Since the Lord's recovery has come to this country over thirty years ago, thousands of messages have been released through our ministry. Many of the saints in the recovery have received all the truths, yet they are short of the Spirit and of walking according to the spirit. Recently we have been paying our attention to the vital groups, but according to our actual daily practice, we are not picking up God that much. This is why we need to have set times of prayer every day. We need to pray in the morning and we should try to have another time of prayer during the day. We should make a decision that upon rising up early in the morning, we would not care for anything first except going to the Lord. We should also make a decision to go to the Lord in prayer at another time later in the day. This is a very difficult thing to do.
During our time with the Lord, we should not allow ourselves to be disturbed by the telephone or by someone coming to our door. If we were having a time with the Lord in prayer, and there was a knock on our door, would we go to answer it? We should have the attitude that when we are having such a time with the Lord, we are absent because we are fully occupied by God. Since we are absent and occupied by God, we do not need to answer the door or the phone at that time. We need to realize that during our time of prayer, we are busy with our God. In this sense, we are not at home during this time. We should not be directed or controlled by the telephone or by people knocking on our door. During our time with the Lord, we are absent from everything and busy with Him, occupied by Him.
Our lack of vitality in the Spirit is because of our lack of prayer. Most of us have read Romans 8:4, but how many of us really practice walking according to the spirit? We surely love Jesus and desire to exalt Jesus, but do we have our daily life according to the spirit? In order to experience and enjoy Jesus, Jehovah our Savior, we must practice doing everything according to the spirit.
The first issue of the incarnation is Jesus. Jesus is our Savior, our salvation. He is not merely in heaven; He is within us as the processed, consummated Spirit. But do we have our daily life walking according to Him? In our walk, does He take the lead or do we? Does He direct our steps or do we? We have to admit that most of the time in our Christian life we are the boss. We are the ones taking the lead. Quite often in our experience, we even fired Jesus.
The virgin Mary brought forth a child and was told by God to give Him the name Jesus. As Christians we have received Him. We possess Him and He is with us. He lives in us and He is our life. We may even say that He is our person. But we have to admit that most of the time we do not take Him as our person. Instead we take our self as our person. Most of the time He is the guest within us, and we are the host. Since the day we were saved, we put Him in a position as the guest within us instead of allowing Him to make His home within us.
If this brief fellowship could be used by the Lord to touch us, it will revolutionize us. The realization that we should walk according to the spirit will restrict us and revolutionize our Christian life and church life.