christ. It is possible to cut your hair because you love Christ without living Christ in this matter. Probably very few saints in the Lord’s recovery attend movies. Why is it that they do not go to movies? Is it because they love Christ and the church, or is it because they live Christ? We should be able to say, “The reason I do not go to movies is that I live Christ. Because Christ does not do this, I do not do it either. Christ is my life within and my living without. I live by Christ, not by conforming to the church life.” We all should be able to declare that we do not have any regulation or conformity—we only have Christ. We should contact Him unceasingly and live in oneness with Him. He lives in us, and we live in Him. In this way we and Christ are one. We do certain things or refrain from doing certain things not merely because we love the Lord, but because we are living Him.
Even those who love the Lord very much and seek Him live much more by culture than by Christ. If you analyze your daily living, you will probably discover that most of the time you live not by Christ, but by culture. Some may not pray at all for a period of weeks. However, because they love Christ and the church, they still come to the meetings. Is this a kind of living that is the living by Christ? Surely not. Such a living is according to culture, perhaps even local church culture, but not according to Christ.
It is quite possible that the most cultured and refined people are those in the local churches. Many have become very refined through their years in the church life. The church life is the best cultural refinery. I have no doubt that the best husbands and wives are to be found in the local churches. Many can testify that their married life has been greatly helped by their years in the church life. However, even our good married life may be due much more to the church life than to living Christ.
The matter of losing our temper may be used to illustrate how the church life may refine us. Perhaps you are a person with a quick temper. But after you have been in the church for a number of years, you may find it much more difficult to lose your temper. The reason is that the atmosphere of the church does not encourage anyone to lose his temper. Thus, you are kept from losing your temper by the atmosphere of the church life, not by your living Christ.
The Lord Jesus now wants to confront the hidden frustration caused by our culture. We must admit that we do not live Christ very much. We are frustrated from living Christ not mainly by sin or the world, but by our virtues and our refined human living. The very refinement of our human life hinders us from living Christ. Day by day we live much more by our refinement than by Christ. The Apostle Paul could say, “To me to live is Christ” (Phil. 1:21). We, however, cannot say this as long as we live mainly by our culture, including the culture of the church life, and not by Christ. The church life culture has pervaded the local churches.
My purpose in pointing out the culture in the church life is not to give ground to dissenting ones to criticize the church life. I appreciate the church life very much, and I can testify that there is no better place to live Christ. Nevertheless, in these days the Lord is speaking to us about culture so that we may be delivered out from even the highest culture in order to live Christ in an absolute way.