Spending Our Time for the Church Life


	Message Four: Spending Our Time for the Church Life Our Time is More Important Than Our Spirit In keeping a healthy pattern, we must learn to spend our time for the church life. We have seen that to struggle to be in the Lord's presence, to exercise the church life in our daily life, and to treasure the corporate church life are the basic elements of a healthy pattern. Each of these elements requires our time. In practicing to love the Lord and to serve in the church life, nothing is more crucial than our time. The Bible says, "Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also." From our experience we have also learned, "Where your time is, there will your heart be also." This phrase is not Biblical, but according to our experience there is such a fact. We must realize that to serve in the church life, nothing counts but our time. We could even say that time is more important than our spirit. This may sound surprising, because we always emphasize the human spirit. For us to experience the Lord, surely our spirit is the most crucial thing. But for us to operate in the church life it is our time that is the most crucial thing. For example, sisters may come together without being in their spirit. However, eventually their time together brings them to their spirit. Suppose four sisters come together. One sister is angry at her children, another sister is angry at her husband, the third sister is angry at her colleagues, and the fourth sister is angry at the elders. Not one of them is in their spirit. Yet as they spend their time together, it doesn't take long for them to begin to pray. As they touch the Lord they may even be brought to tears. Because they have learned to spend time together, their time became the means for the Lord to bring them to their spirit. Our serving life is made up of two different items: our exercise and our labor. Our exercise is towards ourselves, and our labor is towards others. For both our exercise and our labor we must spend our time. When there is no time, there is no reality of the serving life. We should tell ourselves, "I need to spend time with the saints in my locality. I need to spend time to serve, and to pray with other sisters." Eventually only those who know how to handle their time can be useful. Nurturing Care Requires Our Time The way we should spend our time can be compared to a family raising up their children. Usually a father and mother raise up their children with two different lines, from two different angles. In principle, the father raises up the children in the line of developing their personality. The mother raises up the children in the line of developing their heart. A good father raises up the children to have a strong, independent, useful, and solid personality. A good mother raises up the children to have a healthy, tender, and sweet heart. When a person has both a proper heart and a proper personality they will be very useful. Furthermore, sometimes the father pays more attention to the children's education, while the mother pays more attention to their health. For a father to take care of a child's personality and education, the time required is not so demanding. But for a mother to develop the heart and to care for the health of her child, she needs to spend all of her time. We realize that this is true in the family life, yet for some reason we don't apply it to the Body life. The church, which is the Body of Christ, is a big family in the sight of God. In the church life, we do seem to have some fathers. However, we do not have an adequate number of saints who exercise as mothers to raise up spiritual children with a proper heart. For someone to become so healthy, so tender, so sweet, and so pure in their heart will need a lot of nurturing. This requires some saints to exercise as mothers, which in turn demands a lot of their time. The recovery needs people who know how to spend their time. The more time we spend with the saints the better, because that is how they will grow. We should not be satisfied with a few "good times" with the saints. Often a sister may say, "Let me tell you about last Friday night. I was at a sister's home and we had some cookies and coffee. Then we began to pray. Oh, that was good!" We usually treasure these times too much. After such a time, we think we don't need to do anything more. Sisters, instead of dwelling on times that you have enjoyed in the past, you should be asking yourselves, "How can I have more time with the sisters today?" Then you will spend your time in a more specific and consistent way. This practice of spending your time will bring you into the reality of a healthy pattern. Nourishing One Another Once you are with other sisters, what should you do? In what way should you spend your time with them? Firstly, you must learn the principle of nourishment. When you are together with the sisters, learn to nourish one another. Nourishment should be very normal. You don't need to make issues by insisting on a certain way to spend your time together. For example, you don't need to insist on reading the Bible or a spiritual book, although that may be helpful. Your time should just be normal. You may pray, or pray-read, or fellowship with one another. You may cover whatever material the church is covering. As long as you touch the things of life, you will gain life. When you are together with the saints, life is already there. There does not need to be any pressure or expectation. As you are together, simply nourish one another. When you exercise this way, you should not make yourselves special. You should not think, "We sisters are the only ones who are together. How come the other sisters aren't practicing this?" You don't need to regard yourselves as a special group of sisters. If there are only five of you, there is no need for you to insist that others join you. Just simply go ahead and practice being together. Eventually, others will learn from you and want to join in. But if you make being together a great demand it will scare other sisters away. If you practice being together with the sisters who have the time and the burden to do so, then the church will be blessed. Put yourselves with those who are willing, but don't demand that other sisters join you or practice the same thing. Eventually what you are enjoying will affect other sisters, and your labor will be profitable to the entire church. Carrying the Church Life Practically You may also spend your time with the other sisters to carry the church life practically. Some sisters need to develop the habit of noticing the practical needs in the church life. It would be very good to have a specific slot of time to work together with other sisters in taking care of these needs. This may include children's service, cleaning the meeting hall, or any number of matters. This can be done in coordination with the service office or in fellowship with the local elders. However, in carrying the church life practically, you must be careful not to have any opinions. It is easy to become opinionated about what the church should do or in what direction the church should go. Remember that the elders are the ones who lead the church. They are the ones who have a particular view and burden for the church. Even if you are very capable, you must still learn to trust the elders in your local church. Whatever the elders suggest regarding practical service, try to practice it together. Generating Life for the Body When you are together with other sisters, learn to generate life for the Body. The church life can sometimes become like an old family life in which everything has become stale and routine. The church needs fresh life to be generated. For example, suppose there is an older couple who have a child later than usual. Even though they are older, the fresh life will make them younger. The whole person of the mother and the father will become younger because a new life has come into the family. When your church life seems old and stale, then learn to generate some life to make it young again. Don't live in a routine. Don't think to yourself, "The church life here has always been this way. What can I do?" Learn to generate some life. This could mean reaching out to your neighbors, or preaching the gospel to some friends, or having a sweet home meeting to care for the saints. You could pray for these matters with your companions. You may feel that this is only generating life for you and your companions, but actually this life will affect the whole church. Now we see a picture of living by a healthy pattern. As we have covered before, we should not pay attention to our deeds, but pay attention to our pattern. This pattern consists of three elements. Firstly, we should struggle to be in our spirit, which is to be in the Lord's presence. Secondly, we should exercise to have the church life in our daily life, which includes the matter of companionship. Thirdly, we should treasure the corporate church life, which includes the meetings of the church. These are the basic elements of the healthy pattern. With each of these elements, we need to spend our time. Sisters, learn to designate a specific slot of time to be with one another. If you don't commit yourself to a certain time to come together with other sisters, nothing else will work. Spend your time to nourish one another, to carry the church life practically, and to generate some life for the Body. This is the healthy way to spend your time. If you practice this, it will be a real blessing to the church. Mutuality When we are together with the saints, it must be in the principle of mutuality. In the early years of the church, if five sisters were together, they would look to see who had been in the church life the longest. Then that sister would take the lead. For a sister who has the most "seniority" to take the lead is not mutuality. What is mutuality? Mutuality is the Lord Himself taking the lead. When a small group of sisters comes together, they should practice mutuality. Everyone participates, everyone exercises their spirit, everyone is in the Lord's presence, and everyone is looking to the Lord for His speaking. Then the Lord is the one who takes the lead among them. If the sisters are together, and they pray and exercise before the Lord with everyone participating and with everyone seeking the Lord's leading, then this is mutuality. This does not mean that no sister should take the lead. The Lord may take the lead through someone. Yet everyone functions, everyone operates, everyone has input, and everyone is exercised. This should be our practice. The Need to Live in Simplicity If we desire to practice the church life in this way, then our living has to be simple. If we haven't yet learned the secret of living a simple daily life, then we won't have enough time. Our time will be used up with unnecessary things. We need to learn how to have a simple daily life. The Unites States, on one hand, is a very blessed country. It is very easy to be wealthy, compared to the rest of the world. Yet because of all the wealth and riches, in a sense this country is not blessed. If we had only enough money to buy some simple foods, what a blessing that would be to the church life. That would free up some of our time. Instead, we have so much extra food in our refrigerator and freezer, and we even throw some of it out. This is a small example of why the church life suffers from the American life-style. We need to learn how to live simple. Our food should be simple. We don't need to make too many things, and our cooking doesn't need to be so complicated. We can cook something that takes longer on special occasions, especially when we have the saints over. When new ones come, that is very special, and we can spend the whole day cooking if we want to. But for our regular family life, we should make it as simple as possible. The simpler we live, the better. If we have too many clothes or too many pairs of shoes, this shows we are not simple in our living. Sometimes we hear about a sale and get all stirred up. If that is our habit, then how can we live the church life? How will we spend our time? A simple daily life will give us time and even a heart for the church life. We should live simple, eat simple, and dress simple. We shouldn't always compare ourselves with others. Just because one sister has a certain item in her home does not mean that we also need to have it. We don't need to look around to see if we meet some standard. Everyone is different in the way they handle things. We need to be before the Lord about how to live a simple life. The simpler we live, the more time we will have for the church life. Once we learn to live simple, we will find out that a lot of things we think we need for the so-called American life-style are unnecessary. We should not always desire or expect to have more. We should not fall into the habit of always buying things that are more expensive. However, this is not a legal matter. We don't need to judge anyone for how they live. We may go to a saint's home and be surprised at how many things they have in their kitchen. But maybe they are able to handle owning these things, while we ourselves could not. If we "shop around" in the church life and pick up ideas about what we should have from other saints, this will make our life too complicated. We should strive to be simple. Simplicity in our living is the secret of having more time for the church. 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