We Christians always try to do things and work for the Lord, but the Lord wants us to eat Him and drink Him by enjoying Him and feeding on Him. We should not be “doing” Christians but should be “eating” Christians. We should not be “working” Christians but “drinking” Christians. We need a revelation that God’s eternal purpose, His ultimate intention, is to mingle Himself with us and work Himself into us. This is the divine thought. Once we have this thought, our concept, nature, conduct, and even our whole being will be changed, transformed, and revolutionized.
Even though I have made many mistakes and committed many sins, the things I have repented for the most before God are not my mistakes and sins but the things that I tried to do for the Lord. When I do not have light, I think that I must do this or that for the Lord to work for Him and serve Him. But once I receive light, I know that I am on the wrong track and am not going along with the Lord. At such a time I sense that I must cease from my doing, working, and serving and give the Lord a chance to work on me and in me. I need to prostrate myself before the Lord, asking Him to forgive me for doing such foolish things. We need to be delivered from doing, from working, and from serving God. On the one hand, we encourage people to exercise to give testimonies or offer prayers in the church meetings. On the other hand, we know that there will be a time when the Lord will reveal to such people that they must stop from exercising anything and be delivered from all kinds of activities. If we are sick, in order for the doctor to operate on us, we must submit ourselves to him. This simply means that we stop ourselves from doing, from working, and from any kind of activity and offer the doctor our absolute cooperation.
During the years from 1938 to 1943 I was working so much for the Lord that no one could stop me. The more I worked, the more the work interested me. Yet there was a deep sense within me that I should stop a little. It seemed that the Lord was saying, “You need to stop. Do not work so much for Me. Let Me work on you, and let Me work in you.” Nevertheless, because I would not listen to this inner sense, the Lord came in and disciplined me. First, He put me in prison, and then He put me in a sickbed for more than two and a half years. This was not because I had committed some sins but simply because I did too much for the Lord. The Lord needed my cooperation. Since I would not stop, He made me lie down. During those three years, more and more revelation came to me as I repented for my doing too much for the Lord.
We have pointed out that the Lord’s eternal purpose is to work Himself into us. Strictly speaking, we are not the workmen or the workers; rather, we are the work, the workmanship, of the Lord (Eph. 2:10), and we must be worked on by the Lord. Do not think that we need to work for the Lord. If a piece of building material tried to work for the builder, he might tell it, “Stop. Let me work on you. Only after I have worked on you will you be useful for my purpose. The degree to which you will be useful for my purpose depends on the degree to which you are willing to be worked on by me. Only in this way can my building be accomplished. The more active you are, the more you hinder me from building.” Sooner or later, if we have a sincere heart in seeking the Lord, He will stop us from our doing and reveal to us that we need Him to mingle Himself with us and work Himself into us.
After being regenerated, many Christians become like Saul of Tarsus, doing what he did before he was regenerated. Whereas the apostle Paul was Saul before he was regenerated, we are “Sauls” after our regeneration. Saul was very active in working, moving, and doing things in Judaism (Gal. 1:13-14; Phil. 3:4-6). One day the Lord met him in order to stop him from his doing and blind him. Before that time he always took the lead to move and to act, but after the Lord met him, he needed someone to lead him (Acts 9:1-9). From that day forward God revealed His Son in Saul (Gal. 1:15-16). God showed him that what He wants is not human activity but a human vessel who is willing to cooperate with God’s desire to fill him with Himself (Acts 9:15). God wants to fill us with Himself; He wants to enter into us to saturate us with His element and permeate us with all His riches. For this, He needs our cooperation. Everything of the Christian life, the Christian service, and the church life must come out of this. We may have been a Christian for many years, but even today we may not have seen the eternal plan of God.
The revelation of God’s eternal plan will stop us from all kinds of activities. We will prostrate ourselves before God and open ourselves absolutely to the Lord, saying, “Lord, I hate my doing, I hate my service, I hate my work, and I hate all the good things that I do. I hate these more than I hate the sinful things, because they are stronger hindrances to Your coming in to fill me, Your saturating me with all Your fullness, Your permeating me with Your element, and Your mingling Yourself with me. Now I know that Your purpose is not a matter of my doing or my working but a matter of Your filling me with Yourself.” This is the eternal purpose of God. All the divine and spiritual things must come out of God’s mingling Himself with us.
The heart of many Christians is toward the worldly things rather than toward the Lord. Nevertheless, there are a good number of Christians who have been saved and who have a sincere heart and desire to seek the Lord. Some of them endeavor to serve the Lord by consecrating themselves to be missionaries on foreign fields. Some endeavor to do good, and some are seeking the deeper life, the victorious life, the holy life, the crucified life, the spiritual life, or the Christ-centered life. Furthermore, there are some who insist that we must experience the baptism in the Holy Spirit and speak in tongues. Some believers stress absolute grace, others teach Arminianism, and still others espouse Calvinism. However, once we see God’s eternal purpose, all these things disappear. When the sun is shining, there is no need of the stars. When we see God’s eternal purpose, the only thing that counts is God mingling Himself with us by working Christ into us. As long as we cooperate with God to have Christ wrought into us, we will have the deeper life, the holy life, the victorious life, the sanctified life, the crucified life, and the spiritual life. We will also be prevailing and powerful in our prayer and service, and we will be full of life in our work and in our daily living. This is the central point. The centrality and universality of everything is for Christ to be wrought into us.
Today there are many things that believers emphasize. Some emphasize prayer and intercession, urging us to pray seven times a day as David the king did (Psa.119:164). Others insist that we must study the Scriptures by attending a Bible institute or seminary. However, neither of these is the answer. The answer is Christ Himself as the center and as everything, not in doctrine, in teaching, or in knowledge but in experience, in practice, and in reality. What we need today is the living experience of the living Christ as the living Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45; 2 Cor. 3:17). Our need today is a living person, Christ Himself, experienced and enjoyed by us day by day. Then we will know what the central thought of God is.