Preventing a Deformed Daily Life


	Confronting Crisis in the Full-time Serving Life Message Five: Preventing a Deformed Daily Life We now come to two major concerns confronting every serving one: how to prevent the improper things from coming into one's daily life, and how to be rescued after such deformity has already occurred. I. Preventing a Deformed Daily Life A. Be Sober In whatever crisis we confront, we should realize that the solution will almost always be the same: our sober application of whatever exercise the Lord has revealed to us. We cannot expect someone else to force us to become healthy; we ourselves must bear the burden to labor to the point that we are healthy in our daily life. We need a sober exercise to prevent unhealthy practices from coming in to damage our effectiveness in serving the Lord. Firstly, we have to be sober regarding the truth that we have received, that we believe, and that we preach. The truth should be something very precious to us. The truth that we posses should be something we experience. It is easy for us to lose our realization of the preciousness of the truth after it has been with us for a period of time. We lose our soberness regarding the truth after it becomes too familiar. For example, sometimes a serving brother will tell another person of his concern for him, when in fact there may be little genuine care involved. It is common for a brother to say, "I will pray for you," but only the Lord knows whether any real prayer takes place. Those who have been in the Lord's recovery for only a short while seem very sober regarding these matters, and take them very seriously. But those who serve the Lord full-time can easily lose their feeling concerning the truth and become spiritual politicians. They say a lot and they behave properly, but they are lacking in soberness regarding the truth they minister to others. Do we lie when we tell others that we care about them? In many cases the answer is both yes and no. We may have a real love for someone we are with. But if they drop the church life we just excuse ourselves with reasons. We say that they 'never saw the vision,' or were 'too opinionated,' or 'had problems.' We are very good at coming up with reasons why we shouldn't care any further for them, but these are the same ones to whom we testified about our love and care for them. When we are not sober about what we say or mean, we open ourselves to many unhealthy things in our daily life. Then spiritual things become common. Younger ones who are sober towards the things of the Lord may hold us in godly respect, because we are those who are serving the Lord. To them we are ministering brothers. But within us we know we don't deserve that kind of respect. The soberness and godliness with which they hear, believe in, and share the truth exposes many of the full-time serving ones. When someone has lost their sober realization concerning spiritual things, something is definitely wrong. How do we prevent such deformity from occurring in our daily life? First, we need to be sober concerning the truth we know, which is the truth we believe in and preach. Had we exercised more properly in just this one matter when caring for the members in the Body, we would have many more remaining with us today. We tend to be very relaxed with the brothers and sisters, whether they are gained or lost. Furthermore, we even seem to find it easy to mock or criticize them after they have left. I have even seen younger brothers mock older ones who have left. This really concerns me. In the body life we should be quite sober about handling the saints and in handling the truth. There are four points concerning this matter: 1. Never consider yourself special. Once you consider yourself to be special, you no longer feel that what applies to the "common" saints applies to you. After you have been serving the Lord full-time for a while, a kind of psychology can develop in which you consciously or unconsciously feel that you are special. You no longer feel that the principles regulating the church life apply to you. For instance, if all the saints have to come to the meeting at 7:30, you feel that you can come at 7:45. This damages your spiritual life. Many who are serving full-time have arranged Monday to be their "day off." The working saints, however, don't have such a day. The faithful ones and elders come to serve in the hall on Saturday morning, meet Saturday night, and often spend the entire Lord's Day in meetings and visitation. Then Monday morning they drive to work while the full-timers sleep late. Why? Is it because we feel that we are privileged? Personally, I feel that if there is to be a rest day, all the saints should share in it. We should declare Saturday as a day of rest for all the saints. What makes us so peculiar? For some reason it is easy for us to find reasons to exempt ourselves from what the other saints are laboring in. The more you feel you are special, the more you are going to suffer damage in your spiritual life. Our exercise and effectiveness will become severely limited just by this one thing. 2. Pursue the Lord, the truth, and the church life. Be sober in your exercise to pursue the Lord, the truth, and the church life. In principle, every human being's life has to be occupied with something. It is possible for all your time to be occupied with the wrong things, such as sleeping. The reason why unhealthy things become entrenched in your daily life is because you have not pursued the healthy things. When we allow the Lord, the truth, and the church life to occupy us to the fullest extent, we are protected. When the Lord, the truth, and the church life are not fully occupying you, what else can you do other than let some improper things occupy you? Your daily life needs to be occupied with something. This is why it is easier for a full-timer's daily life to become deformed than it is for a working person's. Anyone who holds a decent job develops a particular kind of humanity just from the fact they are at work eight or more hours a day. Being involved in decent things, even if not divine things, will produce a decent daily life. I haven't met many full-timers who can truly say they don't have enough time. Being full-time means that you are full of time. But I have met many full-timers who don't know what to do with all their time. This is why the improper things come into their daily life. How can you deal with this problem? Ask yourself whether your daily life is occupied by these three items: the Lord, the truth, and the church life. If not, then you have no way to prevent your spiritual life from getting into trouble. Other things will come in to fill your time. It is not unhealthy to spend a little time on certain hobbies or recreations, but the vast majority of your time should be occupied with these three positive items. This is something we all must learn. We should pursue the Lord, the truth, and the church life. 3. Keep yourself open to the Lord and to the Body. It is too easy to become defensive about our decisions and our behavior. Perhaps we may just not be aware of our need for fellowship. Sometimes we may go beyond reasonable bounds in a certain matter. For example, suppose I have been trying to decide what to do about a watch of mine that is broken. I cannot find a band for it and have spent considerable time trying to locate one. Finally, I buy another watch. Now I find it unsuitable and would like to buy yet another one. This has been occupying too much of my time. In such a case I may need someone to tell me to drop the matter. The question is, are we able to receive such fellowship? Most of us can give convincing arguments to justify the things we do. We can even use the Bible to back us up. But could we receive help from the Lord, let alone from other brothers, with such an attitude? Now that you are a full-time servant of the Lord, how many brothers can correct you? If you cannot open to the Lord or to the brothers to receive fellowship, then it will surely affect your daily life. Many things can come into your daily life that wouldn't have come in if you could receive such help. 4. Hold the spiritual principles in a pure conscience. As you are serving the Lord, you need to be justified in your conscience regarding what you are doing. If you circumvent certain principles while you are serving in the Body, you will really damage yourself and even the church. For instance, we realize that we need to remain in the church life to fulfill the Lord's purpose. However, if I become divisive and still remain in the church life for the purpose of attacking others and promoting my own cause, that is holding to principle in an impure way. Some may make use of spiritual terms and holy reasons, and yet in reality be motivated by ambition. They seem to hold to the principles, but inwardly their conscience is not operating properly. When a person's conscience is in such a state, it doesn't matter what principle they espouse, it cannot vindicate them. Thus we must behave ourselves according to the spiritual principles, but with a pure conscience. When a person who lacks a healthy conscience tries to justify his actions based upon spiritual principles, what kind of daily life will he have? We must hold the spiritual principles in a pure conscience, or we may one day appeal to them to cloak something impure.