In the past few messages we have covered two main points concerning how to live Christ. First, we pointed out that we have to pray before doing anything. The New Testament charges us to pray unceasingly, so we have to pray before doing anything. Prayer must be prior to our doing. Don’t do anything without first praying. We know too definitely that without prayer or without praying quite often, no one can live Christ. The only way to live Christ is to pray. If you don’t pray, you have no way. Second, we have gone on to see that not only do we need to pray before doing, but even while we are doing something, at that time we need to pray. Our prayer must go along with our doing. This means we need to pray unceasingly.
In the Cleveland conference I continued to give more messages on the experience of Christ and how to live Christ. In those six messages I was more and more deeply impressed that, no doubt, practically speaking, the Lord has really shown us the right way to live Christ. We all know that not only the New Testament, but also the Old Testament was written in the way of a puzzle. This is why so many teachers of the Bible like to systematize the things in the Bible. Isaiah 28:10 and 13 tell us that God speaks His word here a little and there a little. He speaks a little to Moses and a little to Joshua and a little to another one and a little to David. In the Bible God didn’t speak in the way we do. Whenever we speak we like to have a completion to our speaking. But God didn’t speak in that way. God spoke just a little bit to Abraham. Then, of course, God spoke a lot to Moses. At least two full books were God’s speaking to Moses, especially the book of Leviticus. From the first verse of chapter two to the last verse of the last chapter, it is altogether God’s speaking. That speaking of God to Moses was longer than God’s speaking to anyone else. Even Psalm 119 has only one hundred seventy-six verses. The book of Exodus has forty chapters; Leviticus has twenty-seven; Numbers has thirty-six; and Deuteronomy has thirty-four. This means there are one hundred thirty-seven chapters of God’s speaking just to one man, Moses. Yet still that was only a little of God’s entire speaking. Why? Because it was not completed. After speaking to Moses it may be that the Lord spoke to over forty different people in different places at different times. Still God’s speaking was not completed until Paul. Paul said his commission was to complete the word of God (Col. 1:25). Paul was bold. No other one ever had the boldness to tell people he had a commission to complete the word of God. In the Bible no one chapter is so complete in revealing God’s economy to us, but a little is here, a little is there, piece after piece, like a big puzzle. All the pieces are scattered and mixed up, so you need to spend many hours to put the pieces together. Then you can see the picture.
In the New Testament, the Bible never tells us how to live Christ. You have to realize that there is not even such a charge—to live Christ. The first time the matter of living Christ was referred to by the Lord in John 6:57, He simply said, “He who eats Me shall also live because of Me.” This was not a charge. He simply mentioned it. The second time is in John 14:19: “Because I live, you shall live also.” That means Christ will live in resurrection. When He lives in resurrection, we live Him. Again this is not a charge.
The third verse is Galatians 2:20: “It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me.” The fourth time is found in Philippians 1:21: “For to me to live is Christ.” Two of these verses were written by John and two of these verses were written by Paul. Paul, of course, wrote them first because he was a completing minister. John wrote later because he was a mending minister. He mended the same thing that Paul had written. Paul had written something in Galatians 2:20 about thirty-five years before John wrote something in his Gospel. Paul wrote something concerning the living of Christ, but that was broken. Later John came in to mend the broken matter of living Christ.
You cannot find a verse that charges us to live Christ; it only tells us there is such a thing. After Christ came and after He went through all the process of incarnation, human living, death, and resurrection, He is here to live with us so that we can live Him. There is no charge to live Christ, so, in a sense, the New Testament doesn’t tell us how to live Christ. However, in the New Testament, according to all the words and experiences, you surely can see there is a way demonstrated and presented to us. By reading the New Testament carefully we can find out how to live Christ. Years ago I didn’t have the light that we need to live Christ. So I didn’t pay attention to the matter of how to live Christ. Within the past few years we have seen the new light that we have to live Christ. Very few other books have used such an expression—to live Christ. Recently, though, I was told that a Brethren teacher used this term—to live Christ. Anyhow, it is in the Bible. Because we have paid much attention to this matter of living Christ, I have been bothered because it has been hard for me to live Christ. Because it’s hard to live Christ, I got into the New Testament concerning how to live Christ. Gradually I picked up one piece of the puzzle here and another piece of the puzzle there, in this book and in that book. I found many pieces, and I put all the pieces together. By putting all these pieces together I have seen a full picture of this matter of living Christ.