We must be clear that any life matter doesn’t depend so much upon knowledge. You may know this and you may know that concerning the matter of life, but knowledge doesn’t work out anything for the matter of life. The matter of life must be something by itself. So regardless of how much we know concerning the spiritual life, if we are off from that life, it means nothing.
Through all the years in the Lord’s recovery, the Lord has shown us that His intention is just to be our life that we may live Him. This is simple. You may have heard this for years, yet truthfully I must say that you haven’t gotten into the habit to live Him. There are many reasons why you haven’t gotten into the habitual experience to live Christ. Your intention to do certain things may be a reason. You may like a small thing, such as a pair of shoes, or a pair of eye glasses, or a ring. These things may have kept you from getting into the experience of habitually living Christ. Although you may realize many reasons which keep you and frustrate you from living Christ, it may be you haven’t realized some of the reasons which are in the religious field. Anything in the field, the circle, the sphere, the realm of religion may be a trap. If you are not in your spirit contacting the living Lord through the Spirit and the living Word, everything in the so-called Christian religion is a trap.
From my youth, although I didn’t know anything concerning Christianity, I heard that we have to pray. I still remember when I was around ten years of age my second sister was away from home studying at a school. We used to correspond and my mother helped me compose a simple letter. My mother always told me to conclude the letter with this blessing: the Lord be with you. I didn’t know what that meant, but every time I wrote, I concluded with that kind of word. Sometimes I wrote: the Lord’s peace be with you. Who was the Lord? I didn’t know. What was the peace? I didn’t know. That was just a religious clause to close the letter. This illustration may help you to know that you have been saying a lot of things and you have been writing a lot of things including good biblical terms, spiritual terms, and holy terms, yet that was just a term. You didn’t really realize what it meant. You were trapped there because you thought you knew what it meant. Actually you didn’t know what it meant.
Many Christians pray, but their prayer is a trap. Before I met Brother Nee, when people asked me to pray for them or for their father or for their mother or for this or for that, I was quick to say I would do it. Then I stayed with Brother Nee, and I noticed that a number of people came to him asking him to pray for them. When they asked him to pray for them he was very cold. He had no expression, no reaction, no response— nothing. I saw this happen not only once but time after time. I was with him for quite a time and when people came to him he liked to have me there so I could see the situation. Old people, young people, pastors, ministers, and sinners asked Brother Nee to pray for them. But he was cold; even he was frozen with no expression. Eventually, through further talk I got to know he had a reason for doing that. He indicated that he could not promise a man that he would pray for him because prayer was not up to him. It should not be initiated by him. Prayer is up to the Lord. If He initiated he would pray; he would have no choice. If the Lord didn’t initiate, then his prayer was something presumptuous and a kind of presumptuous sin. He didn’t like to have any kind of presumption. By this you can see that many prayers have become a trap to you, trapping you to do something apart from the living One.
The Lord said apart from Me you can do nothing (John 15:5), but actually we can do a lot of things apart from Him. Apart from Him we can pray, we can read the Bible, we can preach the gospel, we can do everything in today’s Christian religion. But all these are done by ourselves, not by the Lord. Some may say that they cannot do miracles apart from Him. Thank God that you cannot do miracles apart from Him! It’s wonderful that there is some restriction, that there is something you can’t do. But all of the ordinary things you can do, and you have done a lot, yet you never realized that all these are traps used by the enemy to trap you. Don’t consider others; consider yourself. Day after day you have been trapped in this thing and in another thing. I don’t mean that something worldly or sinful is trapping you. Everything that traps you is quite “Christian.” I wouldn’t say spiritual, but anyway these things always trap you. They trap you and keep you away from living Christ. All these things have one goal and one object from the enemy, and that is to keep you from living Christ. Christ’s words in John 15 are so simple: “Abide in Me and I in you...apart from Me you can do nothing” (John 15:4-5). This word is so simple but I can tell you that not even a few are really abiding in this word. You have been trapped from this word. When you pray do you really abide in Him? When you read the Bible, do you read it abiding in Him? If not you are trapped. If you are not abiding in Him, prayer is a trap; if you are not abiding in Him, even reading the Bible is a trap.
Many Christians only care for the knowledge of the doctrines; they don’t care for the substantial, genuine experience of a living Person. I was with the Brethren who are famous for knowing the doctrines for many years. All the help I received of them was just knowledge; nearly not one bit was the experience of the living Christ. Then I got the help to experience Christ, and I looked to the Lord, that I would surely have the experience of such a living Christ rather than a lot of knowledge that had nothing to do with Him. You can see that the doctrinal knowledge or paying your attention to doctrinal points is a trap. This is my experience.