REALIZING OUR OWN USELESSNESS FOR THE EXPERIENCE OF CHRIST’S UNSEARCHABLE RICHES
Many of you young ones here today have known Christ. You have also known His matchless riches. We have to learn to touch Him and to see Him. Furthermore, some brothers and sisters have the desire to be full-time and to join the training. I want you to know that to join the training is to be exposed. It shows us that we are nothing and can do nothing. We are corrupt to the uttermost, and we are absolutely useless. Hence, we must touch Christ. It is not enough merely to trust in Him. We have to allow Him to be in us and allow ourselves to get into Him. We must be joined to Him daily, and we must breathe Him in all the time. We have to see that we can never overcome our own temper. We cannot improve ourselves or advance by ourselves. But there is a way today. It is to receive this Jesus Christ. He is our temperament, and He is also our advancement and our improvement. He is everything to us on the positive side.
Today, this Lord is the Spirit. Within us, we also have a spirit. Our spirit is linked and mingled as one with God the Spirit. This is the goal of our training. Our training is not a seminary. It is not a monastery. This training is to lead the brothers and sisters to know themselves, to realize their own uselessness, and to contact Christ, so that the riches of Christ can become their riches.
Some of you brothers and sisters may think that the training will make you an experienced person. But I must tell you that a person’s experience, whether that of the older ones or that of the young, is worth nothing. Many times, the more experienced we are, the less we are useful. Although I am so old, I do not trust in my experience at all. On the contrary, my experience many times becomes a hindrance to me. Hence, we have to realize that whether we are old or young, good or evil, we are all useless. Everyone needs Jesus. Only Jesus is useful. If all of you trainees, one hundred or more, would take in these words, your training will be a success, and the churches in the Philippines will double their number very soon.
PRODUCING THE CHURCH FOR THE FULFILLMENT OF GOD’S ETERNAL AND MYSTERIOUS ECONOMY
The problem of those serving the Lord is that they think that they are useful. They fail to apply the Lord Jesus, and as a result they cannot enjoy Him. We have to realize that the riches of Christ are unsearchable. As long as we are willing to drop our self and to admit our uselessness, the riches of Christ will become our experience. These unsearchable riches are the gospel that we preach today. When these riches are preached as the gospel to others, the result is the church for the accomplishment of God’s eternal and mysterious economy. Formerly, our gospel only told people to repent and to confess their sins, and to be delivered from perdition and to receive eternal life. That is not adequate for the producing of the church. The proper and high gospel is one that causes people to see their uselessness and to experience the unsearchable riches of Christ. The result is that the church is produced for the accomplishing of God’s eternal and mysterious economy.
(A message given by Brother Witness Lee in Quezon City, Philippines, on March 23, 1989)
(The Riches and Fullness of Christ and the Advanced Recovery of the Lord Today, Chapter 1, by Witness Lee)
