IN THE MEETINGS AND AT HOME
When we are with the elders or in the meetings, we are in fear and trembling lest we display the clay. We pray and seek to exercise our spirit. But when we go home, how do we treat our wives? It is all too easy to become loose, not to pray and no longer to be watchful. Our spirit seems to evaporate. If our wife says a word which offends us, we harshly cut her off, telling her she does not know what she is talking about, or that she should mind her own business. Is this gold, or clay? It is hard for the husbands to be golden in dealing with their wives.
The same holds true for the sisters. In the meetings they gird up their loins and exercise to have a strong and living spirit. They seem to be all spirit. What happens to the spirit, though, when they get home? If the husband wants to know why she has gotten home so late, the sister is quick to answer that it is not late, why does he say it is late? The spirit is gone.
If this is the way we are as soon as we get home from the meetings, I suspect that what we display in the meetings is not the genuine spirit. It is a pretense or a performance. Our real spirit cannot evaporate! It is necessary for us always to exercise to stay in spirit and to speak from the spirit. Many times it is best not to give an answer when our spouse says a critical word to us. Simply say to the Lord, “I am one spirit with You. To me to live is You.”
Marriage tests whether the gold we have is real or false. Many young people, before they are married, give the appearance of gold. Once they marry, however, it seems as though all the gold is swept away. Whether we are really living by the spirit has to be tested by our home life. Our spouse knows best whether we are truly gold or only clay. If at home there is only clay, how can the church be a lampstand of gold? We need more of God’s element to be added to us!
A GOLDEN LAMPSTAND IN REALITY
In Revelation, the last book of the Bible, the Spirit is called the seven Spirits (Rev. 4:5). This is not to say that there are seven individual Spirits. The meaning is that the Spirit at the end of the age is sevenfold intensified. It is like a lamp with a three-way light bulb. If we do not need very much light, we can turn the switch just once. If it is very dark, however, we can turn the switch three times and get the maximum amount of light. In Revelation the Spirit has been intensified not three times, but seven.
The church as the golden lampstand shines forth this sevenfold light. When all the clay is gone, and we have been fully transformed into gold, the Spirit of God will shine forth from within and amongst us with a sevenfold brightness. This golden lampstand will then truly express the Triune God and be His testimony. He will have been fully wrought into us. Not only will His life be in us, but His Spirit will saturate our whole being so that every part within us is simply Himself.
(Life Messages, Vol. 2 (#42-75), Chapter 33, by Witness Lee)
