I look to the Lord that we all would not expect anything in a miraculous way. Rather, we all must pray, fellowship with the Lord, and learn to abide in Christ, to be built up, and to be one in Christ. Then we will allow life to flow out to generate others, to bring life to others. This kind of preaching will be a part of our life, a part of our living, and a part of the church life. We all must realize that we do not have a certain kind of activity. We do not encourage the brothers to have a movement. This is not a movement. If we consider this as a movement, we are one hundred percent wrong; we are “in one bed with different dreams.” I speak the truth: I do not have the dream that we are here in a movement or activity. I say one hundred times “no.” I have the clear vision that we are here simply as small Christians. We are poor and we are nothing. We have nothing and we do not want to have anything. We never pretend to be anything, but by the Lord’s mercy, we want to learn how to live and abide in Him and how to be built up with one another.
I am just a little finger; by myself I am nothing. We as members have to be built up together as a living Body-living by Christ, living with Christ, and living out Christ. This is the proper Christian life. If you would receive the mercy and grace of the Lord, forget about your background. I was in a certain background for years, but I have forgotten it. We must never be so foolish as to neglect the lessons of history throughout the last two thousand years. The proper way to bring people to Christ is the way of life, and the proper way for the church to be built up is also the way of life. We are not the people in the first century. We are in the twentieth century. Nineteen centuries have passed already, and there have been many lessons.
Many persons sought the miraculous things, but what came out of that? I would ask someone to point out from history the benefit of that. On the day of Pentecost there were miracles, but what was there after that? Was there the real building up of the church in the book of Acts? It seems only that jealousy and other problems came in. There was not the real building up. After Acts there is the book of Romans. Is there anything miraculous mentioned in the book of Romans? After that we need the two Epistles to the Corinthians to adjust us from the wrong thought to the life of the cross. Then there is Ephesians, the unique book written purposely concerning the church. Is there anything miraculous in the book of Ephesians? Let us come to the Lord in a quiet way, forgetting about our backgrounds. The proper way to have the church life today is the way of life, to know Christ inwardly, to know our flesh, our self, and the natural man through the cross, and to learn to abide in Christ and live by Christ, not by ourselves. Then we will be built up together. Then we will have a spontaneous issue of the church life, which will be the prevailing and proper preaching.
We must be delivered from the wrong concept. Never be frustrated; do not challenge yourself and do not be challenged by others to try to have the power to do miracles. Forget about that. I saw much of that in the past. Recently in Taiwan six hundred people were healed in two days. To speak the truth, however, I do not appreciate that very much. We all have to learn to know Christ in the living way, in the inner way, to know Christ in our spirit. It is in Christ as our inner life that we are built up as one to be a living expression, the living Body to express Him. And it is through this expression that people gradually, one after another, are brought into the life of Christ and also into the church life. It is in this way that the gospel will be preached and the Body will be built up.
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