DROPPING OUR OLD CONCEPTS
AND PICKING UP THE NEW VIEW
OF THE LORD’S PRESENT RECOVERY
In order to go on, we all need to drop our old concepts and pick up the new view of the Lord’s present recovery. For the building up of the Body of Christ, we need the material. In Haggai the Lord charged the Israelites, "Go up to the mountain, and bring wood, and build the house; and I will take pleasure in it, and I will be glorified" (1:8). Today we need to go to knock on doors because we need the material for God’s house. I am sharing this with the hope that we could be rescued from the wrong understanding and wrong position. We all have to admit that there are many ways to preach the gospel, but to visit people in their homes is the best way.
The Lord told us in Luke 14:23, "Go out into the roads and hedges and compel them to come in, that my house may be filled." The higher class people are not in the hedges. Only those who are lazy and idle will be there. In 1 Corinthians 1, Paul says that God has not called many wise, powerful, or wellborn people. Instead, most of the people God has chosen are the weak of the world, the lowborn of the world, and the despised (vv. 26-28). In Luke 14 the Lord told us to compel these people to come in.
We may be fully biased in our understanding and yet still believe that we are enjoying Christ. If we have not been bearing fruit for years, we may be cut off from the vine without realizing it (John 15:2a, 6). We may be in a self- deceiving position. If we are really enjoying Christ, we will surely bear fruit. Where has our fruit been in the past years? For our local church to remain at the same number year after year is a shame. I must be honest to the One whom I serve and to the ones whom I serve. We are too biased. We must come back to the straight way.
First, we have to visit people to gain them for the Lord’s Body. Second, we must keep going back to visit them to have home meetings. Regardless of how little we think we know, we still must contact them as much as we can and minister to them as much as we know. After a child is born, the mother must immediately begin to care for him. We must go back again and again to visit the new ones begotten through us to take care of them. According to Ephesians 5:29, the Lord knows how to cherish and nourish His Body. We have to follow the Lord to cherish and nourish the new ones. Third, we also have to have small group meetings to teach and perfect them. Fourth, we have to perfect them to speak for the Lord, to prophesy, in the church meetings. Regardless of a person’s ability, as long as he will labor, there will be some result. We have received a view of the Lord’s present recovery. Now we must put this view into our practice.
(Elders' Training, Book 09: The Eldership and the God-Ordained Way (1), Chapter 9, by Witness Lee)
