What is the content of the church? Some may answer that the content of the church is Christ. This is right; but when people say “Christ,” sometimes they do not understand what they mean. Christ is the content of the church, but we must realize that this Christ who is the content of the church is life to us. He must be our life in order to be the content of the church. Christ does not merely come and stand among us as the content of the church; it is not in this way. As such, He would only be the ruler of the church, not the content of the church. If He is to be the content of the church, He must be our life. The content of the church is Christ as life to us. All Christians recognize that Christ is in the church, but few realize that Christ in the church means that He is life to us. He is not only in the midst of the saints, but He is also life to the saints as the content of the church.
When we say “life,” we must realize that life can never be separated from the Spirit. The Spirit is the reality of life, and the Spirit is life itself. Thus, when we say that Christ is life to us, we must realize that this life is in the Spirit. Christ is the life-giving Spirit in our spirit. He could never be life to us except in the divine Spirit, and we could never enjoy, realize, and experience Him as life unless we are in the human spirit. It is in the human spirit that we realize and experience Christ as the life-giving Spirit. It is not just the teaching or talk about life, but the real experience of life. This is why we stress that we must turn to the spirit and know how to exercise our spirit.
It is similar to our relationship to the air. Our physical body has its being in the air. Air, in a sense, is life to us, but we need to breathe it. By breathing the air, we can realize the air as life. In the same way, it is not by understanding or knowing, but by exercising our spirit to breathe that Christ as the life-giving Spirit can be realized as our very life.
Suppose there are two brothers in the church. One is a nice man by birth, not by regeneration: he was born nice and gentle. It is difficult for him to lose his temper; it even seems that he has no temper. Regardless of what you say or do, he is never offended. He seems to be in another world, a world without a temper. He has an exceedingly gentle disposition. Now he is saved and is one of the brothers, and everyone thinks that he is a wonderful brother.
Another brother, on the contrary, can so easily lose his temper. He is not so refined, but indeed quite rough. Everyone in the church is afraid of him, especially the sisters. They are afraid of his tough disposition and his capacity to easily lose his temper.
Suppose we have these two brothers in the church. One is “white,” and the other is “black.” I am not referring to the color of their skin, but their disposition. Which would you love, the black one or the white one? Suppose one of these two brothers were going to stay with you. Which would you like to have? Would you take the white one and give someone else the black? Which would you choose? It depends on how much you want to be transformed. Undoubtedly, the black one would contribute more to your transformation. But the answer is that we should prefer neither of them. We should not love the white nor the black, for both are natural. Neither of them is of life. One is white, but he is not “golden.” The other is black, and he is not “golden” either. What God wants is “gold,” not white or black. Good is not “gold” and neither is bad. Regardless of whether you are white or black, as long as you are not “golden,” God will not take you.
The church is not a place for the education or correction of people. The church is not a place to change people. It is the very means for God to put Christ as life into man. The black ones need life, and the white ones also need life. But according to the situation of today’s Christianity, this is not so. Today’s Christianity attempts to educate, correct, and change people. If you are white, they say that you are all right. But if you are black, they try to correct, change, and improve you. This is absolutely wrong. The content of the church is nothing less than Christ as life. The black ones are undoubtedly short of Christ, but so are the white. All are short of Christ.
Many times the white ones become a real frustration to life. In many local churches, the black ones are easier to handle as far as life is concerned. To minister life to them is easy, but to minister life to the white ones is really difficult. The white ones think they are quite all right, and others also think they are good. Within them there is a certain kind of pride in being better than others. All the brothers and sisters think that it is unnecessary to pray for them; they think that they must pray for the black ones. So eventually the white ones become a frustration to the ministry of life. It is difficult to convince the white ones that they need Christ even more.
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