The Bible is a wonderful book. It is wonderful because it is a record of the wonderful Lord Jesus. As those who believe in Him, love Him, fellowship with Him, and draw near to Him daily, we can testify that the more we experience Him, the more we sense that He is rich and wonderful. His mysteriousness is far beyond comprehension. In the two thousand years of the history of the church, countless people have believed into Him, worshipped Him, and followed Him, yet no one can fully describe who He is or thoroughly experience Him.
By reading church history and the biographies of many famous Christians, we can see that there are many who have had amazing experiences of the Lord Jesus throughout the past two thousand years. Today the more we experience the Lord, the more we discover that the one item that is most precious and lovable about Him is that, as the Lord of all creation and the omnipotent God, He has passed through creation, redemption, death, and resurrection to become the life-giving Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45b). As the life-giving Spirit, He is not only in the third heavens and all around us, He is also in our spirit to be our life, nature, and everything. The Lord’s desire today is that we would receive Him as our life, and live, move, and walk by Him and with Him.
For years we have been speaking and releasing messages as well as publishing books on this matter. However, our burden has still not been discharged. Why has our burden not been discharged? It has not been discharged because this matter is too mysterious. It is definitely not something that can be grasped merely by a little outward understanding. Even if we were to give our entire life, we still would not be able to thoroughly experience the Lord as the Spirit. The second reason that our burden has not been discharged is that, more or less, we tend to lean toward outward things rather than emphasizing the inner life. We must thank the Lord that among us there are many brothers and sisters who love the Lord and have fellowship with Him. We must also thank the Lord that the testimony of the church has been raised up in many places. Nevertheless, we must bow our heads and confess from the depths of our being that there is still a great lack in the churches in every locality. There is not the daily reality of living in spirit and of living with the Lord. We all have to admit that every saint in every church is short of the reality of the experience of living with the Lord.
For example, suppose that I am living together with a brother who is a good friend of mine. If I truly consider him to be my good friend, whenever I have the time and the opportunity, I will definitely greet him and talk to him. If I ignore him, only taking care of my own business and putting him aside, what kind of friend am I? If I were to do this, he would surely feel that I am cold toward him. He would also think that something must have happened between us and that I no longer like him. Most likely he would ask me how he had offended me. Suppose I were to answer him, “You have not offended me! I have just been too busy and too tired, and I have had many other things that I needed to do.” Even if I were to explain at length why I had been ignoring him, he would not believe that it was only because I had been busy, because to ignore a good friend for this reason is unreasonable and insensitive.
We all admit that the Lord Jesus is real, living, and concrete, that He is with us and is living in us, that He is our life and our everything, and that He wants us to live by Him and with Him. Since we all admit this, I would ask, how much of the last six hours have we spent paying attention to the Lord Jesus? We have heard all the teachings and do not need any new teaching. What we need is the practical outworking in our living of what we have heard. As I consider and reconsider, I feel more and more that in our practical daily living, nothing is more real and more important than living with the Lord Jesus. As the all-inclusive Spirit, He lives in our spirit and desires that we would live with Him.
Some may say that I am giving these messages in order to review the subjects of calling on the name of the Lord and pray-reading the Lord’s word. They may think that I am giving make-up lessons on these two topics because we are all very short in the real experience of calling and pray-reading. However, this is not the case. I am not giving these messages for the purpose of giving you make-up lessons. I am giving them to nourish you. You have not been eating much these past few years. Therefore, I feel that I need to be more practical and that I should not give you profound teachings. My burden is to concentrate entirely on giving you substantial and practical nourishment.
Recently I asked a certain brother whether or not he practices every day to live with the Lord. He answered that he does have this kind of exercise but that he does not exercise in this way every day. He also added that when he does exercise in this way, it may be for only half an hour in a given day. If a person breathes for only half an hour each day, will he be able to survive? I give this illustration to show you that everything that we are doing today in the churches in every locality has become a religion. It is true that meetings, messages, singing, and praying are all means of contacting the Lord. However, when they do not help us to contact the Lord, they have become something of religion. Whether or not a practice has become something of religion does not depend on the practice itself. We cannot say that arranging the chairs in a circle so that we face one another in our meetings is not something of religion or that for one person to speak to everyone else from a tall platform is something of religion. We also cannot say that you are religious if you do not pray and read the Bible or that you are not religious if you do in fact do these things. These various practices are not in themselves the issue. Whether or not a certain practice, such as reading the word, praying, meeting, and singing, has become something of religion depends upon whether or not we are genuinely touching the Lord when we do it.