The church life is not only great for our enjoyment; it also is great in God’s desire. From eternity past, God planned to have this. His enemy, Satan, has been frustrating Him from achieving this goal. I have the deep sense that today is the end time. At the close of this age, God has revealed His heart to us. We cannot say that we have not seen His heart’s desire. His desire is that a group of His chosen people would practice the real church life with His Christ. We are here on earth for this. It is worthwhile to give all we are for this. If I had ten lives, I would give every one of them for this cause. I would spend one life in Africa, another in Europe, and another in Australia.
As you go to the campuses, do not carry on a so-called work of Christianity. Go there to be people living, walking, moving, and working in the spirit as a true testimony of Jesus. We do not preach the gospel simply because we love sinners and want to see them saved from hell to heaven. This is the concept of poor Christianity. Our burden is to preach the gospel in order to bring people into a glorious vision, into the participation of Christ, and into God’s standard in the church life. What goal is higher than this? If you are an ambitious young person, you must take this as your ambition. Our eyes need to be open to see what a wonderful person is the Christ whom we experience in the church. This wonderful Christ is for us to have the proper church life. In the church life today we have a foretaste of the full taste to come in the New Jerusalem. How great it is to experience Christ and to live in the church life!
When you go to the campuses, do not shout, saying, “Don’t you know that I am here? I have come with Christ from the church.” If you do this, others will think that you are mentally disturbed. Be a normal person, a proper human being with a stately and weighty humanity. You even need to be shining with Christ. But do not declare anything or label yourself in any way. Simply be a common and normal person who can easily contact others and be contacted by them. If you live, walk, and behave in the spirit, then you will be a common person. Do not attempt to be holy, angelic, or spiritual. Rather, be a neat, clean, normal human being. You all need to practice this. Do not make yourself peculiar or contact people in an abnormal way. Do not conduct yourself like a preacher. Often, preachers are not very human. Consider how peculiar are the monks in Buddhism and Catholicism. They dress in strange garments and, by so doing, label themselves. We must let people see how human we are.
As you read the four Gospels, you will see that when the Lord Jesus was on earth, He was a common person, living a normal human life with a weighty humanity yet without being peculiar in any way. His humanity was clean, high, right, and shining. If we also are like this, there will be no need to label ourselves. When we speak to people, they will realize that we are human and common. But they will also recognize that we have a certain something, and this will cause them to respect us. Although you may be just nineteen years old, your professor will consider you to be quite weighty.
We also need to pray to be burdened, saying, “Lord, burden me with Your commission. Burden me with Your move and Your economy.” If you would all go to the Lord and pray like this, after one prevailing prayer you will be burdened. You will be burdened with the Lord’s present economy and with His commission to go to people. In order to work for the Lord we must have a burden. I believe that you all can testify that I truly have a burden. When I speak with a burden, I do not speak vanity. I do not like to speak without a burden. Young people, you must go to the campus with a burden. This burden should not simply be the burden of the gospel construed in the terms of Christianity, but the burden of God’s up-to-date move. We have a heavy burden and the clear understanding that the Lord desires to accomplish His recovery in this age. The only way He can do this is to gain the young people. The Lord’s up-to-date economy is to gain young people, not only in this country but in all the leading countries for His recovery. Pray to be burdened with this commission. You should all be able to say, “The purpose of my life is not to be a scholar or a doctor. My life is for the Lord’s up-to-date burden. I do have a burden. For this burden I study and work. For this burden I am what I am today.” Pray that you might become burdened in this way. It means a great deal to have a burden like this.
If I had come to this country without having this kind of burden, I would have given up by now. But since I am burdened, nothing can quench me. I do not care about the opposition, attacks, and rumors. I only care for the burden with which I am burdened. I can testify that the Lord honors this burden. Whenever you have been burdened by Him, He will honor that burden. This is why I have said many times that this work is not mine; it is something wrought by Him. The attacks are not directed against me, but against the Lord’s move. One day, the opposers will know that they have been attacking His economy. This work is not a work accomplished by a man; it is a work according to the divine burden.
When you go to the campus, go with such a divine burden. Do not shout at people, but in your spirit remind Satan that you have come with a burden. Many times I have spoken to Satan, saying, “Do not touch this work. This is being done according to a burden from the Lord. This is not something of me, but of the Lord.” After you pray to the Lord and speak to people, you need to talk to Satan, telling him to stay away from you because you have a burden from the Lord. Get this burden and go with it.