All those who would come before God to minister to Him must answer to God's holiness, righteousness, and even His glory. The entire Bible, both the Old Testament and the New Testament, focuses on these three things: God's holiness, God's righteousness, and God's glory. God's glory refers to God Himself; God's holiness refers to His nature; and God's righteousness refers to His way. In other words, God's way is righteous, God's nature is holy, and God Himself is glory. Every time we come before God, we must first realize how we are able to stand before God. God is holy and righteous! How can sinners like us meet Him? We can meet Him because the blood is here, remitting and cleansing us from our sin. As a result, we can approach God without any conflict because His blood has cleansed us from all unrighteousness. However, He is not only holy and righteous; He is also glorious in Himself. Therefore, there is a need to offer the fat, which is to offer up our very best to God for His satisfaction. In other words, the blood deals with everything in the old creation, and the fat speaks of everything in the new creation. The blood dispels everything of the old creation, so that we no longer have a problem concerning holiness and righteousness. The fat is of the new creation, which signifies the offering of ourselves to God, so that we no longer have a problem with God's glory.

We cannot minister to God if we do not know death and resurrection. Death is not a doctrine or a theory from the Bible; it is poured out through a genuine trust in Him and in the pouring out of His incorruptible blood. When His incorruptible blood was poured out, we too were poured out. Thank the Lord. Now our Lord has no blood. He only has a body with bones and flesh. Everything of the natural life was poured out. When the Lord's blood was poured out, everything of the soul-life was poured out. He indeed poured out His soul unto death (Isa. 53:12). This is the significance of the blood. The pouring out of the blood is the removal of everything natural. (We will speak more concerning this matter later.)

If we want to minister before God, we need to draw near to Him, stand before Him, and wait for His will. Please remember these two indispensable matters. On the one hand, we must continually pour out "our blood"—we must continually acknowledge that everything we have by birth and lose by death has been poured out. Many frequently ask me what the natural life really is. I often answer them by saying that everything that comes with birth and goes with death is of the natural life; everything that exists between birth and death is the natural life. Praise the Lord! He has already poured out everything of our natural life. In other words, He has poured out everything that we obtained and everything that came by birth. When the Lord poured out His blood, He did not only pour out His own life, but ours as well. Hence, we have to continually stand on this fact and deny our soul-life. Brothers and sisters, this is altogether not a doctrine but a reality. Everything of the natural life is thus dropped before God. Brothers and sisters, this is a goal that we can attain to because, in Christ, everything of the soul has been poured out so that it is now possible for us to be selfless. Thank the Lord, we can be selfless because Christ poured out our self when He poured out His blood. By ourselves, this is impossible; we cannot crucify ourselves. Thank the Lord that the Son of God has accomplished this fact. By Him we can die, and by Him we can give up our self. But it is not sufficient just to die, because death is only the negative side. Our focus before God is not only on death but also on resurrection. When He arose, we were in Him. In Him, we became a new creation. He not only died but also rose from the dead. He lives unto God; therefore, all that He is, is for God's satisfaction and not for Himself. Brothers and sisters, this is what God wants to show us. This is what it is to minister to the Lord. We must offer Him the fat and the blood.

Verse 16 says, "They shall enter into my sanctuary, and they shall come near to my table, to minister unto me, and they shall keep my charge." This verse tells us that there is a place to minister to the Lord. The ministry to the Lord is in the sanctuary—a hidden, quiet place not public like the outer court. Brothers and sisters, may He grace us so that we would not consider it a suffering to be in the sanctuary. Actually, a day there is better than a thousand days in another place. Yet we are always afraid of the sanctuary. How good it is to be in the outer court! Everyone can see us there. How good it is to be in the outer court! They all know us there. How good it is to be in the outer court! Our names are well known, and there is no attack or slander there, only a welcome and praises. How wonderful this is! But God wants us to be in the sanctuary. When we are in that place, others may say that we are lazy and not doing anything. In reality, what is done there is far superior to the work of ministering to the people in the outer court. Have you heard others criticizing you for being small and narrow? Have you heard others say that you will not do this or that? Others may say that you are too lazy to work and that you have left many things undone. But brothers and sisters, our hearts are not narrow at all. We are not asking anything of men, and we do not want to stand at the gate for many to see. We have only one goal, which is to minister to the Lord in the Holy Place. Brothers and sisters, we are not willing to minister in the house because our hope and our task are greater than this. No one here is as ambitious as Paul was. He had one ambition, which was to please the Lord. The things we are seeking here are greater than many other things, and our labor here is greater than that of many who do great works. The fact is that our heart is broader than anyone else's. Brothers, do not think that we are too small and narrow. We are very broad, for we are not only ministering to the house but to the Lord as well. Of course this is not that great in the sight of man. Brothers and sisters, we would rather let others criticize us than to move without God's will. We have only two positions here: one is that we are dead and have dropped everything of the old creation; the other is that we are resurrected and are serving God, learning to stand before Him, listening to His order, and waiting in His presence to minister to Him. We do not care for anything else. O brothers and sisters, is God's will enough to satisfy you? Is it enough to do His will? Is His will good enough? Or are you still pursuing other things? Are all of God's plans for you good enough? Oh, you must learn to minister to God in His presence.

Since time is so short and we also have to cover Luke 17, I cannot share in more detail. I have said earlier that I wanted to mention three things. One is the difference between ministering to the house and ministering to the Lord; another is the way to minister to the house and the way to minister to the Lord; and the third is the requirements and condition of one who ministers to the Lord. Now let us consider the requirements of one who ministers to the Lord.