I have noticed that the attitude of policemen in this country is always good. I have been in this country at least twice before, and now I have been here for more than three years. I never saw a policeman in this country who was not humble, polite, meek, and lovely. However, behind this loveliness there is the authority. We should exercise the Lord’s authority to deal with the demons, not with people. Rather, we have to exercise love, humility, kindness, and loveliness to deal with people. In our heart and in our realization we do say, “I am here with authority,” but in our attitude with people we have to be very nice. We should not say to them, “I am one sent from the heavenly Jerusalem.” This is wrong. The humbler, the nicer, and the kinder we are, the better.
To the devil and the demons we are not polite; we are very strong. However, to people we have to be kind. If we are too strong toward people, we will be utilized by the enemy. We must learn the subtle wiles of the enemy and learn how to deal with the situation. We should be strong with the enemy but kind with people.
Romans 10:6 through 8 says, “But the righteousness which is out of faith speaks in this way, ‘Do not say in your heart, Who will ascend into heaven?’ that is, to bring Christ down; or, ‘Who will descend into the abyss?’ that is, to bring Christ up from the dead. But what does it say? ‘The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart,’ that is, the word of the faith which we proclaim.” Verses 6 and 7 speak of Christ, but in verse 8 the subject changes to “the word.” The word that we preach is the word in the preacher’s mouth, but here it says that the word that we preach is in the mouth of the listener, and not only is it in his mouth but also in his heart. What is this word? Is this merely a doctrine? We have to realize that the word mentioned here is the very Spirit. If we compare this verse to John 6:63, we can see that the word that the Lord speaks is spirit and life. If the word spoken by the Lord were not spirit, how could it enter into the heart of the listeners? This is the reason that while we are preaching the word in a living way, this living word becomes the Spirit in the hearts of the listeners. We can never separate the Lord’s word from the Spirit. The Spirit and the word are always two in one. While we are speaking the word, the Holy Spirit mingles Himself with the word. Then when the word arrives in the hearts of the listeners, it becomes the living Spirit. If we read these few verses in Romans 10 again and again, we will realize that the word mentioned in verse 8 is not a doctrine but is something living. In the previous verses it refers to Christ, but all of a sudden in this verse it changes from Christ to the word.
Therefore, when we go to preach, we need to teach people a little, but we should not do too much teaching. We must not have the feeling that we are going to teach people. Rather, we need to have the assurance that the Lord is with us, and His living Spirit is mingled with our word. When we speak, we need the living faith that our word is a word full of the Spirit. For this reason, we have to learn not to speak the teaching of religion. We must learn to speak something about Christ, the living One. We are not ministering mere doctrines as a religion; we are ministering the living Christ to people. Of course, there is no need to declare to people that we are doing this, but we have to do it in a proper way, learning the proper way to speak. Regardless of which way we contact people, the goal, the aim, is to minister Christ to them, to bring them to realize that what they need is Christ Himself, the living One.
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