For example, a brother may come to you after he has an argument with his wife at home, and he tells you the problem from beginning to end. While considering which Bible verses to use to teach him concerning the problem, you remember Ephesians 5. So you open your Bible to this chapter and read it to him, reminding him how a husband ought to love his wife. We cannot say this kind of teaching is not good. It is truly good to use the Bible to teach others. To teach the brother in this way is really a good service. However, we have to ask, is this kind of service from the soul or from the spirit? I believe that now we could all know this is from the soul because it comes from your considering. Even though the book of Ephesians was originally written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, it now is something you have remembered and applied with your mind. If you truly understood what spiritual service means, then you could not help the brother in this way. You would have to condemn these things from the soul and return to your spirit. When the brother is telling you his problems, you simply return to your spirit and fellowship with God in spirit. You do not think about doctrines or the Bible; rather, you touch and contact God in spirit. Perhaps, in a marvelous way, before the brother is even half-finished speaking, your spirit touches something and feels that while the argument between him and his wife was reasonable, it was too much in the flesh. The more he speaks, the more you feel that he is full of flesh. While he is speaking, you are not using your mind to think, but your spirit is touching a fleshly person. At this time, you would definitely not speak biblical doctrines to him from your mind. Instead, you would say to him from your spirit, “Brother, even though you are right, do you not feel that you are in the flesh when you speak and argue like this? Maybe your wife is completely in the wrong, but are you not in the flesh to argue like this?” When you do this, you are not helping the brother in your soul. Instead, you are ministering to him in your spirit. This is not by considering in the soul but by sensing in the spirit. Your spirit within causes you to touch his inward condition. You are in spirit, so you can touch the things within him and can recognize his flesh that is behind his words and excuses. Thus, you can speak a few living words to him from your spirit which come from God’s inspiration and not from your considering. Perhaps God wants you to say to him, “Brother, God has given you such an unreasonable wife because you are too much in your reasonings. He uses such an unreasonable wife to deal with your reasoning flesh.” At such a time, the Holy Spirit often has the opportunity to do a living work. Perhaps when the brother hears you speak such a word, his eyes will fill with tears, and he will say, “I feel that I should not argue, but inwardly I am not willing to submit.” Perhaps you can still say to him, “Brother, you are a person of reasoning. Your flesh is all tied up in reasoning. God wants to break your flesh, so He must break your reasoning. God knows this, so He has especially given you such a precious, unreasonable wife to deal with your reasoning every day. God has prepared this wife for you to break you of your reasoning and arguing.” When you speak to him in this way, you will touch his inner man and point out his problem. If you do this, you may help him break through in this matter. Later when his wife is unreasonable, he will not argue with her but will rather praise and thank the Lord. His reasoning flesh will have gone out. Wherever the cross and the Holy Spirit are, the flesh is broken. It is really a marvelous matter that the more a person reasons, the more reasonings he has. The more reasonings he has, the more he reasons, and the more he argues, the more he has to argue about. But when He stops reasoning, his wife also stops reasoning. They both have received direct and indirect spiritual help from you.
The situation described above shows that we should not serve by our mind. Now we will go on to see that we should also not serve by our emotion. For example, a sister may be troubled by her husband at home, so she comes to see me, hoping that I could give her some help. When I hear the trouble she has had, I feel very sympathetic to her. This is my emotion being moved. This cannot help her. If my spirit is strong and in a proper condition, then I must judge my emotional reaction and condemn my sympathetic heart. I must have the sense that God has not sent me to sympathize with my brothers and sisters. Rather, He has sent me to minister His life to the spirits of my brothers and sisters so that His life can swallow up all the things of death in them. Therefore, if I am in spirit, I will judge my emotion instead of using it as a means to help that sister or serve the Lord.
Furthermore, we should not only avoid serving by our mind or by our emotion, but we should also refrain from serving by our will. Perhaps I am not rich in emotions or clear in thinking, but I have a very strong will which is as solid as a great mountain. When a brother comes to see me and speaks about his problems, neither my mind nor my emotion is moved. After the brother finishes speaking, I exhort him to be at peace and patient and not to be anxious or frightened. This kind of exhortation is not from the emotion or from the mind, yet it is from the will, so I am still not ministering to him in spirit. Regardless of whether it comes from the emotion, mind, or will, I have no way to make him touch his spirit or enable him to receive the supply in his spirit. Therefore, I cannot solve his problems of life.
We must reject the mind, emotion, and will. We must reject the soul and render help to others out of the spirit that we may give them the spiritual supply. Whether we are thoughtful, sympathetic, or calm, we are of the soul. This must be condemned and rejected.
What is the service that is in spirit? It is that whatever comes out of the soul, including the mind, the emotion, and the will, regardless of whether it is bad or good, should be condemned and rejected. Thus, we can serve in spirit, and all our services will be services which are in spirit.
The problem in the church today is not due to sins. Rather, it is due to the fact that many works, even many so-called “sacred works,” seem good and right but are out of the human soul and are merely of man. These works are done for the Lord, but they are from the human soul—from man’s zeal, man’s good intention, man’s perception, and man’s opinion. Apparently, they are scriptural, but their source is neither God nor the spirit; rather, their source is man and the soul. It is this kind of work in Christianity today that is a huge problem. This is because outwardly the works seem good, right, and scriptural, but there is a problem with the source. The problem is not a matter of whether the work is right or wrong, but what the source of the work is and where the work comes from. Does it come from God or man? Does it come from the spirit or the soul? The work may be good, but there is something wrong with it because its source is not God but man. Zeal is frequently the source of the works today. Ideas are also the origin of many works today. Many people serve the Lord merely in their zeal and by their own ideas. If you subtract these things from their service, their service becomes empty and it equals zero. In their service there is almost nothing of the element of the spirit. This is because their service is neither of the spirit nor through the spirit.
Today our eyes must be opened, and we must be clear inwardly. Our service to God should not come out of our zeal, our ideas, or our determination. We should judge these things and let our spirit come out strongly. We should not serve God by the things of the outward man. We should condemn our zeal, judge our ideas, and reject our vigor, thereby denying everything of our self, our soul. We must stand in the death of the cross, allowing the entire outer man to be put to death by the Holy Spirit with the cross. In this way, our spirit will gain the ground in us, and it will become strong and living. Thus, we will be able to serve in spirit. Only this kind of service can help others to touch God, minister life to them, and solve their spiritual problems. May the Lord have mercy on us that we would learn to be delivered from living in the soul to living in the spirit and from serving Him in the soul to serving Him in the spirit.