Obtaining the Present Christ with His Presence Corporately (1) Review


	Obtaining the Present Christ with His Presence Corporately (1) Review My spiritual life began when I was in high school. I was saved into the Lord's recovery, therefore I do not have must of a Christianity background. Even in high school, however, I began to pursue the Lord and the things of the Lord. Eventually I came to wonder: What makes us different from other Christian groups? I noticed the difference between the theological school I entered for two weeks in the United States and the church life. There was definitely something lacking. What was lacking? The present Christ. What marks the Lord's recovery is the continual exercise to have the present Christ. This is why we should be so thankful for these servants of the Lord who have not let the Lord or the churches rest. Because we are in the local churches, we are positioned to fight for the present Christ. We cannot be content with our past experience of Christ; in the Lord's recover we must always be apprehending the present Christ. If you are one who desires to have the present Christ, you must be one who lives in His presence. If you are not one who is experiencing Christ, the high truths of the recovery as taught by the apostles will become mere doctrines and slogans to you. Slogans and doctrines cannot build the church. Therefore you have to struggle to have the advanced, present Christ. To have the advanced, present Christ, you have to struggle to live in the Lord's presence. To live in the Lord's presence, you have to practice the things we have addressed in these messages. First, you should exercise to call, to sigh, and to mourn. You call upon the Lord; you sigh as one who realizes the limitation, weakness and corruption you experience in your mortal body; and you mourn with regard to the situation of mankind around you. Second, you should learn to enjoy the hymns. Learn to treasure and sing the hymns that yield inspiration, experience, expressions, revelation and truth. Third, learn to come to the Bible in the way of pray-reading for strengthening; read-praying for inspiration; memorizing for equipping and utterance; and reading and studying for storage and for life. Fourth, learn to pray and intercede with thanksgiving. Just talk to the Lord freely, letting Him know your situation and what is in you. Pray yourself into His presence and petition the Lord for whatever He puts into your heart as you are contacting Him. These four things are for us to practice individually at all times wherever we may be. They are passed on to you out of years of experience according to what Brother Lee and the brothers have taught us. Obtaining the Presence of the Present Christ Corporately: A. The Clear Promise of the Lord's Presence on Two Specific Matters in the Word In addition to these four types of individual exercise, we need to pursue Christ's presence in a corporate way. There are two clear situations in which the Lord promises that He will give us His presence. The first is as we disciple the nations by preaching the gospel (Matt. 28:19-20). The section is as we gather into the Lord's name (Matt. 18:20). In the church life, what are our primary responsibilities? In the church life the main things are to preach the gospel and to meet together. You may think that these two matters are extremely basic, but they are also very much against our nature. 1. We Easily Exempt Ourselves from Preaching the Gospel In the church life, we must preach the gospel, whether we desire to or not. We are charged by the Lord to do so. If you are shy, you must preach the gospel. If people don't respond, you must preach the gospel. If you are young, you must preach the gospel. If you are old, you must preach the gospel. No one is exempted. As long as you are following Christ, His command is to go and disciple the nations. He gives unto us this mission. If you are born again, if you love the Lord, and if you follow Him as His disciple, you must go and disciple the nations. This means that you must go beyond even getting them saved; you must turn them into Jesus-lovers, that is, into fellow disciples of Christ. Why are so many churches weak? Firstly, there is much slogan-shouting, yet little exercise to be in the Lord's presence for the sake of being with the present Christ. Secondly, we are weak because the majority of the saints are not preaching the gospel. Everyone excuses himself or herself from this responsibility. Everyone feels they have an excuse. Therefore, the church's function of preaching the gospel is nullified. It is very easy for us to give ourselves to developing strategies and material and yet not actually contact people. It is when you contact people with the gospel that the Lord is with you. This is the Lord's pledge. The more a church is preaching the gospel, the more that church will enjoy the Lord's presence. 2. We Easily Exempt Ourselves from Meeting with the Saints The Lord also promised to be with us as we meet in His name. What is it that frustrates the healthy meeting life of a church? It is the unconscious development of a status of seniority in our practice of the church life. Just as we exempt ourselves so easily from preaching the gospel, we also find reason to exempt ourselves from upholding the responsibility of the gatherings of the church. As those who have been faithful in the church life through the years, we assume that we have accumulated certain privileges which enable us to be excused from having to be on time to meetings, to function with freshness in the meetings, or even from attending the meetings. When you are a senior in high school, you look differently upon other students, and other students look differently upon you. Even the school may give seniors preferential treatment and relieve them of duties they had to person as underclassmen. When I was in college, I don't believe I even went to many classes when I was a senior. I just took the exams. This is something which can even creep in among us in the Lord's recovery. What marks those who consider themselves "senior"? They are those who assume that it is permissible for them to come to a meeting late and leave early; who feel they can choose whether or not they will appear at a conference; or who feel they do not have to show up to serve as others do. And no one dares say anything to such a person because, in their eyes as well, he is a "senior." When a younger one comes late, the "senior" can admonish him, but when the "senior" comes late, no one can say a word. When a younger one has to work more hours for his job, the senior brother can tell him he is loving the world; when the senior brother is taken up with his work, the others must appreciate it. What does the Bible say? The Bible says that, whether you are a junior brother or senior brother, you must make the meetings. As long as you are a brother, you mustn't forsake the assembling of yourselves together. It doesn't matter if you have been in the church life twenty years and have attended a thousand prayer meetings or whether you have been in the church life two weeks and have attended two prayer meetings; you are obligated to gather with the other believers to be the Lord's testimony. You can never say you have fulfilled your obligation to meet. For every meeting you miss, you miss the Lord's presence, and you miss knowing the present Christ. "Senioritis" is one of the most difficult matters to deal with in the church life. Once you are infected by this disease, nearly nothing can cure you, and the whole church life suffers because of you. Because you take the lead to be relaxed about the meeting life, the whole church is in trouble. Seniors, however, are very hard to touch. B. The Blessing of Going to People 1. It is an exercise according to God's desire and not according to our need. The preaching of the gospel is primarily for God; it is not primarily for us. We preach the gospel not because we like it, but because God likes it. We meet not merely because we enjoy the practice of meeting, but because God's testimony requires it. 2. It is an operation based on the Lord and not based on our condition. Furthermore, to preach the gospel is based on the Lord's operation and not upon our condition. When the gospel needs to be preached, for instance, you may feel depressed and unqualified. You may have had a big argument with your wife just prior to your scheduled time to go out to preach the gospel. You still must go, and you must be bold, for the preaching of the gospel is not based upon your condition, but upon God's operation. Neither do we go to preach the gospel according to our need. Our going is based upon Christ's need. In other words, we go because the Lord desires it. It is not because we feel to do it. 3. As we go we have the present Christ with His presence. As we go, you will have the present Christ with His presence. It doesn't matter whether you feel it or not; the Lord is with you. Many things you don't feel, but they are there. 4. It is a secret for us to enjoy the present Christ with His authority and power as His presence. The preaching of the gospel is a big secret for us to enjoy the present Christ with the authority and power of His presence. Every time I have gone to preach the gospel I have experienced the power and authority of Christ with me. Many times we are confronted with opportunities to pray with authority and power and we are with new ones. As we are in the exercise of the gospel, the power and authority of Christ are with us. This, however, has absolutely nothing to do with your feeling. My first experience of being on the receiving end of the gospel came when I was in high school. A young relative told me about Jesus, but I was quite confident in arguing that here was no God. Though I seemed to have won the debate, he simply said that, regardless of what I said, he believed in Jesus. As I victoriously went home, I began to question my own argument. I began to consider, 'Is it really true that it isn't reasonable to believe in God?' He seemingly had lost the debate, but he actually had won. It was soon after that I went to a gospel meeting and got saved. His seemingly ineffective gospel eventually caused me to become a believer. The Lord's power and authority was in that "failure." The Bible also tells us that another might reap what you have sown. If you preach the gospel, others may actually get that person saved, but the words you spoke also operated to bring that person to receive the gospel. The gospel is the power of God unto salvation to all who believe. It is also the means for us who speak the gospel to be delivered from weakness and experience the Lord's power and authority. 5. Avoiding the preaching of the gospel becomes the source of our weaknesses and indifference. If you avoid preaching the gospel, you will not only become weak; you will also become indifferent. To become indifferent is worse than being weak. Weakness means that you feel something. Indifference means that you don't care. If you are weak, you can still repent. After you have avoided gospel preaching long enough, you will even lose the feeling that you should preach the gospel. When others talk to you about the gospel, the Lord, or the church, you will have no feeling. It will be somewhat like what the Lord said: "We have played the flute to you, and you did not dance; we have sung a dirge, and you did not weep" (Luke 7:32). Whatever happens, you are indifferent. This is the result of your not preaching the gospel. 6. To go with the brothers for the disciplining should become our habit and a part of our daily life. To go out with the brothers in the gospel should become your habit and a part of your daily life. After I became a believer, I immediately began to preach the gospel to others around me. Another brother and I eventually got at least a hundred saved. We were crazy for the gospel. It became our habit. Eventually we didn't even realize we were preaching the gospel as we were preaching it. It was just a part of our life. After I went to work in the United States, I brought one after another from my job to the meetings. It was just my habit to preach the gospel to people when there was opportunity. This should become a habit and a part of our daily life.