First, we need to devote ourselves to the Lord. Then we need to be revived every morning. After coming into the Lord’s recovery, we appreciated and treasured the church life. That was our church life “honeymoon.” Later we became contented and self-satisfied. Today for the new way, we need to be revived. We need to have a new start. We need to start our Christian life anew and forget about the past. We should not linger in the past, always talking about how wonderful it was when we came into the recovery many years ago. We must take care of today. We may have been living in the past, but what about today? We may be deadened, dormant, sleeping, and even sleepy. We need a revival. The past does not help us today. We need something today. Today we have to be alive, living, fresh, and new. A co-worker once told me that a good point with me is that I am always fresh and new. If I do not feel that I am new and fresh, I become very fearful. Something must be wrong with me if I am not so fresh and new. Regardless of how old we are in our physical age, we can still be fresh and new. Second Corinthians 4:16 indicates that our inward man should be renewed day by day. This is a daily revival. The way for us to be revived is to go to the Lord to confess our sins and to pray through. If we do these two things, we will be revived.
To be revived every morning is not only scriptural but also according to the natural law. According to the law of nature, the sun rises once every twenty-four hours. We need to rise up with the sun every morning. It is good for our health to go to sleep early and rise up early. The earlier we go to bed, the healthier we will be. I do not like to go to bed after 10:30 p.m. or rise up later than 6:30 a.m. If we go to bed late and rise up late, our health will be spoiled. We also need to practice going to bed early and rising early for our spiritual health.
Every twenty-four hours there is a new day for us to have a new start. Lamentations 3:22-23 says that the Lord’s lovingkindnesses and compassions are new every morning. We may be in a situation full of lamentations, yet we can be happy by having ourselves revived every morning. Proverbs 4:18 says that the path of the righteous is as the rising sun. We need to follow the sun. After the sun sets, we should go to sleep. When the sun rises, we should rise. Every morning we need a new revival.
For the Lord’s present recovery, we need to live an overcoming life daily. Some have said that the new way to preach the gospel by knocking on doors is just a method, but I am not teaching the saints a set of methods. To take the new way, we need another life. The new way is a matter of life, not a matter of method. If we practice the fellowship in this chapter, we will be different persons. If we devote ourselves to the Lord, get revived every morning, and live an overcoming life daily, we will be in full agreement with the present advance of the Lord’s recovery.
We can live an overcoming life daily by enjoying Christ as the tree of life (Rev. 2:7). When the churches became degraded, the Lord not only rebuked them but also called for the overcomers to come back to eating Him as the tree of life. Eating Christ as the tree of life is the first item of the Lord’s sevenfold promise to the seven churches in Revelation 2 and 3. The first item of His promise is to feed us with Himself as the tree of life. If we answer His call to be an overcomer, we will really enjoy Him as the tree of life.
We also live an overcoming life daily by calling on the Lord continuously, without ceasing (Rom. 10:12b). We can call on the Lord all the time. Our calling on Him is like our physical breathing. We breathe at all times and in any kind of situation. If we stop breathing for a short time, we will die. In like manner, we must breathe in the Lord by calling on Him continuously. He is calling us to be the overcomers, so we must answer His call by calling on Him. By this simple practice, we can live an overcoming life day by day.