We have now come definitely to a very crucial point, that is, for us to live Christ we must practice the one spirit with Him. And for us to practice the one spirit with Him, we must exercise our spirit to pray unceasingly. First Thessalonians 5:17 says we should pray without ceasing, and Ephesians 6:18 says that we should pray at every time. These two verses indicate to what extent our prayer life should be. Our prayer life should be all the day long and at every time. We must pray continually and without ceasing. For many years it was very difficult for me to be clear how to practice this kind of prayer life. Previously, I indicated that before doing anything, you had better pray. Before saying anything, you had better pray. Before going anywhere, you had better pray. Even before thinking something, you had better pray. Now I would add something more: even before you love, you have to pray. Before you weep, you have to pray. Before you lose your temper, you need to first pray. Before you criticize, you need to first pray. Before you gossip, you need to first pray. We need two brothers to represent all the trainees and to tell us what they have learned concerning this matter during the past seven days. After you tell us what you have learned, I will tell you what I also have learned during these past seven days.
First brother: Personally, I was very much impressed with the word last Friday. Several things that were shared have really stayed with me throughout at least a part of the week. One thing we saw was that this matter of living Christ has to be a habit. The Lord really spoke to me that I have a lot of habits inwardly and outwardly, but one habit that I surely don’t have is a habit of living Christ. And until this becomes a habit, the Lord could never be satisfied, and my practice will always be very deficient. Throughout this last week I found myself praying, “Lord, build up such a habit in me.” I found myself opening to the Lord and confessing to the Lord that I was very short as far as having any kind of real habit, even of praying. As you mentioned, to live Christ habitually we have to pray without ceasing. To build up a habit of living Christ is directly related to building up a habit to pray. We need to pray in the way of contacting the Lord and of being one spirit with Him before doing anything. I was definitely reminded by the Lord and through the word that was ministered last week to turn to the Lord. Even a few times before speaking or a few times before doing things, I was reminded.
You also mentioned last week that most of us are not condemned because of our lack of living Christ. We are condemned for sin or for other things, but we are not condemned when we don’t live Christ. I would have to confess that this is my experience. I am rarely condemned that I don’t live Christ. But at least this last week on a few occasions I sensed a kind of condemnation at the end of the day that I had not lived Christ. Why had I not lived Christ? Because I had not been praying without ceasing. What you shared about prayer really gave me a handle for the matter of living Christ. This whole week I have checked one thing: how much have I prayed? And how often have I prayed? By that I knew how little I had lived Christ.
Finally, one thing that was shared last week is very encouraging to me, that is, at least within me there is a seeking to live Christ, and this seeking has been intensified. I was especially aware this week as I endeavored to practice to pray more often that the thirst within to live Christ was greater, and this was an incentive to practice more and more this matter of prayer. My only sense after one week is, as you said, this will take many failures. I just hope that after two years I could be a person who prays before doing things and saying things. But I realize this is altogether dependent upon our daily practice, and that I have to make this a daily matter. If I don’t make it a daily practice, I will be at the same point two years from now. I also appreciated that we have to watch and pray. The reason we don’t pray is because we don’t watch. Within our being we have this threefold sleepiness—physical, psychological, and even spiritual. I was more aware this past week that there is a tendency to forget to contact the Lord and to forget to pray. At times my mind is on other things, and I am not watching unto prayer. The only way to keep the life of prayer and to build up the habit of prayer is to increase the watching. I don’t know how the watching can be strengthened, but at least through this word I was more infused that I need to watch unto prayer in order to live Christ. At least this last week I was more consciously practicing to pray and to watch and to live Christ. I feel I have just had a beginning in this matter. The more I endeavor to practice, the more I realize how little I live Christ, and that this is not an easy matter. It needs a daily, hourly practice.
Second brother: I feel these meetings should help us in two areas: First of all, they should help us in our realization concerning this matter of living Christ. I think we all have to confess that before Brother Lee got on this matter, we didn’t even have the understanding that what God is after is for us to live Christ. I can testify that my realization for the need of living Christ and the praying unceasingly has definitely deepened. Second, I feel these meetings should help us in our practice, that is, in our day-to-day actual outworking of living Christ and praying unceasingly. I have had much consideration this week that it is so easy for us to do something for Christ, but it is so difficult for us to live Christ by praying in an unceasing way. For example, this week I was considering my future. I have a job offer that would be very demanding, and my tendency is to stay away from that kind of job, because I think I should spend more time in the church life and so forth. In other words I would like to spend more time for the Lord. But because of last week’s fellowship, I began to realize that what the Lord is after is for me to live Him rather than for me to be for Him. I had some realization that it might be of the Lord for me to get a very busy job so that I could learn to live Christ in that situation rather than to take another job where I might have more time to be for the Lord. At any rate I had the realization that what the Lord is after in these days is just for us to live Him.
I had a further realization this week. At the end of each day I checked my day and I came to the realization that although I was so busy I didn’t have too much time to sin; I had a horrifying realization of how little I lived Christ during the day. So I realized this is really a matter of habit. Not only am I short of the good habit of living Christ, but I have a bad habit of not praying and not living Christ and not checking with Christ before I do everything. I must admit that in my practice I have found myself coming back to the Lord after a period of time and confessing that I had failed to live Christ during this period of time. I was encouraged to realize that even as a person can gradually be recovered back to health physically, he can also gradually learn to live Christ. I feel that through our daily practice eventually the Lord will surely bring us into the full practice of living Christ by praying unceasingly.