At this point I would like to give a name to your peculiarity, and that name is antichrist. Your peculiarity and my peculiarity is named antichrist. Very few Christians realize that the terrible antichrist is our peculiarity. Actually speaking, today Christ doesn’t have much position and authority on the earth. The whole earth is antichrist. No doubt all the unbelievers are antichrist, but even we the believers who are the lovers of Christ have within us an antichrist. Something is within usurping and occupying us so that Christ has no position. Christ does not have much ground within us. The ground within us for Christ is subtly and hiddenly possessed altogether by our peculiarity.
According to my observations, the Christians who have the strongest peculiarity are those who are the most “spiritual.” Many times the common lovers of Christ do not have such a strong peculiarity, but those who are top spiritual persons have a very strong peculiarity. They do everything “spiritually.” They have spirituality, but they don’t give much ground to Christ. They live, walk, and behave in their spirituality, not in Christ. Their spirituality occupies their being. Because of this no one can condemn them. Their peculiarity is not in the world, in the self, or in the flesh. Rather it is in their spirituality. You could only see their spirituality; you could not see their peculiarity. Actually, their spirituality is their peculiarity. In pretense it is spirituality, but in actuality it is peculiarity. In a sense if you are not peculiar, you can never be “spiritual.” Many times spirituality is a cloak for peculiarity.
One thing makes me fearful: as I read the biographies of many spiritual people, I realize a number of them did not have a good ending. Some of them had a good beginning and a good process, but not a good ending of their spiritual life. Why? Because their hidden peculiarity became the real issue in their life. Their “spirituality” which actually was their peculiarity, caused them to end their lives not in a good way. The older we become the more peculiar we are. I am concerned that as I get older and older, I will become more peculiar. I fear lest my peculiarity hide itself under the cloak of spirituality and increase. This has happened to a number of spiritual persons.
We are touching a very crucial thing. This is why I call peculiarity within us antichrist. From reading many biographies you can discover a principle: some of the lives in these biographies end with that person’s peculiarity. Peculiarity became the very issue of their life. This shows that something is within all of us that can be called antichrist. It occupies us and will not let us give Christ an inch of ground. Our inner being, our hidden being, is fully usurped by this antichrist. It is such a subtle thing because it usurps us, yet it pretends to be for Christ. Many times it pretends to be for Christ under the cloak of spirituality. Actually it is neither Christ nor spirituality, but just us in our peculiarity. This is one of the crucial killing factors within our Christian life. I call it antichrist. It is in us, and it is difficult for us to name. We are short of a proper vocabulary. We do not have the adequate words to express something concerning our peculiarity. It is just peculiar. How can we pin down our peculiarity? How can we discern that such a thing within us is antichrist?
First of all, you should not believe that your daily life is really a life that lives Christ. At least you are not living Christ all the time in a daily way. You must admit this. I surely admit this. During the past weeks my confession to the Lord has been mainly that I didn’t live Christ. We all must admit that we don’t have a daily life that lives Christ. We may declare, “To me to live is Christ” (Phil. 1:21), but we cannot testify of such an experience. According to our experience we would have to say that to us to live is something else, not Christ. Others around you may not be so clear, but you yourself know where you are. You know that you don’t live Christ much in your daily life.