In the Lord’s recovery God’s desire has been made more than clear to us. We have seen God’s eternal purpose, His ultimate intention. We know that God wants us to live Christ that the Body may be built up. Although these are simple words, we all have to realize nothing is more crucial in the Bible than these two points. When I was young and seeking after the Lord, I was charged, taught, and helped to be overcoming. I was helped to overcome sin, the world, and the flesh. I was told how to be holy, and I was taught how to be spiritual. According to our experiences these are good, but these are not the crucial and central points in the Bible. The central points in the Bible are that we need to live Christ and that the Body needs to be built. If you check your spiritual situation according to overcoming, according to holiness, or according to spirituality, you may be satisfied to some extent. But if you check your spiritual situation with the living of Christ and the building of the Body, you surely would not be satisfied. Experientially speaking you may be somewhat overcoming and yet still not live Christ. You may be somewhat holy and yet not live Christ. Even you may be very “spiritual” and yet not live Christ very much.
Moreover, you may be all of these things and yet care nothing for the Body. You may not have one bit of the building up of the Body. Within the past fifty years I have seen many spiritual people. I have contacted nearly all of the spiritual giants during the past half century, either directly or by reading their writings. In 1958 I was invited to a very spiritual place. After I had been there a while three of the five leading ones came to me to complain about the non-building situation. You may be overcoming, holy, and “spiritual,” and yet not have much experience in living Christ and in the building up of the Body. You may overcome sin to a certain extent, yet you live Christ very little. And as far as the building up of the Body, your experience is nil. Because we have seen the light in the recovery that God wants us to live Christ and to have the Body built up, I don’t believe many among us would consider that they are spiritual. If we test our spiritual situation according to this measurement we are through. There is not much measure of the living of Christ and not much measure of the building up of the Body. Now I would ask the two brothers on the platform to tell us why we do not live Christ. We have been here for many years; we have the Life-studies of so many books of the Bible, yet we do not live Christ, and we are not that much builded up. Why? We need to ask two brothers to open themselves to us and to consider what is the thing that hinders them, restricts them, and frustrates them from further experience of Christ. What frustrates them from the further building up of the Body?
Just in a few words I would say it is because I’m so occupied with Satan, not in a sinful way, yet my whole being is constituted with an element other than Christ. And this causes me not to hunger and not to seek the light. There is a part of me like this and I stand with it. Too often I agree with it and allow it to have its way. I don’t disagree and don’t resist it. I passively allow it to have its way because I’m “spiritual.” I’m waiting for God to do something about it. Many times I recognize that there is no Christ and no building, but I don’t resist it. This is all I can say.
Okay, now it is your turn.
Brother Lee, quite frankly I’m glad you asked this question of me. This last week I’ve been thinking a lot about this and even this morning I prayed about it. I have been pray-reading through Matthew in my morning watch, and this morning I read verses in Matthew 6 concerning the giving of alms and praying in public. I began to open to the Lord about this matter of peculiarity. I saw that I was occupied daily, even moment by moment, with something that is not Christ. It is not sin and it is not the world, but it is peculiarity. I saw that the kingdom people should not do something simply to get recognition from other people.
Let me say this: both of your speakings are quite mixed up. The thing that frustrates both of you from living Christ and from being built up in the Body is not Satan. It is not a matter of desiring the recognition as mentioned in Matthew. You need to have your understanding rescued from all these matters. To say Satan occupies you is a kind of deceiving excuse. I must tell you strongly that none of these things is the frustrating factor. The frustrating factor within you that keeps you from living Christ and from being built up in the Body is simply your peculiarity. Don’t blame Satan that much. Satan didn’t do that much. Your peculiarity did everything.