Very good! Now it is my turn to tell you what I have learned within this past week. I practiced a lot this past week and through this practice I have been brought to a kind of understanding by the Lord, that is, that unceasing prayer is not just to pray before doing something. Unceasing prayer is also to keep praying while you are doing something. This is the way to live even physically. We live physically by breathing. To live means to breathe. Breathing is the real actual living. If you don’t breathe you die. As long as you live, you breathe. In the spiritual mathematics breathing equals living and living equals breathing. In the Chinese language when you say a man is dead, you say he stopped breathing. So when you stop breathing, that means you die. As long as you live you breathe.
This matter of living Christ is altogether a spiritual living. Such expressions as “to live Christ” or “Christ lives in me” are only used in the heart of the divine revelation. Galatians 2:20 says it is Christ who lives in me, and Philippians 1:21 says, “To me to live is Christ.” No other verses even in Paul’s writings use these kinds of expressions. These are unique. Of course, Paul’s ministry is the completing ministry. It is the ministry that completed God’s divine revelation. Then John’s ministry came in to mend the broken ministry. So John’s ministry is the mending ministry. Paul in completing the divine revelation did indicate that we need to live Christ and that Christ lives in us. In no other of Paul’s books did he mention these expressions. In the other writings of the New Testament such as Peter’s writings and James’, there is not such an expression. But in the mending ministry by John, this expression has been used again. In John 6:57 he said, “He who eats Me shall also live because of Me.”
Because Paul’s completing ministry was damaged, John’s mending ministry came afterward to mend it. Within a short time during the first century the degraded church damaged Paul’s completing ministry. So in the latter part of the first century John was raised up to mend the broken ministry. In his mending ministry he once more picked up this expression which was used by Paul in his completing ministry. John 6:57 says, “He who eats Me shall also live because of Me,” and John 14:19 says, “Yet a little while and the world beholds Me no longer, but you behold Me; because I live, you shall live also.” This verse indicates that the Lord will be in resurrection and will also be living forever in His resurrection. It also indicates that while He is living in His resurrection, we shall also live. We live with Him, we live in Him, we live by Him, and eventually we just live Him. Twice in John’s writing, this expression to live or living is picked up. Thus this expression is used not only in Paul’s completing ministry but also in John’s mending ministry. This is not a small thing.
In the divine revelation of the sixty-six books of the Bible, the climax, the top point, is nothing but to live Christ. Even in eternity we will live Christ. To live Christ is different from living for Christ. In eternity we will not live for Christ only, but we will live Christ, Our eternal job will be just to live Christ. To me this is so sweet. Eventually even with the Apostle Paul, God’s sovereignty put him in prison where he could do nothing but live Christ. In the prison he was neither idle nor busy; he was just living Christ.
In the mending ministry which is much richer and stronger than the completing ministry, there is such a chapter as John 15. In John 6 and John 14 there is the plain word concerning living Christ, but in John 15 there is an illustration showing us what it is to live Christ and what it is to have Christ live in us. There we have the vine tree with its branches. The branches abide in the vine, and the vine abides in the branches. They two live together. So the branches are doing nothing but living the vine. The branch of the vine is neither idle nor busy. It is simply living. No fruit tree is busy in doing work. Two years ago a small peach tree was planted in my back yard, and this morning, to my surprise, a small peach was on a branch. It was fully ripened, so I picked it and washed it and tasted it. It was so sweet! The little tree had been there in my back yard for over two years, but I never noticed that it was busy. I never saw it running back and forth doing so many things. This illustration of the vine and the branches is so simple yet it is profound. As a branch in the vine you need to stop your working, and learn to live. The branches of the vine don’t do anything. They don’t work; they just live. We must stress this one word—live. Some might argue that Paul said he worked and he labored. That of course, is another side, but now we need to stress the side of the living.