I have the deep burden that if we mean business to practice the Body life, the church life, we need a balance of five matters: life, truth, gospel, service, and going out to other places for the gospel. In order to truly practice the church life, we need these things. The first four matters—life, truth, gospel, and service—are very basic. Eventually, though, we need even the last item. Some of us need to go out to other places, and the prayer and finances of those who remain must follow them. In other words, our person, our heart, our prayer, and our money have to go out to reach other lands, other fields, for the Lord’s kingdom and His interests. Then we will have the proper church life.
In this chapter we shall speak something more vital and practical concerning how to reach unbelievers. There are four matters about which we should be very clear and which we must put into practice in order to reach the unbelievers in a fruitful way. The first matter is prayer. A person who is fruitful in reaching unbelievers must be a praying person, a person of prayer. In a general way, we may say that we already know this. However, to know this is one thing, while to practice it is another. Even if some do practice prayer, they may not have the best secret of the practice of prayer. When we have the burden and the heart to reach unbelievers to bring them to the Lord, we must first learn how to pray for them.
We need to go to the Lord to ask Him to burden us with this matter. We should ask the Lord to give us the burden to reach unbelievers. I believe that in these last days we all have a heart to realize the Lord’s recovery. If we do, we must pray definitely for others and especially for ourselves, saying, “Lord, burden me for people’s souls.” This is the most important thing for the Lord’s interests in these days. The Lord’s house “lies waste” (Hag. 1:9), so there is the need of the recovery of the building. We cannot merely sit and talk about the building. For a building, there is the need of materials (v. 8). With what shall we build? If today we have twenty persons, next year we have eighteen, and the third year we have fifteen, we will eventually disband. For the building we need materials. In a similar way, a family needs children, the more the better. Therefore, we all must pray that the Lord would burden us. Keep this matter in mind, and go to the Lord concerning this. We all must put this kind of prayer into practice, even this very day or tomorrow morning at the latest. We should pray, “Lord, burden me with the souls for whom You died on the cross and with whom You will build up Your Body.” I believe that the Lord will honor this prayer.
We should forget about our weakness. I am afraid that some of us have been praying too much about our own weakness. We are too self-centered, saying, “Oh, I am weak. O Lord, I lose my temper.” It is always “I.” Forget about this poor “I” and consider the Lord’s interests. Look at all the souls. In a major city there are millions of people. Whenever I fly over Los Angeles, I look down from the plane at the city, and I have a great burden for it. What a big city it is; it takes the airplane fifteen minutes to cross it! The metropolitan area around Los Angeles has millions of people. It is a big “ocean” full of different kinds of “fish.” That we could not or would not catch some of them is a real shame. Day by day we meet many “fish.” We must be burdened to catch some for the Lord. Therefore, we must pray that the Lord would burden us for people’s souls.