In chapter one we saw the progression of the Lord’s recovery and the present advance of the Lord’s recovery. Today the Lord desires to recover the organic building up of the Body of Christ, the perfecting of the common members of the Body of Christ, and the church meeting in mutuality. Now that we have seen a bird’s-eye view of the Lord’s present recovery, we want to see the life needed for the Lord’s present recovery.
When we touch the holy things, we have to take care of what we are, our own person. The Lord’s present recovery has the highest requirement. The highest requirement in the Bible is the requirement of the kingdom of the heavens. In the Old Testament, the highest requirement was the law, but in the New Testament the requirement of the kingdom is much higher. The Lord compares these two kinds of requirements in Matthew 5 (vv. 21-22, 27-28, 33-34, 38-39, 43-44) to show that the demand of the kingdom is deeper and higher than the requirement of the law. If we are going to meet the need of the Lord’s present recovery, the requirement must be the requirement of the kingdom.
Matthew 5—7 may be considered as the constitution of the kingdom of the heavens. Just as the constitution of the United States is the highest authority in our country, so the constitution of the kingdom of the heavens is the highest authority in our Christian life and church life. The present recovery of the Lord is the recovery of the kingdom life, a life that matches the requirements of the kingdom. The requirements in Matthew 5—7 are very detailed and fine. There are many great points and small points. We need to take care of these detailed and fine requirements for the Lord’s present recovery. If we are careless, we will be out of His present recovery.
We need to devote ourselves to the Lord in His love (2 Cor. 5:14-15). We may have avoided the word devote in the past because it has been spoiled by being used in a light and loose way. Christians generally use this word when referring to their devotional time. The word devote is properly used and defined by Moses in Leviticus 27. Moses says that we need to devote our possessions and our person, our being, to God. We may say that we need to give, to offer, to present, and to consecrate ourselves to God, but to devote ourselves to Him is deeper and more serious. We may give, offer, present, or consecrate ourselves to God in a light way, but we cannot devote ourselves to God in a light way. To devote ourselves is more serious because we devote ourselves to God by making a vow to Him. Leviticus 27 tells us about this matter in a practical and detailed way. To devote ourselves to God is to present ourselves to God as a gift in a serious way by a vow. A vow cannot be retracted or annulled. It remains until it is completely fulfilled. If we make a vow to God and do not fulfill it, we will suffer spiritual death. Many Christians today may be very active, but actually they are suffering spiritual death. The overall situation of Christianity is a situation of deadness because many of God’s people do not take the things concerning God in a serious way. When we are light with God, the result is deadness. We are deadened by being too light in dealing with God.
Suppose that we were going to see the president of the United States tomorrow. Our attitude would be very serious and solemn. We would realize that it is not a small thing for us to see the president of the United States. Have we ever held such an attitude in contacting God? We mostly do not hold such an attitude. We take our contact with God for granted. We may believe only that God is merciful and kind and that our Lord Jesus Christ is the redeeming One who died for us, giving us the right to come into His presence. This is true, but we should not forget that the One into whose presence we come is the very God. The president of the United States may be merciful, kind, loving, humble, and approachable, yet he is not a low or common person. He is the very leader of this country. We should not contact him in a careless way. Quite often, however, in our contacting God, we were careless. In dealing with His people in the Old Testament, God set up a pattern that we must deal with Him in a serious way by a vow. To deal with God by a vow is to devote ourselves.
When a man and woman are engaged to be married, this is a serious matter. Our relationship with God as revealed in the Bible is like that of a marriage relationship. God wants us to be engaged to Him (Hosea 2:19-20). God is not satisfied that we would just be friends with Him. We must go further from friendship with God into a marriage relationship with Him. The Apostle Paul said, “I betrothed you to one Husband, to present a pure virgin to Christ” (2 Cor. 11:2). Paul was doing something to get the saints engaged to the Lord. To be engaged to the Lord is a vow to Him. Divorce can never be approved by God. Once we make a vow to God, it cannot be retracted. I like to see that we are excited about the Lord and His present move, but we have to consider our responsibility to make a vow. We have to take God in a serious way.
We need to devote ourselves to the Lord in His love. Second Corinthians 5:14 says, “The love of Christ constrains us.” The word “constrains” may also be translated “compels.” The love of Christ compels us and forcibly limits us. The Greek word for “constrains” literally means to shut up to one line and purpose as in a narrow, walled road. The more we go on with the Lord, the narrower the path becomes. This narrow path confines and limits us. I once stayed in a house with a very small place to take a shower. I was so confined by the four walls of that shower that I could not turn in it. The love of Christ constrains us in this way. His love takes away our choice, our preference. We cannot turn to the right or to the left, nor can we turn to go back. With the love of Christ constraining us, the only way is to go ahead. There is no turn and no exit. We surely have to love the Lord, but 2 Corinthians 5:14 means that we have been caught by His love. The love of Christ constrains us to live a life to Him (v. 15). We need to devote ourselves to God in His constraining love. Although Paul did not use the word devote in 2 Corinthians 5:14-15, this is exactly what he means. The Lord’s constraining love forcibly limits us to do what He desires and to take His way.
On the one hand, God compels us in His love. On the other hand, He always keeps His principle of giving man the freedom of choice. After man’s creation, God put him not before one tree but before two trees, indicating that God respects man’s freedom of choice. Man had a choice between the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Deep in God’s heart, He desires man to choose the proper tree, but whether or not man chooses this tree depends upon his choice. The gospel is being preached to thousands of people today, but that does not mean that everyone will believe. Whether or not someone believes is up to his choice, his preference. After we are saved, the two trees are still here for us to choose from. Once we choose the tree of life, we get “imprisoned” by His love. When we fall in love with a person, that love is a prison. When we begin to love the Lord, we have fallen in love with Him. This means that we have been captured by Him. We have become God’s beloved (S. S. 2:16; Rom. 1:7a; 2 Thes. 2:13a) because we have been caught by the love of God. We are imprisoned by His love. We have no choice; we must go His way.
To devote ourselves to the Lord by a vow means that we would no longer live to ourselves but to Him (2 Cor. 5:15). To live to the Lord is more serious than living for Him. We who love the Lord mostly do not live to Him. We live for Him and mostly we live to ourselves. A husband may love his wife, but instead of living to her, he lives to himself. Whenever we are invited to someone’s house to eat, we eat what is set before us even though we may not like it because we are eating to the host. To eat exactly what we want is to eat to ourselves. We have to admit that most of the time we live a life for the Lord while unconsciously living a life to ourselves. We need to make a vow to the Lord: “Lord, I do not want to live to myself any longer. I want to make a vow to You. I do not want to have my freedom. I desire to live to You, taking You as my goal. I have no other goals. You are my only goal.” Because we have been constrained by the Lord’s love, we have no freedom, no choice, so we have to devote ourselves to Him.
We devote ourselves to Him by making a thorough confession of all our sins and trespasses (1 John 1:9). One day over fifty years ago, I went to the Lord and spent between two to three hours to make a thorough confession to Him of all my sins and trespasses. The more I confessed, the more I had to confess. If we do not confess, we do not realize how dirty we are. When we begin to clean our room with the intention of cleaning it thoroughly, we will find a lot of dirt. Similarly, when we begin to confess our sins thoroughly, we realize how dirty our inward being is. We must make a thorough confession to get ourselves fully cleared up and cleansed.
In the recent winter training on Leviticus, we saw in Leviticus 11—15 how unclean we are. We saw that our contact with others can be unclean and that we are lepers. Our natural birth is also something in uncleanness, and whatever comes out of our natural being is dirty and contagious. Before that training, many of us had not seen our real situation. God inspired Moses to write this portion of the Word, showing us that our contacts, our condition, our source, and our discharge are nothing but uncleanness and leprosy. This is why we must make a thorough confession if we are going to devote ourselves to God. After we thoroughly confess our sins to the Lord, we may say, “Lord, I cannot finish my confession because I am totally uncleanness.” The extent of our confession will be the extent of the cleansing that we receive by the blood of Christ. Our forgiveness comes from God, but His forgiveness has a condition. This condition is that we have to confess our sins.
We also devote ourselves to the Lord in His love by “praying through.” It is hard to explain what it means to pray through. When we pray, we know whether we have gotten through or not. In our prayer we realize quite often that we did not get the job done. We stopped our prayer too soon, and we did not get through in our prayer. Many times while we are praying, a thought will come to us that we need to do a certain thing or call a certain person, so we stop praying without getting through in our prayer. To devote ourselves to the Lord, we have to make a thorough confession of all our sins and trespasses, and we have to “pray through.”