But in the last few months I have been bothered for a further step, that is, how to live Christ. No doubt while I have been so seeking, the Lord has answered His promise that if we seek we would find (Matt. 7:7). Recently I have told you that the first way to live Christ is that you have to pray before doing anything. Second, I also discovered that you have to continue your prayer. While you are doing certain things, you have to pray. Third, we have seen that we must practice a kind of breathing prayer. We have to make our prayer a matter of breathing. This means we have to pray unceasingly; we have to pray continually.
Fourth, I also shared with you that we have to get into the Word, not only by reading and not only by praying, but also by singing, psalming, and thanking. You must get into the Word because the Holy Bible is God’s Word, God’s breath. It is even the consolidation of God’s breathing. Don’t get into the Word like a scholar or a student, but get into the Word to pray-read it, to sing it, to psalm it, to thank God all the time through it. I believe all of these give us the way to live Christ. Although our experiences in these matters may be limited and shallow, yet we can testify this is the right way to live Christ. When we pray-read, when we sing, when we psalm, when we thank God for the Word, we have the inner conviction that we are really one with the living One. At that time we really get some fresh air into our inner being. Every day I need about one hour’s exercise, either to walk or to do this or that. Otherwise, I could not sleep well. But by exercising I breathe, and it refreshes me. In the same way when you pray-read the Word, when you sing the Word, when you psalm the Word, and you thank God for the Word, you get the fresh air into your inner being.
In the last meeting we saw that many Christian practices become a trap to keep us from living Christ. Now I would mention a further thing that keeps us from living Christ and is a kind of current that carries you away unconsciously and subconsciously. You may be able to avoid stepping into a trap, but you are simply in the current. When the current flows you are carried away. What is the current that unconsciously and subconsciously carries us away from living Christ? It is our habitual living. In our daily lives we live according to habit, and this habit is a current carrying us away from living Christ. Although we know we need to pray, we need to sing, still we don’t practice these things that much. Our habitual living frustrates us from practicing these matters. We have to see that our habit of not living Christ is even sinful.
When a married couple sits down to eat, they nearly always talk in a habitual way. Sometimes they may have some good news or bad news to talk about, but at other times they may hunt for some material to talk about. They may talk about a brother’s new suit or a sister’s testimony in the meeting. This is a kind of trend. Unconsciously and subconsciously all the day long we are living in a trend. Years ago I learned there is a kind of lust to know things about others. This is evil. If we have learned the real spiritual lessons, we would not like to know things concerning others. To know things concerning others always kills us and always damages others. It doesn’t help, and it doesn’t build up. When I come to your home, I don’t like to look around. I don’t like to look at your kitchen or your bedroom or your closet. I have learned that is a temptation. To want to know how many suits someone has and what color they are is an evil, lustful desire. Many Christians today and even many among us have not been delivered from this desire. This is why so much death has been carried on and on. It is because we have gotten to know too many things about others. If I never get to know anything about you, I could never carry out any death.
When we sit down together, whether as a husband and wife, or as brothers with brothers, or as sisters with sisters, we must be alert not to speak things, to talk of things, and to do things in a habitual way. Recently, when I have wanted to talk about some brothers or some churches I have been stopped. The question came to me: why talk about this? This is just your habit. Why don’t you pray? Why would you talk about that church? Why wouldn’t you pray? To talk about things, to talk about certain persons, to talk about certain churches is our habit. I don’t mean that we criticize others. We may talk about others in a nice way, but still it is just a habit. Why not spend that time pray-reading the Word? Why not spend that time singing or praying? Don’t talk about the things which you don’t need to talk about.
By this you can see that we have wasted and misused our time by our habit. We say that we don’t have time to pray, but we all agree that we have a lot of time to talk. Consider how much time you use daily for talking. You talk concerning that sister being weak and that brother being sick and that church not being good and another church being pitiful. You don’t need to talk about these matters; you need to pray for them. You don’t need to tell people that a certain church is pitiful, even you don’t need to say that a certain church is wonderful. Why do you need to talk about it? I don’t mean that we always are talking in a way of evil gossip. Even if we talk about things in a so-called holy way, it may be a waste. It may be just a habit. For you and me to talk is very easy, but for us to stop talking and to pray is very difficult. Why? Because a habit has been built up. Even today we are still living in that habit unconsciously and subconsciously. This means we are in a trend, a current. This is a crucial point. God wants us just to live Christ, but we like to do this, and we like to do that. All the Christian practices become a trap to us. We have a kind of living that has altogether become a habit to us. In this habit we do a lot of things habitually without any thought. We just talk spontaneously. We need to be bothered by this matter, and we need the Lord’s mercy. We need the Lord’s mercy to rescue us from anything of our habit. We have to hate our entire habit, not only our bad habit. It is not that we simply need to hate a drinking habit, or a smoking habit, or a gossiping habit; we need to be rescued from our habitual living. Our habitual living is the biggest frustration to living Christ. Our habitual living is a kind of trend, a kind of current, a kind of downhill current, carrying us away from Christ unconsciously.
When we come together we don’t have the habit to sing. Our singing is altogether formal, not habitual. Habitually, you simply ask about a brother’s wife or children, or you discuss a certain word of fellowship that a brother gave in a previous meeting. This is just habitual talk. Ever since I have been bothered concerning the matter of living Christ, and since I have seen some light concerning this matter, when I hear this kind of habitual talk I am disgusted. When we come together, why do we not have the habit to pray-read? If we just pray-read two minutes, how good it would be. Let us pray-read John 1:1 even for a half minute. Do you really have that much concern in your asking about that brother’s wife and children? Actually you don’t; you just ask habitually. Eventually, that is a kind of hypocrisy. Do you really have a loving concern? I’m afraid you’re just talking habitually. Based upon this you can see how much time has been wasted day after day by our habitual living.
How could we give up our habitual living? We need the Lord’s mercy. On the one hand to see some practical light in this way is a pleasant thing, but on the other hand it is not a pleasant thing. This is why the Lord said we have to weep and we have to mourn (Matt. 5:4). Look at the present situation among Christians. Who is living Christ? Not only among the denominations, but even among us how little we live Christ! It is altogether a pitiful situation. How much has the Lord gained for His purpose even among us? I’m afraid not much. We know a lot, yet we do not live Christ that much. So we need the mercy of the Lord. Only one thing is true, that is, to live Christ.
To live Christ requires us to drop everything, and the hardest thing for us to drop is our habitual living. Don’t think this means we need to be a mental case. I do believe the more we give up our habitual living, the more we will be sober. Many times we are not sober; we are just habitual. Many times the things we do are a waste of our time because of our habitual living; that is not sober. If we would drop our habitual living and gird our loins (1 Pet. 1:13), we would be sober. In our home we will sing and pray, and when we see each other and come together, we will sing, pray-read and psalm together. We all have to admit that nearly every day we are committing a kind of unconscious sin in our habitual living. Hardly any of our habitual living is something that God wants us to do. We simply do it unconsciously; we do it subconsciously. We just do it because that is our habit. I feel this is a very practical word. If we would drop our habitual living, all the sinful things will be gone; all the negative things will be gone. No time would be wasted. To redeem the time (Eph. 5:16) is mainly to drop the habitual living. If you don’t drop your habitual living, every bit of your habitual living is a waste of time. Then spontaneously you will be a person praying unceasingly, praising your Savior all the day long. If you become a person like this you won’t waste your time.
Also you will be so simple. The more we live Christ the more we become simple. What I mean by being simple is that you don’t know anything concerning anyone or any church or anything; you only know Christ. Many among us know too much concerning others. They are like an information desk. If you want to know something concerning a certain brother, you go to that desk, and you can get the full information. But if you would drop your habitual living you would not know anything about any brothers or any churches. Then you would never spread any death. You would never pass on any rumor. You would never be involved with any gossip.
But the point is this: you have been carried away from living Christ by your habitual living. This is the problem. We all can testify that many days in the morning we had a good time in prayer. But right after the prayer we came to breakfast and our habitual living began. And this caused trouble. Later in the morning and at noon we endeavored to have another time to contact the Lord. After that we went back to the habitual living. Later during the day, we endeavored to have another time to be with the Lord. We did this many times day after day. What caused us this trouble? Our habitual living. We don’t condemn it, and we don’t hate it. What wasted our time? Our habitual living. I hope that we all may see a vision concerning this matter and that we would pray, “Lord, have mercy upon me and deliver me from my habitual living. Lord, I don’t like to have one wasted word out of my mouth. I don’t like to live a habitual life. I want to live a life of being watchful and on the alert minute after minute. I want to watch and pray with no idle word, no wasted word, no unnecessary word coming out of my mouth.”
For many years I have been ministering the Word to God’s people, yet I must confess I was there still so much in the habit. I don’t mean in a bad habit. I must boast to you that for over fifty years I haven’t had any bad habit. But I have a lot of habits that have wasted my time. We all must stand up against our habitual living. Stand up against your habit. Rise up against your habit. You must do this in order to be emancipated and released from your imprisonment. Your habitual living is a strong imprisonment.
This applies even to functioning in the meeting. Have you noticed that through all the years the functioning ones are the functioning ones, and the unfunctioning ones are the unfunctioning ones? Sometimes in the prayer meeting we know who will pray tonight and who will not pray. You must realize that probably those who do not pray do not pray out of habit. It is their habit not to pray. Even with those who do pray, it may be only one-half spiritual and one-half habit.
Our meeting is not that normal because the brothers’ habits are there and the sisters’ habits are there. The Texas brothers have their habit, the California brothers have their habit, and some particular ones have their particular habit. I don’t like to offend you or hurt your feelings, but this is our situation. When you come to the meeting, you don’t like to be bothered. You just come to the meeting in your habit. If a brother says, “You need to function,” you feel he is forcing you to do something. This is a matter of our disposition. Disposition, character, and habit are three demons forming one company. They are the board members of one company. This is the executive committee of your being. You are under this administration of your disposition, your character, and your habit. So we have to rise up against these three things.
In the northeast there is a clear summer and winter season. I notice that sometimes certain brothers and sisters also have seasons. When some brothers are in the winter season, no one can open their mouth. They are absolutely frozen. They become a frozen port. After this winter season is over, though, summer may come and they get very excited. Then they have not only a loud mouth, but they seem to have twelve mouths. This is all habitual.
My point is this: the habitual living carries us away from living Christ. We fail to live Christ not because we are sinful, but because of our habitual living. The most striking item of our habitual living is our talk. If, by His mercy, we would be delivered from our talk, we would be mostly delivered from our habitual living. This is not a kind of doctrine or theology. This is a discovery that has come to me through much pain. Now I am fully occupied by one thing, by one burden, that is, to live Christ. Through all the years my ministry has been to minister something concerning Christ for the church life, yet it has been even more so in these past two years. No doubt the Lord has zeroed in on this one point of living Christ. If we don’t live Christ, although we may minister Christ to people for the church life, there will not be much reality. The church life will not be that rich, that strong, or that uplifted.
We need this focal point—to live Christ. If we are going to pray, if we are going to sing, if we are going to psalm unceasingly, if we are going to pray continually and daily, we must be delivered from our habitual living. We need a great amount of mercy for this. Be assured that one day the Lord will open your eyes, and you will see a wide gap, a deep gap, that only mercy can bridge. You have gotten to know a lot concerning the spiritual things, yet you are still living in your habit. To pray, to sing, to psalm is still something formal and not habitual to you. We must have a kind of life that lives Christ habitually. Our habit must not be to talk, but to pray. Our habit must be to sing and psalm and thank the Lord. These things must be built into the fibers of our being so that they become habitual. But today the opposite is true. All other things are habitual, and these things are formal.
We need morning watch, but morning watch is not something habitual to us. It is still a kind of formal thing to us. Habitual living doesn’t need any practice. As a wife you don’t need practice to talk to your husband. It’s simply habitual. But to pray-read, to sing, to thank is not habitual to us. A husband or a wife would never have the consciousness to say, “Let us talk.” But they may say, “Let us pray,” or “Let us pray-read.” Why? It is because it is formal. This is a kind of demonic, subtle thing. It is unconscious and spontaneous. It kills you from living Christ. We don’t live Christ that much mostly because of our habitual living. I hope that one day our spiritual living will be habitual so that we don’t need to practice. We won’t need to say, “Let us pray-read.” We will simply pray-read. We won’t need to say, “Let us pray. Let us sing.” We will simply pray and sing. Praying and singing will become habitual. From these examples we can see how little we live Christ.