Second, you have to realize that Christ is everything in God’s economy. God has ordained us just to live by Christ. Christ is our life, Christ is our breath, Christ is our breathing. Christ is every little matter in our practical life. You have to see that you cannot live without Christ. If at any moment you and Christ are apart, you are dead. You cannot have life and live apart from Christ. Even though you have been regenerated, even though you have been strongly and thoroughly saved, you have to realize that once you are apart from Christ you are dead. Why are Christians full of opinion? It is because we lack these two visions: that God doesn’t want anything other than Christ with the church, and that God wants us to live by Christ. The Bible has over one thousand chapters, but you must realize the crucial point, the critical point, the organic point of the whole Bible is that you have to live by Christ. I realize that some of you have heard this many times. But it is one thing to hear it, and it is another thing to have it as a kind of dominating factor.
If you have really seen these matters, every time you take anything other than Christ, there will be a kind of condemnation within you. If you have this condemnation, it is a strong proof that you have seen it. Also, whenever you live by yourself, you say something by yourself, you talk to other people by yourself, you do something by yourself, right away a condemnation is within you. This condemnation is a proof that you are under the light and you have seen the vision. Otherwise, you may do a lot of things by yourself, but within there is no condemnation. That is a strong sign you don’t have this vision, you don’t have the seeing, and you don’t have the light. I cannot give you a better way to see these two things. The unique way is to humble yourself and to keep yourself open. Humbling is mainly in your heart, and opening is mainly related to your mind. Also you have to learn to be poor in spirit. You have to learn not to have a filled-up spirit, but always to hold an attitude of needing the Lord’s mercy. Then the light will come. If you are humble, open, if you are poor in spirit with an attitude that you need the Lord’s mercy, that you are nothing, you will get the light. You cannot create light; you cannot send light; you cannot bring in light. Light comes from the Lord according to His mercy. We have no merit, and we deserve no light. There is only one reason that we can have light, and that is God’s mercy. No proud person can see light; no full and fully satisfied person can see light. We must be humble, open, and poor in spirit. If this is your case, you will have light. Then you will surely see that God only wants Christ with the church. And you will also see that nothing counts, nothing matters, nothing avails except that you live by Christ.
Third, to have no opinion you have to breathe Christ. Now I am using another synonym for calling, that is, breathing. You have to breathe Christ. We all know that to live is to breathe. If you do not breathe, you cannot live. What does it mean to breathe Christ? Sometimes we may misunderstand the real meaning of calling on the name of the Lord. To call on the name of the Lord is not just to cry out or to shout. Many times we don’t need to call out or to cry out. You may call on the name and yet at the same time you may not breathe. To call on His name may be one thing and to breathe the Lord another. How can we differentiate between these two things? It all depends upon the deep exercise of your spirit. If you exercise your spirit, your calling on the Lord may be very low and even may be without any voice, yet you are calling by a deep exercise of your spirit. If you have seen that God only wants Christ and you have seen that God wants you to live by Christ, deep within you there is a kind of aspiration: “Lord, I need You! Lord, I need You! Lord Jesus! I need You!” This is a spontaneous aspiration coming out of your spirit, and this is to breathe, and this is the real calling on the Lord. This kind of breathing should not be stopped all the day long. Such a kind of aspiration from within is the real breathing, and this is to call on the Lord.
Sometimes, even many times, we do need to call out because some things are depressing us and suffocating us and attacking us. Sometimes we need a kind of deep breathing. Normally, we don’t have a kind of deep breathing. But sometimes, due to a certain weakness of our physical body, we may need the deep breathing. Many times in our spiritual life we also need the deep breathing. When things are attacking, suffocating, and depressing, we need some deep breathing. So at that time we may cry and shout, “O Lord Jesus!” But you cannot breathe deeply all the day long. But you have to breathe all the day long. Most of the time we may have just a kind of silent calling. You can call on the Lord silently with a kind of silent aspiration, realizing you need the Lord.
When these three matters are practical to you—that God only wants Christ with the church, and that God wants you to live by Christ, and that you need to breathe Christ with a real aspiration—you will be filled up daily with the Lord. This is exactly what Ephesians 5 says: “be filled in spirit.” Nearly everything has been confused by today’s Christians. Even the infilling within our spirit has been confused. It is not a matter of fasting and praying to be filled with the “Holy Ghost.” No! To be filled within is just like breathing. When you are filled in your spirit you will see that Christ is everything in God’s economy and that you need to live Christ. Spontaneously, you would aspire, praying: “Lord, I need You. Lord, I need You to be my life. I need to live by You. You are my breath; You are my life supply; You are joined organically to my whole being.” This is a kind of inner and deeper aspiration; this is the spiritual breathing which will fill your spirit.
After Ephesians 5:18 says that we need to be filled in our spirit, verse 19 goes on to say that we need to speak to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. Speaking is mentioned first and singing later. We are short of speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. We covered this matter in the Ephesians training, but our practice is that we only do the things we are used to. We only do things when they are habitual. If something is not habitual, we hear it, practice it a little while, and then forget it. We don’t practice speaking to one another in psalms. We need to practice this kind of speaking to one another, not in ordinary utterances, but in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. We need to sing and psalm with our heart to the Lord, giving thanks all the time for all things in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.
The point is this: when you are filled up from within, spontaneously you will have to “flush out.” What is the flushing? It is our speaking. Suppose you are such a person—filled up in your spirit and flushing out all the time—could you still have some opinion? Such a practice will absolutely change your situation. Originally it was impossible for you to have no opinion. But after you are filled up and flushing out it is altogether impossible for you to have an opinion. All your opinion will go away. The opinion drops, yet you didn’t drop it. Actually there is no need to drop it. If you need to drop it, that is wrong. The opinion simply drops. This means that you are actually, practically, livingly, organically one with the Lord. At this point it really means that you are not apart from Him. I must tell you strongly, until you reach this point, you are a person apart from the Lord.
How can you have a condition that you are not apart from the Lord, a condition that you are filled from within with the Lord? First, you must see the vision that God wants nothing but Christ with the church. Second, you must see the vision that you have to live by Him. Third, you must aspire and you must breathe from within. This is a matter all the day long. By this you can see it is altogether possible for you to pray without ceasing, to pray unceasingly, because praying has become your breathing. You are filled up with the Lord and then you flush out by speaking. In this kind of condition it is altogether impossible for you to have an opinion. In other words when we have an opinion it is a strong proof that there is no filling up of the Lord as the Spirit. If you have the filling up of the Lord as the Spirit, the opinion is gone.
Now we need to have a practical illustration. Suppose we have five brothers in one church; three are elders and two are helpers. We two are the helpers because we are younger. We are helping by learning and learning by helping. We come together to take care of so many business affairs of the church. Let us practice to have an elders’ meeting without opinion.
No doubt all of this fellowship in the elders’ meeting is very gentle, very slow, and very humble. It seems to be so much in the oneness. There was no fighting, no arguing, no debating, and nothing done in rivalry. However, although it seemed very nice, actually every word spoken was an opinion. All the brothers simply expressed their opinions. Although the three brothers had the same kind of opinion, what they expressed was simply opinion. The elders’ meeting was simply a time for the elders to express their thought or their feeling. Thought and feeling are simply synonyms of opinion. If the elders have really seen something and learned something, the elders’ meeting must be full not only of prayer but also full of the spirit of prayer. We may have prayers and not have the spirit of prayer. There may be five brothers praying in the elders’ meeting, but there may be no aspiration and spirit of prayer. Although prayer is needed in the elders’ meeting, the spirit of prayer, the aspiration of prayer, is needed even the more. If we come together as elders with a kind of aspiration and spirit of prayer, spontaneously we will pray. It will not be a kind of prayer simply to carry out our business. It will be an aspiration to breathe the Lord. In all kinds of meetings, whether the elders’ meetings or service meetings, there should be an aspiration and spirit of prayer. Simply to pray is not that crucial, but to breathe with an aspiration of prayer is crucial. This demonstration of an elders’ meeting began with no prayer and with no aspiration of prayer. So whatever they expressed was simply their opinion. How then could we not have an opinion. If the elders have a spirit and an aspiration of prayer they may present something in this way: “Brothers, these days in my praying spirit I feel the Lord wants us to have a meeting hall.” You may think this also is an opinion. No, this is not an opinion. This is an expression of the Lord’s move within you. Another might follow to say, “Amen! brothers, in these days I also have really been burdened before the Lord and deep within me I have the same feeling. The Lord wants us to have a meeting hall.” The third would indicate the same thing and the two learners would simply say, “We haven’t prayed that much, but while you brothers were fellowshipping about this, we had an amen within. We had the anointing within.” This kind of fellowship is not simply the expression of opinion.
Suppose, however, the second learner speaks in this way: “Recently, brothers, I have been praying much about this matter, and although I am very young, the more I pray about this, the more the Lord within indicates that we must wait.” You say that this is not opinion and I agree also, but how can there be two kinds of leading from the Lord? Three elders plus one learner have a certain kind of leading from the Lord. But another younger one has a different kind of leading. How can this be? Up to this point we five brothers have really practiced the right way. We have come together with the aspiration of prayer and we have prayed a lot. Thus, when we come together we don’t like to express our idea, our thought, our understanding—that means our opinion. Yet we like to tell one another how the Lord is leading us. This is right. But we have to learn one thing: the accuracy of our interpretation of the Lord’s leading depends upon the degree of self-denial. If your self-denial is higher than mine, you can interpret the Lord’s leading much more accurately than I. All five of the brothers have expressed the Lord’s leading and all five mean business with the Lord. The young learner also means business with the Lord and has the Lord’s leading. Yet how accurate his interpretation of the Lord’s leading may be depends upon the degree of his self-denial. Many times we need further prayer not simply to know the Lord’s will, but to get out of ourselves. More prayer helps us to get out of ourselves. The more we get out of ourselves, the closer we will be to the real and accurate understanding of the Lord’s leading. This is why our interpretations of the Lord’s leading may not be the same. After a week or several weeks of prayer, however, the interpretation of the Lord’s leading may be closer and closer. After we pray for another period of time we may all arrive at the same interpretation. This means that through the prayer we have gotten out of ourselves. In a sense we may have had sufficient prayer before, but we still had some amount of self present. What we spoke was not, strictly speaking, opinion, yet some of the self was there. It really was a kind of leading of the Lord, but it was covered by the hidden and subtle self. By the proper prayer the covering self will be peeled off much as you peel off the skin of a banana. The fruit is present with a banana, but you must peel off the skin in order to enjoy it. We have the Lord’s leading because we have had much prayer, but the hidden and subtle self covers the clear understanding. A banana skin is easy to peel off because it is of only one layer, but our self is of many layers. After you peel off one layer of the self, you may think it is cleaned up. But then another layer is exposed. Then another layer. It is not that the Lord has not revealed His leading to you, but that the covering self still remains in a subtle way. The leading of the Lord is here, yet our understanding and interpretation is not accurate. We have no way to drop our opinion unless we see the vision of God and ordination of God, that is, God’s economy, and we aspire all the time to be after the Lord.
In addition to this, we need to be filled with Him; then we will be snatched out of the hidden self. Then the opinion will be gone. We need to pray for the peeling off of the self. To try to peel off your self doesn’t work. You simply need to have an aspiration for the Lord and to breathe the Lord in more and more. As you are filled with the Lord as the life-giving Spirit, the heavenly breath, you will be rescued and the self will be peeled off. By this, opinion will have no place among us. Opinion will leave us. Then the real spiritual weight, the spiritual reality, the real spirituality, will be with us. At that time not only will we have no opinion but we will experience and realize the Lord Himself in our church life.
We may illustrate further with a married couple, a husband and wife. Nothing is so practical as marriage life. Marriage life is an opinion-expressing life. Before you were married you had a lot of opinions but you had no object to express your opinion to. But now that you are married you have a good target at which to dispatch all the opinion arrows. Sometimes both you and your wife realize that this opinion or that opinion is not worthy of the church life and you restrain yourselves somewhat. You give in, but a lot of opinions are saved. You have a savings account full of opinions. To have such a savings account of opinions will kill you. One day you will blow up. What is the way to get rid of the opinions? The principle is still the same: both need to see that God wants nothing but Christ. Even in a marriage life God wants nothing but Christ. God doesn’t want a husband’s love toward the wife nor her submission toward the husband. God only wants Christ. You have to live by Christ. Thus, you need the deep conviction that you cannot live without the Lord—that you need the Lord’s mercy. You have to be thirsty after Him and aspire after Him. Then you will be filled with Him and spontaneously you will pray. Your prayer will be a kind of automatic breathing. By being filled with Him day by day the self will be peeled off. Once the self is peeled off, the opinion also will go.
These illustrations may help us to see the problems. We may know the doctrine and the knowledge and yet not aspire after the Lord. We do not breathe the Lord. When we sit down with our wife or husband or with other brothers and sisters, we sit down with our opinion. We sit down with our concept. But if we are filled up with the Lord we will realize nothing counts but Christ. We will realize that we have to live by the Lord and we have to breathe the Lord, aspiring after the Lord. Once there is the inner filling up there will be the singing, the speaking, the psalming, the flushing. We will not need to deal with opinion and to overcome opinion. Opinion will simply go; opinion will just drop. I hope that we all could see this.
Although many of you have been in the Lord’s recovery a number of years, still you may be very far off. You have the messages, you have the knowledge, you have the light, you have the enlightenment, the visions, the revelations, yet you may be off. You don’t have the continuous peeling off of your self. You love the Lord and you love His recovery. You have enough light that you can never go back to the world and touch those rough, coarse, sinful things. Yet you have to realize that up to the present time you have been strengthened and consolidated to be a strong embodiment of opinion. Previously, when you were in the world and in Christianity you were not such a strong embodiment of opinion. But today you are very strong. All the years in the church life have consolidated and condensed you to be a strong embodiment of opinion. Years ago you could be touched and could have a change. But now it is very difficult. The only way of rescue is to go to the Lord: “Lord have mercy upon me. Give me a really humble heart and an open mind, and cause me to be poor in spirit. Lord, have mercy upon me that I may see the practical vision.” This will make a difference. Then you will have a real thirst and a real hunger. To lose our thirst is terrible. The longer we have been in the church life, the easier it is for us to lose our thirst. Many newcomers are very thirsty, but this thirst can gradually disappear. Because you are so familiar with the church life, your thirst may have been stolen. You may have no aspiration of prayer. Prayer may have become routine and formal to you. Oh, we need the breathing, the thirst, and the hunger. Then the Lord will become the real breathing to you, and you will have an inner filling up. This will make a difference. It will peel off the hidden self and the opinion will be gone.