It is only when we are in the spirit that we are in the priesthood. Only the ones who are in the Holy of Holies are the real priests. When we are outside the spirit, we are outside the priesthood.
Let us suppose that among us there is such a clever sister who loves the Lord, yet she is so capable and so much in her mind. Do you think she could be properly related and built up with others in the church life? Do you think that she could be coordinated with anyone? I am afraid that when she would get into the church life, she would say, “Oh, what poor elders and pitiful deacons!” She could never be built up with others. She would be good as a precious stone to put in the window of a jewelry store for display. But she could never be a precious stone set into the gold on the breastplate of the priest to be built up together with others.
In the church life, we must be delivered from the soul, the natural man, and the natural cleverness. The church life requires brokenness. We all love the Lord, but how much have we been built up together? With some there may be a little building, but with many others, there is not one bit of building.
Why is this? It is because we are too much in the soul. We are not at all in the spirit. When we pray, it is not to get into the spirit to contact the Lord, but to ask the Lord to do something for us. That is all. That is our interpretation of prayer. But the Bible’s definition of prayer is to deny the soul and get into the spirit to contact the Lord. Whether the Lord will do something according to our prayer or not is quite secondary. The primary thing is to be out of the soul and in the spirit. Then we can be filled with the Lord. This is the true meaning of prayer.
To pray means to get into the spirit, and this is the only way to be in the priesthood. We are in the priesthood only when we are outside the soul and in the spirit contacting the Lord to be filled with Him. Only in this way can we be built up with others. The strong will must be broken, the clever mind must be crossed out, and the natural life must be dealt with. Then we will be ones who are so seldom in the soul and so much of the time in the spirit. Whenever things come to us, we do not exercise our minds to consider or think, but we exercise our spirits to contact the Lord. This means to be delivered out of the soul, to be broken in the outward man, and to forsake and deny the natural life.
This is not just a kind of doctrine. If we do not exercise our spirits in this way, we can never be in the real priesthood and we will be out of the church life. We may be a group of Christians meeting together, but we will always be fighting with one another. There is no building up, no unity, and no real oneness because we are not in the spirit, but in the soul.
When we are in the soul, we have many reasons to prove that we are right. I do not believe that there have been many persons who feel that they are wrong in the soul. Most people feel that they are right all the time. If we are not in the spirit, it is rather hard for us to realize that we are wrong. When we are in the soul, even if we are wrong, we will still argue and reason with others that we are right. “Everyone is wrong but me”—this is the feeling of the natural man.
Look at the situation of Christianity today. Where is the real building, the real relatedness, the real coordination, the real unity, and the real oneness? In the Christian bookstores you can find many books written about the unity of the Body, etc. But where is the oneness? It must be in the spirit, not in theory. This is why Ephesians 4 says that we must keep the oneness of the Spirit. When we are outside the spirit, we are outside the oneness; consequently, there can be no realization of the priesthood.
Now we have seen what the priesthood is. The priesthood is a group of saints who are continually forgetting the soul, denying the self, forsaking the natural life, and getting into the spirit to allow the Lord to fill them, saturate them, and flow out of them. This is the priesthood. Only with such a group of priests can there possibly be the real church life, the real building, the real oneness, and the real unity.
The urgent need today is not to try to solve problems by talking, teaching, or certain kinds of understandings. We may make things clearly understood today, but tomorrow something else will be misunderstood. We will always have certain opinions and concepts. What we need is to get out of the soulish, natural man in order to get into the spirit. When we get into the spirit and open ourselves to the Lord, all the problems will be solved. All the arguments will be gone, and all the different opinions will vanish.
The more we are in the soul, the more we have something to say. The more we are in the mind, the more we have some reason to argue. But praise the Lord, the more we are in the spirit, the less we have to say. There is no problem when we get into the spirit. All the quarrels will vanish, and we will have the unity, the oneness, and the priesthood—the real church life.
By all these lessons, we have learned one thing. Whenever the brothers raise some problems, it is better not to argue. Arguing can never bring us anywhere. Instead, we must go into the Holy of Holies and say, “Lord, I am coming to praise You instead of arguing.” When we are in the mind, we are outside the priesthood.
I must repeat again that the priesthood is a group of people living in the spirit and opening themselves to the Lord to be filled with Him. This is the priesthood which builds up the Body, as seen on the breastplate of the garment of the high priest. All the brothers and sisters need to have this experience.