ONLY ONE COMMANDMENT FOR BELIEVERS
The second commandment is for the believers: live Christ. You may not consider that this is a serious matter. I realized many years ago that it was a sin not to live Christ, but my sense was not very strong. It was last year that this conviction came upon me. One day, while I was away for a few days of rest, I was waiting before the Lord. He seemed to say, “So often you confess your sins.” This was true. Whenever an evil thought came to me, or I had a wrong attitude, or I said something wrong, I would confess. It was as routine for me to do this as for me to wash my hands. “Let me ask you,” the Lord said further, “have you ever confessed to me the one sin, that you have not lived Christ?” I said, “Lord, forgive me. Not many times have I confessed this sin.”
INFREQUENTLY LIVING CHRIST
From that day on, I discovered that there is no end to confessing this sin. How much I lacked living by Christ! In a twenty-four hour day, how much of the time was I living Christ? Taking out eight hours for sleep, I figured that perhaps not more than two hours a day did I live Christ. The remaining fourteen hours I was not doing wrong, but neither was I living Christ.
How did I live Christ in those two hours? It was mainly when I was in prayer. At the beginning I would not be living Christ. I would be in my mind. But by praying I would come into my spirit and live Christ. The more I prayed, the more I would live Him. Afterwards I might be talking with my wife. I would be in spirit, but after we talked for maybe five minutes, she would ask me a question. I would reply not unpleasantly, but that question caused me to be in my mind. All the time I was answering it, I was not living Christ. I was not blaming her or even feeling angry, but I was not living Christ.
As the day went on, I would sense that I was off. Though I had not done anything wrong, I had not lived Christ. I confessed, “Lord, I have not lived You. I have not been in spirit. I have been living myself. O Lord, forgive this sin of mine. I am untrustworthy. Do keep reminding me that I am one spirit with You. I do not want to have anything outside the spirit.” I would be restored and again be living Him. But a telephone call might come, and again I might be drawn out of the spirit. Even without a telephone call, I might simply drift away and find I was not living Him.
There may be nothing wrong with the way you are living, but you may still be living apart from Christ. You may be living your morality. You may be living your own reasoning. You may be living the doctrines in the Bible. A couple may not argue, but their love may still not be in the spirit. For this they do not condemn themselves; in their eyes there is nothing sinful. A brother may feel that what he is doing is quite all right; another brother even told him he was right. He goes ahead doing it according to his reasoning. These are just examples to show you how little you live Christ. I doubt that even the best of you live Christ more than five percent of the time. The rest of the time you may not have been arguing, but neither were you living Christ.
TWO TREES
God offered Himself to man as the tree of life, but man was deceived. He chose to eat of another tree, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Gen. 3:6). Everything that is not God belongs to that other tree. It is not just evil which pertains to that tree; it is also the good. Your doctrine belongs to that tree; so do your reasoning, your humility, your pride, and your morality. Both stealing and giving away all your money have their source in this tree. You may argue with your wife, or you may love her so much that you never argue with her; both are from the same tree.
(Life Messages, Vol. 2 (#42-75), Chapter 21, by Witness Lee)
