For the sake of the group meetings, we must always be released, living, and fresh. We must not be under any bondage. Almost everyone on earth is in some kind of “shackle.” Every day we may be shackled. We may not be free persons, persons who are released, living, and fresh. As a result, we are in debt to the Lord. We owe Him praises, songs, speakings, and testimonies. If we are released persons who are living and fresh, the Spirit within us has the full freedom to move. However, many times when we come together, it seems as if we do not have the Spirit. Instead, we wait on the Spirit to come and release us. The Bible tells us that we have a human spirit (Job. 32:8; Zech. 12:1) and the divine Spirit (Rom. 8:9, 11, 16). To wait for something that we already have is wrong. We have the divine Spirit in our human spirit, so we should exercise our mingled spirit. It does not matter whether or not we feel our spirit. We do not need to feel our spirit; we only need to use it.
We Christians are the people of a speaking God. In the New Testament, God speaks in the principle of incarnation. He does not speak only by Himself; He speaks through our speaking. If we speak, He speaks in our speaking. If we do not speak, we stop His speaking. Therefore, we must exercise our spirit whenever we come together. When we turn on a light switch, the electricity operates. In the same way, when we exercise our spirit by crying, “O Lord Jesus!” we have the sensation that the Holy Spirit is moving within us. This is because as Christians we have a regenerated, enlivened, and strengthened human spirit that has been mingled with the divine Spirit. The Spirit never leaves our spirit. He remains in our spirit and is mingled with it at all times. Therefore, we are able to exercise our spirit at any time and in any place. The problem is that many times we do not exercise our spirit. Because we do not move, the Spirit has no way to move. He becomes shackled by us. When we exercise our spirit to testify in the meetings, we shake off the shackles.
A number of years ago, when I would give messages, I often would not use an outline for my speaking. When it was time to speak, I would simply walk up to the podium. I did not have any verses prepared, but when it was time for the Scripture reading, the verses I needed for my message would come to me. Likewise, when I would begin to speak, the message itself would come to me. If we exercise our spirit, the Spirit within us rises up, because the Spirit is one with our spirit. No one can separate the two. The Spirit has been put into our spirit to be the very essence of our spiritual being. Thus, we do not need to wait for the Spirit, because the Spirit is our very essence. We simply need to use our mingled spirit.
We need to be trained and even disciplined to meet in a released, living, and fresh way. Many times our meetings are dead, cold, old, poor, and low because we are still shackled. For this reason it is difficult to have group meetings. The group meetings need at least one person who is released, living, fresh, and unshackled. If such a person meets with a group for two or three weeks, the entire group will be affected by him. All the attendants in that group meeting will become the same as he is. In that group meeting the new believers all will be released, living, and refreshed because from the day they first became Christians they participated in released, living, and refreshing meetings. They will not know any other way to meet. Without shouting, praising, and saying, “O Lord! Amen!” they would not consider that they have been to a meeting. However, many of us are not this way. For many years we have been molded to be what we are today, always coming to the meetings in the same way. If this is our habit, it will be very difficult to have proper group meetings.
To have group meetings in the old way is easy. According to the old way, the elders divide the church into several groups and appoint a leader for each group. If they have difficulty finding a leader among all the attendants in a certain group, they may either combine groups or appoint a brother from a different area to join that group. However, even these leaders may be examples of deadness to the new ones. They may call a hymn in a dead way and lead the reading of some lessons in a dead way. Group meetings conducted in this way are meetings with no spirit, no release, no livingness, and no freshness.
We must be released, living, and refreshed persons. Then we should forget about all formality and ritual and exercise our spirit to testify, sing, praise, shout, speak, pray for others, and care for others. The group meetings depend on our daily living. We must live a life that is released, living, and refreshing, and we need to keep a constant fellowship with the Lord all day long. We must be persons living in the Lord’s presence and spending time daily with the Lord to study His Word. In this way we will spontaneously have an accumulation of Christ in our daily life. This accumulation will become our spiritual riches, our spiritual “capital,” to “spend” in the meetings. We will be released, living, and refreshing, and we will have the riches of Christ as a deposit. Then, when we come to the group meetings, we will be released. We will speak, and we will have a content of Christ with which to speak. If we are such persons, we will be very “contagious” and will “infect” others. What we do in the meetings will not be a performance. It will be the issue of what we are and the spontaneous way we live and behave. We will be able to shout, praise, sing, and speak in a living way. This is the way to have the proper church life.
If we are such living persons, it will be easy for us to release sinners. We may not be released but may be shackled when we go to knock on people’s doors. If this is the case, the people may open their doors to us, but what we say will not be releasing. What comes out of our minds will not release people; rather, it will bind them. However, if we are released persons, we can speak the same words, but the spirit in our speaking will be different. When we speak, our word will release people and it will stir up the interest of those to whom we speak. Today many Christians are seeking spiritual power from on high. However, the real power is in our being released persons. A released, living, and refreshing Christian lives in the spirit, and when he uses his spirit, the Holy Spirit comes out. It is easy for such persons to help people be saved and, after they are saved, to spend time with them to feed them. We must all learn to live such a life and be such persons. If we all become such persons, after a short time the entire church will be revived. This kind of revival will be a real, constant, and continuous revival.