Two extremes can be seen in Christianity. One school is the Pentecostals who are too active. They believe that their fasting and different kinds of maneuverings can accomplish everything. Although God may have no intention to heal someone, they think if they fast and pray, eventually their fasting and prayer would heal this person. This is why they invented a lot of false healings. After fasting for three days and praying for seven days, there must be some healing. So they just manufactured healing. I was there and I studied it thoroughly, and I can tell you that very few of the healings are genuine. It is the same with their tongue-speaking. Most of their tongue-speaking is also humanly manufactured. After fasting for tongues, they have to speak in tongues. When the tongues didn’t come, they told people to turn their jaw and to exercise their tongue; then a tongue came. What kind of tongue is this? This is humanly manufactured. I’m not criticizing. I am strong in this matter because I was there. I studied it; I was in it; I practiced it; and I discovered all kinds of human manufacture. The Pentecostal school may be considered at the south pole.
Another school may be considered at the north pole. They teach people not to do anything. They tell them they don’t need to do anything. This also is to the extreme. The scriptural way is neither at the south pole nor at the north pole. It is halfway. It is midway. It is neither active nor passive; it is active-passive. To say this is easy, and to demonstrate it also is easy. But to get into the practicality takes time. When you first begin to practice certain things, they may seem to be very strenuous. But when you get into the experience your practice becomes so natural. When you practice playing ball, your skill of playing ball becomes very natural. In principle it is the same spiritually.
Four or five years ago I would not have given you such a message. I learned these things over thirty years ago, but I would not release a message like this until I saw the right situation. Now I feel the time is right, and many of you need this message. If you consider that my word is quite discouraging, it means you are not qualified to hear it. This word is not discouraging. This word is just to give you a timely help to bring you into the spiritual, natural way. I don’t mean you shouldn’t pray, and I don’t mean you shouldn’t read the Word. Rather, you should pray a lot, and you should read the Word a lot, but don’t be the boss. Let the Lord be the boss. You don’t realize that in your spiritual seeking you give the Lord a lot of commandments. Your prayer is a kind of commanding, and your study of the Word is a kind of commanding. You fast because you are commanding the Lord to do something. Even in your prayer concerning living Christ, you may be giving a kind of command to the Lord. You are commanding Him to live Christ for you. Gradually, you will see that your command doesn’t work. He does not and He would not honor your command. This is why you can testify that the more you pray the worse you are. It is because the Lord would not honor this kind of prayer.
One day you will simply say, “Lord, I love You. I surely would like to live You, but I cannot do it. Lord, I won’t do it and I can’t do it. Even, Lord, You don’t have the intention for me to do it. But, Lord, I’m here.” This is good enough. This is the kind of prayer the Lord is wanting. Then from morning till evening you will be such a person telling the Lord that you love Him, that you want Him, that you surely would like to live Him, but that you wouldn’t do it. Last year we began to talk about living Christ. I know that many of you have prayed about this. Have you had any success? I believe that you have all gotten bothered because the more you prayed, the more you couldn’t live Christ. Some of you may have considered that since I said no other way works, that probably this way doesn’t work either. As long as you are giving the commandment, this way doesn’t work. It doesn’t work until one day you don’t care for the practice of the one spirit, nor do you care for not practicing the one spirit. You only care that you love the Lord. You don’t care for living Christ nor do you care for not living Christ. You only care that you love the Lord. You would tell the Lord, “Lord, I love You. I love to be one spirit with You, and I love living You, but, dear Lord, I wouldn’t do it. Lord, I just love You.” When you reach this stage, spontaneously you will have a life that lives Christ from morning till evening.