Thus, the service which is from God requires us to have fellowship with God and minister life to others. The service which God wants from us does not focus on doing a work but on ministering life. The center and goal of the service of the saints and of the church are not to build up an enterprise or a work but to minister God’s life. It does not matter what profession the worldly people are in—farming, business, industry, education; all emphasize having a successful enterprise. If their enterprise is successful, then they have reached their goal. However, the service of the church and of the saints is not like this! The service of the church and of the saints is nothing and worthless in God’s eyes if all we have done is successfully finish our work, having built up either a big or a small enterprise. God’s desire is that the emphasis of our service be on ministering God’s life instead of producing a work or enterprise.
For the sake of the new believers, we will use words that are easily understood to explain this. For example, the church is here serving God, but the emphasis is not on how many meeting halls are built, how many enterprises are established, how many activities are carried out, how much work is done, or how many people are brought in. These are not the center and goal of the church service. To use these items to measure and judge the church service is a huge mistake. How weighty the church service is, how high it is, how much value it has, and how acceptable it is in God’s eyes—all these are not measured by the aforementioned items as the standard, such as the number of people, the material things, the size of the enterprise, and the amount of work. Rather, the only standard of measurement is how much the church has ministered God’s life to others and how much element of the divine life has entered into people through the church’s help and service.
God measures the work and service of the church according to one point: how much supply of spiritual life the church has given people and how much increase of the element of God’s life people have received when they were helped by the church. God uses only this standard to measure the church’s service. Even if we were to bring all the people in this locality into the church, convert all the houses into meeting halls, and stir up so many people to zealously preach the gospel, in God’s eyes it would all be empty and worthless unless these people have the divine life, are filled with some of the divine element, have received enough of God, and have sufficient knowledge of God. God absolutely does not measure our service and work by anything apart from Himself. He measures our service and work only by how much of His element people have gained and been filled with inwardly. It is not that our service and our work are weighty before God if we build huge meeting halls, do things in an orderly way, or have large numbers of people. There is not such a thing! The weight of our service and work does not depend on the number of people, things, and activities. Instead, it depends on the amount of God’s life people have touched, gained, been filled with, and experienced. It is not that our service, our work, is weighty if we gain a few more people, do a few more activities, and obtain a few more things. We can never use these as the standard for measuring our service and work. We must see how much our service and work have ministered the divine life to others. Some do not have the divine life yet, but after our contact with them and our help to them, God’s life gets into them. Others have a little of God’s life but are very immature and have only a shallow knowledge of God, but after our contact and fellowship with them, they have a deeper desire for God inwardly, they pursue God more deeply, and they gain more of His life.
Our service and work should only minister God’s life to people and should only use God’s life to attract people. When people come to our meetings, we should give them the sense that they have touched the spirit, met God, and received the supply of life. We should not let them feel that they have touched some other good things besides these items. Perhaps our meeting halls are primitive with only a small number in the meetings, but once a person enters our meetings, he senses the presence of God and touches God. When a person walks into this kind of meeting, he has an indescribable sensation that his darkness has turned into light, that he has found a way through his difficulties, that his weaknesses have been made strong, and that he has been uplifted from his depression.
The corporate service of the church should be like this, as should our individual service. When people contact us, even just for a moment, they should gain the help of life inwardly. It is as if we have something which comes out from within us and touches them inwardly to enliven them. They were in darkness inwardly, but after contacting us for a moment, they are enlightened. In the past they were lacking in their inward knowledge of the life of God, but after contacting us for a moment their knowledge improves and increases. We bring them into the Lord and enable them to receive the supply of life. The help which they receive from us is not material, social, emotional, or doctrinal. Rather, it is spiritual, of life, from God, and in Christ. What they obtain from us in life in this way is truly God Himself and the divine life.
In our work we should not use other things to attract people. We should not use social contacts, money, or anything apart from God because all these things belong to death. In our work we should only attract people with God and minister His life to them. Only this kind of service is spiritual, is from God, and is able to touch God.
In John 15 the Lord says that He is the vine and we are the branches. Apart from the vine, the branches can do nothing. The branches on the vine are not there to be its material; they are there to bear fruit. Bearing fruit is to minister life, that is, to release the supply of the vine’s life. This is our function with respect to the Lord. Today the Lord does not need people to be His material, nor does He need human talent. He only needs people to abide in Him, to be filled with Him, and to release the supply of His life. This is truly like the branches of the vine being filled with the sap of the vine and releasing the supply of the vine’s life. The branches of the vine do not know how to do anything but abide in the vine and allow its life to be ministered and to flow out through them.
This is the service of the church, which is not a great work or large enterprise with a huge accomplishment but the ministering and flowing out of the life of Christ. It requires us to be joined to Christ, to abide in Christ, and to give Him the ground in us to fill us, so that His life, His nature, His likes, and His inclination can become our life, our nature, our likes, and our inclination. In other words, His all becomes our all. When we abide in Him, live in Him, and fellowship with Him like this, we allow Him to pass through us and flow out from us. What flows out from us is His life, the life of the vine. This will minister life to others, and it will give them life. When people touch this, they touch Christ and the life of the vine. This is the service of the church.
George Müller, who founded an orphanage in England, was such a person living in God to serve God. Unfortunately, however, some of the biographies written about him place too much emphasis on the success of his enterprise while neglecting the matters of his spiritual life, such as his abiding in God and living before Him. When I read his journal, I did not feel that he was operating a large business. I only felt that I was touching a person who lived before God, fellowshipped with God, allowed God to rule in him, allowed God to have a place in him, and was filled with God inwardly. Every time I read his journal, I was brought before God and given the sense of God’s presence. This made me feel that Müller was one who lived in the light and who lived before God. You touch God when you read his writings. This is the life of George Müller; it is not a life that emphasized a successful enterprise but a life that knew God and flowed out His divine life.
We must always remember that the service of the church is God’s flowing out to supply others with the divine life. It is not a matter of how many things we accomplish or how many works we do. Instead, it is a matter of how much God we flow out and how much of God’s life we minister to others. This is where all the issues lie! God never uses other things to judge our work. He only uses His life to judge our work. The more our work has God Himself and the element of His life, the weightier and more valuable it is. If we do not have this, then our work is empty and a failure.
May God truly have mercy on us that all our service and work would be from Him, would come out of our fellowship with Him, and would be able to overflow with Him and His life as a supply to others.