With the Brethren, the striking thing is their lukewarmness. They are neither cold nor hot, but lukewarm, and because of this the Lord says that He is about to spew them out of His mouth (Rev. 3:15-16).
The Lord tells those in Laodicea that they think they are rich, meaning that they are very self-contented. Yet they actually are wretched, miserable, poor, blind, naked, and Christless (Rev. 3:17-20). This describes the situation of the Brethren today. The Brethren are Christless because the Lord is pictured as being outside the lukewarm church, knocking on the door.
The above points show us the degraded situation of today’s Christianity. Now we need to consider ourselves. Actually, our own situation and condition are not so encouraging either. This kind of degradation should become a cause to make us willing to rise up. It should cause us to pray, “Lord, I want to be vitalized. I want to rise up.” The first cause of desiring to be vitalized is the compassions of God, and the second is the degradation of the church.
The third cause to be vitalized is the calling of the Lord in the age of the overcomers. At the end of the first century, the Lord began to sound this calling. This calling for the overcomers is repeated seven times to the seven churches in Revelation 2 and 3 (2:7, 11, 17, 26-29; 3:5-6, 12-13, 21-22). Such a calling is still being sounded. When we come to the last book of the Bible, we hear the sounding of the Lord’s call for the overcomers. If we do not have the boldness to say that we are the overcomers, we should say, “I’m going to be an overcomer!” We are those in the age of the overcomers.
The first purpose of being vitalized is to respond to the Lord’s calling. Our desire to be vitalized and be in the vital groups is our response to the Lord’s calling in this age. The Lord needs the overcomers at this time more than at any other time. The darker the age is, the more the Lord would call His overcomers.
We also need to be vitalized for the Lord’s recovery in this age, paying our full attention to the seven crucial points of the major items of the Lord’s recovery today. These points are the participation in the processed Triune God, the rich enjoyment of the all-inclusive and all-extensive Christ, the full experience of the consummated, compound Spirit, the absolute living by the eternal life, the building up of the Body of Christ, the practice of the churches on the local ground, and the keeping of the oneness of the Body of Christ. We have to spend some time to pray over these seven crucial points in the Lord’s recovery. We should pray over them, item by item, until we become fully impressed and even filled up with them.
The purpose of being vitalized is also for the building up of the Body of Christ through the proper practice of the local churches. This item covers two points: the Body and the local expressions of the Body, the local churches.
The building up of the Body of Christ is on the local ground in the oneness of the unique Body of Christ. Some dissenting ones taught wrongly that the local churches are autonomous. No local church, however, can be autonomous, because the entire church is an organism, an organic Body. No part of our physical body is autonomous. Our nose cannot tell the other parts of our physical body not to touch it or interfere with it. If our nose did this, it would become a dead nose. As long as any member of the body is living, it is altogether not autonomous. Some have overstressed the local churches and neglected the oneness of the Body. We surely stand on the local ground, but we do this in the oneness of the unique Body of Christ.
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