The Perfecting Training is a definite work just to perfect the saints. It has only one purpose, that is, the building up of the Body. The Bible reveals to us that God’s intention is to get the Body of Christ, the church. This does not mean the church in a loose sense, but the church builded up. When the church is mentioned in the Bible, it is mentioned in the context of building up. In Matthew 16 the Lord Jesus said, “I will build My church.” In the New Testament the church was first mentioned not in a doctrinal way, but in a way of building. Whenever we speak of the church, we mean the church builded up.
During the past few years, we have realized that the biggest problem in the church is the building up, and the biggest problem in the Body is the matter of function. We are all members of the church, yet even within one locality we could not see much building up. Furthermore, in one local expression of the Body, we could not see much function. We must find the answer to these two problems; then we could be perfected. Actually these two problems—the lack of building up and the lack of functioning—are one thing. We need some to tell us why we are short of the proper building up and the proper functioning.
Last week we saw there is a real lack of functioning in the members because we try to hide and protect ourselves. Something of the self has not been broken through and, for some reason, whether unwillingness or something else, there is not a real consecration to break through the self to function.
It seems that our problem in functioning and our problem in the growth of life has to do with an element of the self. It may be that the lack of functioning is due to a sense of shortage, to a sense of not being up to a standard, whether the church’s standard, our own standard, or a biblical standard. This may cause us to feel that we are not qualified to share.
According to your fellowship, the only reason that we are lacking the building up, or we are lacking the functions, is the self. But we have to realize there is not one reason or factor only. There are many factors. As a whole we have to say that the lack of building up and the lack of function is due to the shortage of the growth in life. The growth in life is the unique factor for us to be built up and to function. If we are not built up or if we would not be built up, it means we are short of the growth in life. If we do not function or we are unable to function, this also indicates we are short of the growth in life. However, the shortage of the growth in life is due to many factors. We must discover these factors. Many of you have been among us at least three or four years. This is not a short time. If we are honest with ourselves, we must admit that we do not have the adequate growth in life. Therefore, the building up among us is lacking. Also the functioning is lacking because we do not have the adequate growth in life. So, what hinders our growth?
According to the Lord’s sovereign provision among us, there should be no excuse for not growing in life. The situation among many Christians today is that there is little light, little word, little life supply, and nearly no provision for them to grow with. But in the Lord’s recovery, we have the provisions. You cannot say we are short of light or of life supply. You cannot say that the Word of God is not real or that there is no atmosphere or circumstance to help us grow. You cannot excuse yourself by saying that your shortage of growth in life is not due to you but due to the church situation and due to the environment among us. If then, we have the atmosphere, the environment, and if we are in a condition that is easy for growth—with the life supply, the light, the rich word, and all kinds of necessary provisions for life—why don’t we grow adequately? We grow, but we grow too little. We grow too slowly, and the growth is not that adequate. Also the function is not that satisfactory. We must find out what the problem is. We do recognize that the self is a hindrance to our growth in life, but we must consider whether or not there are some other factors. What else hinders the growth in life?
I believe that we have an adequate intake of the supply, but that there is some problem in our daily living of going along with the Lord when He touches us; we have a lack of willingness to go along with the Lord.
Actually, the lack of willingness is not so crucial or basic. For example, if a family has a rich supply of food, and the little ones eat, they are nourished, whether or not they are willing to eat. They still get the nourishment. But here, we all get the food, yet without much growth. I don’t feel the lack of willingness is so crucial. You must realize that there is a negative factor within us which is very great and crucial. In the last message we pointed out that we may have eaten a lot, but within us there is another eater which consumes all our nourishment. We eat the food, but some germ within us eats the nourishment intended for the body. Eventually, we do not get the nourishment; rather, the germs get the nourishment. Actually, the biggest germ in our spiritual life is not the self; it is something else. Although you have been eating and receiving much food, nearly all the nourishment has been swallowed up by this big eater within you. In all of us there is a big eater. You come to the meeting, and you receive the message, accepting the Lord’s provision, yet within you there is a bigger eater. Whatever you take in, this eater eats. What is this big eater? Some may answer that disobedience is the big eater. But while disobedience is not good, it is not that bad. Others also may feel that the lack of willingness is a big eater, but again I would say the lack of willingness is not too serious. Do not, however, take this word as an excuse to be loose. What is the big eater within us?
Opinions.
Do not use the plural word opinions; just say opinion. Nothing eats you up as much as your opinion. I believe that after listening to this you all would say amen. The opinion is a big eater. Although some are stronger than others, everyone is opinionated. You must realize that the more you are opinionated, the more you are swallowed up. The less you are opinionated, the less you are eaten up. The stronger your opinion is, the less you will grow; the stronger your opinion is, the less you will function. Some could realize and testify that because their last function was full of opinion, that function terminated their function. Every time you function with an opinion, it terminates your function. Contrariwise, if you and I would function without any opinion, in the next meeting we would surely function again. We all are opinionated; we all have our opinion. What hinders your growth in life? Your opinion! What frustrates your function? Your opinion! Why have you not been builded up with others? Your opinion! When I have been with some brothers, I sensed that they did not have much opinion. To have an opinion is one thing, and to be a person of opinion is another. A person of opinion is always opinionated.
You need to pray, opening yourself to the Lord. Ask the Lord to show you whether or not you are a person of opinion. Has there ever been a time when the church had some activity and you did not have an opinion? Has there ever been a time when the elders announced something or did something and you did not have an opinion? Have you never criticized what the brothers and the sisters in your church have done? We all are persons of opinion. None of us can say that he has been attending the meetings for three and one-half years and yet has never criticized anyone.
By this you can see that among us there is a swarm of criticizing germs. With opinions swarming within us and among us, how could we grow and how could we function? According to our concept, something may be just a little opinion; it is not hatred; it is not envy; it is not strife; it is not jealousy. It is just a small opinion. And you may consider that there is liberty and freedom in the church, that we don’t have a dictatorship; rather we have a kind of heavenly, spiritual, divine democracy. Since no one is a dictator, why shouldn’t you have your opinion? How can you avoid being opinionated? The more reasonings you have, the more opinions you will have. Even to consider that the church is free, the church is democratic, the church is this, or the church is that, is just an opinion.
Brothers, it is altogether not so easy to stay away from our opinion. It is not easy to drop our opinion. Yet we have to realize that nothing within us eats us up so much as our opinion. Opinion eats us up all the time.
We all agree that we always are short of time to pray. Whenever we pray we have the sensation that we are short of time. We feel we do not have time to pray. But if we would drop our opinion, we would have a lot of time to pray. Why? Because most of your time has been occupied with talk. You have to realize all your talk is an expression of your opinion. For example, whoever likes to talk for a long time on the phone surely must be a very opinionated person. If you do not have any opinion, your phone conversation may consist just of yes or no. You will not have much to say because you have no opinion.
Suppose someone calls you on the telephone to ask you about a certain brother. This presents a great temptation. This kind of question, spiritually speaking, is altogether not healthy. Even if you answer in a positive way, that is a kind of opinion. Don’t think that simply to say something negative is an opinion, but to say something positive is not an opinion. Both are opinions. The church must be a kingdom without opinion. Through all the years I have been learning and realizing one thing: to express your opinion concerning a certain thing, a certain person, or a certain church, whether negative or positive, is altogether unhealthy. Learn not to express any opinion. This is not a matter of playing politics. If you speak or don’t speak as a kind of politics, that is not good. But you have to learn to drop your opinion. Learn to have no opinion concerning any person, any thing, or any church. You simply need to love the Lord, to walk in the spirit, to receive the daily portion of grace, and to be actually one spirit with Him (1 Cor. 6:17). Learn to have no idea about anyone or about any church. This is not easy. You may ask whether or not this is workable. Yes, it is workable, but it is not easy. Often you will be tempted to express your idea and your opinion.
We all must have a desperate prayer: “Lord, deliver me from my opinion. Deliver me from this one big eater—my opinion. Lord, help me to drop my opinion.” Whenever I travel very few saints ask me concerning certain churches or certain brothers. I believe it is to some extent because I have no opinion. If you ask me about a certain church, I simply have no opinion. And I do not like to exercise my opinion. If you ask me about a certain brother, I have no opinion. I do not know the things concerning certain brothers, and I do not have any intention to know those things. I only like to know the Bible; I only like to know the Lord Jesus. I only like to know what is grace, and what it is to be one spirit with the Lord, and how I could minister life to some needy ones. I really do not like to know anything else. So if you ask me about a certain place or a certain person, I do not have much to say to you.
Talk always comes from opinions. Believe me, if you would daily stop your unnecessary talking, you will experience a great rescue. I am afraid many among us have wasted their time talking over the telephone. All the talk is your opinion concerning certain things, certain persons, or certain places. According to your experience I believe you all can testify to this one thing, that is, after such a talk in which you expressed your opinion and your concept concerning certain places, certain churches, or certain things, your whole being, especially your spirit, was exhausted. When you went to pray, you had no spirit; when you came to the meeting, you had no spirit; when you tried to function, you had no spirit. Your spirit had been exhausted, even killed. Furthermore, all the positive nourishment in your spirit had been eaten up by your talk of opinion. You need to practice to have no more of this kind of talk. Just speak yes or no according to the fact. Leave off your opinion. If you will do this, you will save a lot of time to pray. Also, your spiritual strength within you will not be exhausted. Rather, you will be strengthened all the time. Then when you come to the meeting, it will be easy for you to function. It will be easy to pray at any time and in any situation. You will simply open your mouth and a lot of prayer will come out of your spirit because you have a lot of storage in your spirit. Your spirit will not be exhausted. Because you have had too much talking according to your opinion, all the fatness in your spirit has been consumed. After talking and expressing your opinion, you cannot grow, and even you cannot function. You also cannot pray, because your spirit has been exhausted. Suppose you exercise for a whole day not to talk at all. When you come to the meeting that evening you would see the difference. The meeting would be in the heavens, full of glory and full of functioning.
I am afraid many times even your prayer is a kind of opinion expressed to the Lord. Not only your talk, but also your prayer is an opinion. You pray, “Lord, help the elders to do things in a different way.” That is your opinion! “Lord, You know the situation among the sisters is not that healthy.” That is your opinion! Sometimes a sister may pray for her husband, “Lord, Lord, help my husband.” Even your prayer for your husband is a kind of opinion. How do you know your husband needs help? Who told you to pray in this way? It came from your opinion. I am afraid that if you stopped talking you would also stop praying. If you stopped all your talking according to your opinion you might also have no more prayer. This simply would prove that your prayers through the years have been mostly opinions. This is why many of your prayers were not answered. The Lord would not answer your opinion. When you drop your opinion, there will be a great change in your Christian life. Exercise one thing, that is, to drop your opinion. You need to pray, “Lord, the church is Yours, all the saints are Yours, and even I myself am Yours. Who am I? What can I do? I am nothing. I have no opinion, Lord. All the saints have been saved by You, and the church has been set up by You, established by You, and is being built by You. Even today I am still in Your hand.”
Oh, we all have to realize our nothingness; we have to drop all kinds of opinion. Believe me, if you would drop your talking and drop your prayer of opinion you would spontaneously have sweet prayers full of thanksgiving and appreciation. You would have no opinion; you would just speak blessing. You would have the well speaking concerning the Lord. You would tell the Lord, “Lord, I love You.” If you would drop your opinion, your talking, and your opinionated prayer, the well speaking will come out of your spirit. You have to practice having no opinion. Even the husbands and wives must practice having no opinion.
In the church life the most killing and damaging thing is opinion. It has damaged all of us, and it has damaged the church life. It has damaged and swallowed up the Lord’s blessing. There is much blessing here, but most of the blessing has been eaten up by our opinion. Do not consider whether or not others have opinion. Just consider how opinionated you are. Every one among us is an opinionated person. The difference is only in degree. All are opinionated. Even if you have the least opinion, it will still cause a problem. Just a little opinion will kill you. We must practice one thing: “Lord, by Your mercy and grace, I would surely learn not to have any opinion. I would only take care of the facts. I would have no opinion.” This is not so easy.
If you drop your opinion constantly and daily, you will become a person who is very flexible. Furthermore, you will not be foolish, but you will have the highest discernment. When you are full of opinion, you are the most blind person. Opinion blinds people. When you drop your opinion you will have the highest discernment, yet you will be very flexible. With your wife, your husband, or with your family, you will be very flexible. In the family life or the marriage life, the troubles come mostly because you are not flexible due to your opinion. When you drop your opinion you will become very flexible. This does not mean you should build up a kind of virtue of having no opinion. Rather, opinion needs to be terminated in your life. Then there will be nothing within you eating you up all the time. This is not an ethical teaching that you need to be a very flexible person, so that you can cooperate and go along with everyone. That means nothing! But when opinion remains in you, it is a big eater; it eats you up. Regardless of what message you hear or read, the opinion that you have within you eats up everything. In every meeting there is an amount of nourishment. Even a very low meeting among us has something to nourish people, because the basic principle of our meeting in the Lord’s recovery is absolutely right.
Sometimes, even though you attend a very high meeting, you receive little nourishment because your opinion eats you up. This eater within you needs to be extinguished; it needs to be killed. Then day after day and meeting after meeting you will grow with all the nourishment. I assure you that when we stop our opinion, we will grow. In every meeting the nourishment is rich. If we would extinguish this wild eater, the opinion, we all would grow. Go to the Lord and pray: “Lord, I surely would like to be stopped from any kind of opinion. Lord, shine upon me and shine within me. I want to be in Your light. I want to see this matter of opinion. I don’t want to see my brother’s opinion or my sister’s opinion or someone else’s opinion; I want to see my opinion. From now on I don’t want to know others’ situation, because knowing their situation may cause me to have more opinion. Because I don’t want to have any opinion I would not like to know anything concerning others.”
If you go to the Lord in this way and put yourself under the Lord’s enlightening, you will see that day after day you have been exhausted by your opinion. Prayer will then come spontaneously. It will be real prayer, not the prayer of opinion. Then you will be preserved from being exhausted, and all the nourishment will be preserved for your growth. We need some brothers to give a testimony concerning opinion.
First brother: Just last week this matter of opinion came up in my life in three different areas. The first time, I was with some brothers praying and fellowshipping. In that fellowship I expressed an opinion about how to begin a certain meeting. The next meeting I attended, my spirit was very cold, and I had a hard time praying. When I tried to pray, I had no release in my spirit. I can see by my experience that if you hold an opinion, whether it’s right or wrong, it frustrates the spirit. It actually killed me in that prayer meeting. The second time, I had an opinion regarding what kind of song should be sung in a meeting, and I even stood up and testified to the saints one night regarding the singing in a previous gospel meeting. As soon as I began to speak, I realized that the spirit was not there; the more I spoke the deader I became, and I’m sure the saints had the same reaction. Finally, I have an example from my daily life. In the purchasing department where I work, we have been having a difficult time recently with a certain manager. Normally, I let other people talk regarding that person, and I do not enter in. But it has been touching me lately, so I began to react and to express my opinion to my fellow-workers. When I went to lunch it was hard to touch the Lord.
Second brother: I too am a person of opinion. At one time in my church life experience, the enemy came in by way of accusation. This progressed to the point where I was full of opinions. The more opinions I had, the more critical I became of the brothers who were taking the lead. Those brothers were perhaps unaware that something was wrong, but I can testify that while I was in that kind of situation and condition, I had no function at all in the church life.
Recently, I have been on a service group in the church that corresponds to my job, and when someone does something that I do not like, I immediately have an opinion. One day as we were fellowshipping, one of the brothers pointed out that since we had been serving together, we had never prayed. In this kind of situation, it is easy to express an opinion. Because we were not so open to the Lord, we had no time to pray.
Third brother: Now I can see that all types of opinions are a problem. Sometimes in a meeting I may grade the testimonies. I may consider that one is good, and another one is excellent, but that still is an opinion. I realize now that even this can be a hindrance. It matters little if it is good or not; we just want Christ.
According to what we have learned, it is impossible to have a prayer life if we would not drop our opinion. You do not need, though, to try to have a prayer life; you just need to drop your opinion. Spontaneously your spirit will be strong, and you will pray. Then it will always be so easy to release your spirit under any circumstances. In the meeting or outside the meeting, it will be easy for you to release your spirit. Because you have dropped your opinion and spontaneously have gotten into a prayer life, your whole being will be strengthened into your spirit. Then at any time, under any circumstances, it will be easy for you to pray, to speak, to utter something, or to function. And when you do function, your spirit will come out.
I am glad this brother has been honest to tell us he has been killed by his critical attitude in the church life. I would say a strong amen to his confession. Even though I was not so close to him and we had not been together very often, yet I have fully realized that he has been killed by his opinion. Here is a dear brother who loves the Lord and knows the church life and who is really for the Lord’s recovery, yet he has been absolutely extinguished by his opinion. This is serious! And I believe this may be very common among us, especially with those who have been in the Lord’s recovery for some years. You have probably never realized that you have been killed by your opinion. So again I would say try to drop your talking, drop your opinion, even to drop your opinionated prayer. Drop all these things. Don’t say anything to man; even don’t say anything to the Lord. Then you will see that your praying spirit will be strong and you will have some well speaking concerning the Lord coming out of your mouth. When you come to the meeting you will be full of something to present to the saints and to function with. Bring this matter to the Lord and pray. Let us all rise up and throw our stones upon this one thing— our opinion. We all have to stone opinion to death, to kill opinion among us and within us; then we will be rescued.