On one hand we need to rise up to build up a spiritual education, and on the other hand we need the adequate prayer. It is necessary to read the Bible, the Life-study messages, and books on the truth so that we can build up ourselves in the truth. But if we do this without prayer, all this will merely be in our mind. If you want the truth in your spirit, you surely need prayer.
Acts 6:4 says, “We will continue steadfastly in prayer and in the ministry of the word.” Steadfastly means with perseverance. Although in principle it is not difficult to pray, the opposition to our prayer is very strong. Praying is like rowing a boat against the tide. It requires our strength and it needs perseverance. Today everything in human society works to prevent us from praying. Everything is against our praying. Therefore, you need to pray earnestly and steadfastly. You need to struggle and fight in order to pray. You need to remind yourself, “I must pray. I cannot give up prayer.” I have had a great deal of experience in this matter. My work is quite demanding. For example, recently I have had to review more than one hundred messages in thirteen days. In addition to this, there is a large stack of letters waiting for my response. All these things have opposed my praying. If I do not pray, my spirit is dry and flat. Therefore, I have to pray.
If you merely memorize the Bible without prayer, the Bible will not be in your spirit but in your mind. It will not be the living word to you. Therefore, you need to pray while you read the Bible. When you pray, do not pray for many other things. The Lord Jesus told us not to worry about what we should eat, what we should drink, and with what we should clothe ourselves. Do not pray for these things. Your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. He will give you all these things (Matt. 6:31-33). You need to pray for God’s kingdom and His righteousness, that is, to pray for spiritual things. God’s kingdom and God’s righteousness are spiritual things. When you pray for these things, God will give them to you and also add to you the necessities of your living. You need to pray, “Lord, I want to know what is justification and what is sanctification. Lord, grant me the grace to know these things!” When you pray in such a way, your whole being will be in the spirit and will be filled with the Holy Spirit.
To read the Bible is to work on the Lord’s word. To pray is to work the Lord’s word into your spirit. When the Lord’s word gets into your spirit, you will be filled with the Holy Spirit. Thus, the Lord’s word, your prayer, and the Spirit of God will be mingled together and will saturate you within. In this way, you will be not only a man who receives spiritual education, but a man saturated by the Holy Spirit. You will be living, fresh, and full of wisdom. If you want to preach, you will have something to preach. If you desire to speak, you will have something to express. If you desire to shepherd others, you will have riches to supply. Then you will fulfill the ministry of the word.
After considering the three things in Acts 4:31—prayer, the Holy Spirit, and the word of God—we need to go on to consider four additional things. The previous three things are for these four things. The first of the four additional things is to preach the gospel, the second is to release the truth, the third is to minister life, and the fourth is to recover the saints. We need to preach the gospel and lead others to salvation. We need to release and teach the truth so that people can receive the proper knowledge and enlightenment. We also need to minister life so that others can grow in life. But there are some who have become weak, sick, backslidden, stumbled, and troubled, and who have stopped coming to meetings. We should not leave them alone, because they are members of our family. By all means we need to seek them out and recover them.
We all need to do these four things: preach the gospel to save sinners, release the truth to teach the saints, minister life to build up the saints, and recover the weak ones. In order to do these four things, we need to be those who are fully saturated with the word and those who pray. When the word is mingled with our prayer, it becomes the Spirit (John 6:63; Eph. 6:17-18a). It is then that we are able to preach the gospel, release the truth, minister life, and have the riches to nourish and recover others.
If you lack the word, prayer, and the Spirit, when you go to preach the gospel and you meet your relatives, you will not have the word to preach to them. You will only be able to say, “The Lord Jesus is wonderful. You need to believe in Him.” But they may still not believe because you said this a number of years ago, and you are still saying the same thing today. This kind of preaching will not work. You need to tell them the truth of the gospel. You can tell them that man is a vessel created by God and that God desires to fill man with Himself. Those who formerly opposed you will be interested to hear your speaking. You can then tell them that man has three parts—a body to eat food, a soul with a mind to read books, and a spirit within the depths of man. The body has its need, the soul has its need, and the spirit has its need. The need of the spirit is God. If the need of the spirit is not met, man is empty. When you speak in such a way, they will be moved to believe what you have preached. Only the truth can touch people in the most prevailing way.
In the matter of releasing the truth, if you do not know any truth, you have nothing to speak. In the matter of ministering life, if you are not rich in life, you have nothing to minister. In the matter of recovering the saints, you may visit someone, but if you have no life supply, you can only say, “We have not seen you for a long time. Where have you been?” Initially, the person you are visiting will welcome you, but when you ask him such a question, he will think that you have come to judge him, and everything will be finished. Instead of asking him such a question, you should speak some truth from the Bible. You should share with him the benefit that you have received from the word of truth and those things that the holy Word has built up in you. Sometimes unconsciously, while you are speaking the truth, one word may touch the depths of his being; then he will be able to rise up.
Today if we want the Lord’s recovery to have a future and we desire that the church be built up, we must labor in the word of the Lord. We also need to lead the brothers and sisters to pray and to touch the spirit. When the disciples prayed earnestly, they were filled with the Holy Spirit. This is an unchangeable principle. This kind of prayer is like deep breathing. If you breathe deeply, you are bound to be filled with air. Your persevering in prayer is a kind of spiritual deep breathing. If you pray perseveringly, you will definitely be filled by the pneuma. Having the word of the Lord, being willing to pray, and being filled with the Holy Spirit, you will receive the higher spiritual education and will build yourself up fully. Then you will be able to preach the gospel, release the truth, supply life, and recover the saints. Only in this way will the church be built up and have a bright future. I hope you will consider these words before the Lord.
I fully understand that now we are making a big turn to get into the Lord’s word and to meet in the small gatherings. But we cannot expect a quick success. Everything that is successful quickly will only last a short while. We must be patient and work seriously. We need to remember that to bring up our children and make them useful persons requires more than twenty years of laboring. This requires patience.
We do not want to take the Pentecostal way, thinking that once a person speaks in tongues everything is accomplished. The way of the small group meetings will require at least three or four years before we see any success. I hope the co-workers, the elders, the leading ones, and all the brothers and sisters understand this. We need to have patience. Do not try to be fast. Do not try to get quick results. We need to do this work slowly, step by step. I myself am also prepared to take this way. When we have educated all our children successfully, the family will be prosperous. Our labor will not be in vain. When all the brothers and sisters have received the cultivation and education of the truth and have been strengthened in their spirits, they will be useful materials. The church will grow every day, and the day of the glorious church life will be here.