I would suggest three things for us to do. First, in our private daily lives we must learn to turn ourselves to the Lord in prayer. Even when we do not have the time to pray, we still must exercise our spirit a little to contact the Lord. We must not exercise our mind so much, but learn to turn ourselves to the spirit to contact the Lord. We must learn this in practice. There is no other way.
Then, if possible, come together with three or four brothers or sisters to pray. It must not be to talk or learn, but simply to pray. We must learn to open ourselves to the Lord and to one another by praying together in the spirit. Then we will be brought into the spirit, and we will be delivered out of the natural life, the soul, and the mind. We will be brought into the spirit and into the flow of life. This is what we need.
Third, if possible, come to all the regular meetings of the church. And when we come into the meetings, we must learn this one thing—to immediately open ourselves to the Lord and to one another by functioning in the meeting. This can be done by calling out a hymn, by praying, or by giving some testimony of how the Lord has dealt with us. Never try to express any kind of opinion, but always try to release the spirit.
If we all will practice these three things—individual prayer in our daily life, corporate prayer with a few others, and functioning in the church meetings by releasing our spirit to utter something to the Lord and to others—then we will all be so simple, yet so rich in life, strong in the spirit, aggressive in our function, and fruitful in our service. Spontaneously, we will not only be built up together, but blended together under the authority of the divine order, expressing the image of God. This is the church life, this is the building up of the Body, and this is the priesthood. This is the very thing that the Lord is going to recover in these last days.
Will we promise the Lord to do two things? Negatively, we must forget about all the things of our background; and positively, we must constantly pay our attention to the spirit. Whatever problem we have, we must try to solve it by continually turning to the spirit. All the things that happen to us are simply to force us to forget about our ability, our energy, our wisdom, and our knowledge. All these things are to force us to turn ourselves to the spirit to pray that we might be filled with the Lord. We will then be fully, thoroughly, and wholly in the spirit. When we are in the spirit, spontaneously we will be one with others. I can assure you that once we practice this, our whole being will be transformed.
Since we have had a review of the whole vision of the Scriptures, it is unnecessary for us to try to remember all the points of the message. We must just keep in mind one thing: that is, today the Lord needs a group of people who are continually turning themselves to the spirit to be gained, possessed, and saturated by the Lord. It is unnecessary to endeavor to be related with others. When we are in the spirit, spontaneously the relatedness and oneness are there. Eventually, our whole being will be subdued by the spirit. Our concepts will be cast down, our decisions will be overthrown, and our whole being will be radically changed. Then we will all be one in the spirit to express Christ as the Head and God as our life. This is the priesthood, this is the church life, and this is the building.
Is this not simple? If we cannot say, “Amen,” it proves that we are still very complicated. We must even forget all the inner impressions we have gotten about others. Even these impressions hinder. Sometimes when we consider brother so and so, we will say, “I know him.” That means we have a certain impression. “Oh, that brother is hopeless; I know that he is hopeless.” No, he is not hopeless. It is our concept that he is hopeless. With the Lord, nothing is hopeless, but we have the “hopeless” concept. So we must forget about our concepts, as if we did not know this dear brother. Though we have known him for twenty years, we just do not know him. What I mean is that we must forget the impressions that we have gathered about others. We should never trust our own impressions.
When we hear others talking about how a brother or a sister gave them a poor impression, we must realize that a person talking in such a way is a carnal person, not a spiritual person. When a person is in the spirit, he never tries to collect impressions of others. He learns only to pay attention to the spirit. When we have collected certain impressions about others, we can never help them. Thus, we must give up all our impressions.
In the church life, we must be so dull in hearing and seeing, but so very keen in the spirit. The poor and pitiful situation today is that many dear ones in the church are dull in the spirit, but keen in gossiping. They are so sharp in seeing the wrongs of others, but so dull in the spirit. This kind of situation is not right, for it kills and deadens. This means that we are not in the spirit, but in the flesh and soul. Opinions, criticisms, and divisions in the church life deaden, kill, and damage the building.
The way of deliverance is to be blind in the eyes, to be deaf in the ears, but to be keen in the spirit. We must remain in the spirit and never be tempted to come out of our spirit. When we are in the spirit, we are in the priesthood, and this priesthood is the church life. The building up of the Body, the spiritual house, is a holy priesthood, which is something wholly, thoroughly, and absolutely in the spirit. May the Lord have mercy upon us that we will all be brought into this realization. In the spirit we will be blended with one another to have the priesthood, the church life, and the building up of the Body.