THE PRACTICE HANDBOOK FOR THE DISTRICT SERVING ONES
SERIES TWO
THE GOD-ORDAINED WAY AND VARIOUS KINDS OF MEETINGS
Message Four
Having Morning Revival with Others
Prov. 4:18 But the path of the righteous is like the light of dawn, / Which shines brighter and brighter until the full day.
Eph. 6:17 And receive the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which Spirit is the word of God.
SEEKING A FRESH REVIVAL—A REVIVAL OF THE INNER LIFE
After much prayer and seeking before the Lord, I feel that the Lord’s recovery both in the East as well as in the West has arrived at a stage where we need to look for a fresh revival. Particularly here in Taiwan, the elders of the churches and the co-workers should pick up the burden to seek a fresh revival.
The revival that I am talking about is not the kind of revival commonly known in Christianity. It is not something sudden, brought about by days of prayer and fasting and accompanied by extraordinary events, resulting in a general excitement. The revival that I am talking about is the renewing described in the New Testament. Second Corinthians 4:16 says, “But though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day.” The renewal here is a revival. Every day we need a renewal, and this renewal has to be refreshed day by day. What we need today is this kind of renewal in the inner life as opposed to a renewal in outward actions or expression. God has set up a natural law that the rising of the sun affords a new beginning and a fresh renewal every day for everything, whether plant, animal, or human being. The same is true with our Christian life. Every morning we should allow the Lord Jesus, our Sun, to rise up in us so that we can be renewed. This is the revival that I am talking about.
I hope that the elders and co-workers would take this word of fellowship and exhortation to give their all and their time to contact and shepherd people. This was our shortage in the past. Now we must recover this matter. Only by this will the organic building up of the Body of Christ in Ephesians 4:12-16 and the meetings of mutuality in 1 Corinthians 14:26 be realized and practiced among us. For this we need a daily revival and a daily overcoming as the base. We also need a life and a work that flow out from the love of the Lord in order to maintain our victory. If we do not have a revived living or a labor in shepherding, we will not be overcoming for long; there will be no way for us to maintain our victory. What maintains us in the victory is a life and work of love toward the Lord. We need both these aspects. (CWWL, 1988, vol. 4, “A Timely Trumpeting and the Present Need,” msg. 4)
A LIFE OF MORNING REVIVAL AND DAILY VICTORY
A vital matter that is crucial to the practice of the church life in the new way is our living a life of morning revival and daily victory. We should not consider that to have a personal morning revival is difficult. To be revived is simply to be touched by the Lord anew. Whenever the Lord touches us, we are revived. In only two minutes the Lord can touch us and revive us. You may not have been revived for a long time, and you may feel that you are very far from the Lord. However, the Lord promises that, regardless of what we are, where we are, or how we are, He is always near to us. We may not have a pure conscience, but the Lord’s blood is ready to cleanse us. If we simply confess our failures, defects, wrongdoings, and shortcomings, the Lord will forgive us and cleanse us. Then immediately we touch Him, and He touches us. This is to be revived, and this kind of revival must be fresh every day.
We stress that this should be a morning revival based on God’s natural law. Every twenty-four hours there is a morning to begin the new day. The sun rises anew every morning, and we also must rise up every morning. Therefore, it is good for us to go to bed earlier at night so that we can rise up earlier in the morning. Every morning we should get up, make our bed, and then spend some time with the Lord. If we can give the Lord ten minutes in the morning before doing anything else, surely we will be revived. If we normally get up at six o’clock, we should get up at five fifty. Then we could have ten minutes to contact the Lord and be revived.
In our time with the Lord, the main thing is to clear up our conscience, to get rid of our inner condemnation. This is done by making a thorough confession of all of our failures, defects, defeats, wrongdoings, mistakes, even sinfulness to the Lord. Then we can take one or two verses from the holy Word to use in our prayer. This is pray-reading. Do not be concerned about too many things, and do not care that much for your understanding. Take care of calling on the Lord, contacting the Lord, and touching the Lord with a proper inner sense. This keeps you in a direct, fresh, intimate, loving contact with the Lord. Sometimes as you are enjoying the Lord in this way, you may have the sensation that the Lord is speaking to you. Then you can be silent, listening to His speaking. This is to fellowship with Him. In ten minutes you can do a number of things, yet you should not try to do too much. Use this ten minutes mainly to contact the Lord directly; then you will be revived. Because you have been revived, when you go to work, you will go with the Lord. In this way you will be victorious the whole day.
Helping All New Ones to Have Morning Revival
Because we have such a daily practice, we should help all our new ones to do the same. Do not think that because they were just baptized, they cannot have morning watch or a morning revival. Everyone can have a morning revival. You only need to give them some simple instructions. We found out that a good way to help the new ones build up this practice is by using the telephone. You can encourage a new one to have a time of morning revival and explain what this means as I have done in this message. Then you can help him set a time for this. Many people do not get up early, so you may have to encourage him. If he usually gets up at seven o’clock, then you can say, “If you get up fifteen minutes earlier, you can make your bed, and then I will call you at six fifty. Then we can pray together over the phone.” If you practice in this way, you may be able to take care of two or three new ones every morning. You should also fellowship with them and select a book from the New Testament to go through in your morning revival times. When you begin to help them in this way, it may seem somewhat lifeless. However, after one or two days, this new one will be revived and become living. Whether he becomes living this morning, tomorrow morning, or the next morning, you should not care for that. If you are faithful to call him every morning, eventually, he will be fully revived. Through your example, he will learn to pray and to pray-read. If you will practice with him, he will learn. If you have a morning revival with an overcoming daily life, you can take the lead to bring the new ones into the same practice. (CWWL, 1989, vol. 3, “The Exercise and Practice of the God-Ordained Way,” msg. 28)
Arranging Morning Revival with the New Ones
We have discovered that a very convenient way to help the new ones get revived every morning is to have some time with them over the telephone each morning. It is best to make an appointment with them before calling them. Because of the convenience of calling the new ones by telephone, if we rise up a little earlier each morning, there is the way to take care of as many as three persons very easily. (CWWL, 1989, vol. 3, “The Exercise and Practice of the God-Ordained Way,” msg. 29)
You could even save your time by arranging to have a ten-minute morning watch with each of them. The telephone may be used for this purpose. One person can be scheduled at 6:15 A.M., the next person at 6:30, and the next person at 6:45. Within one hour you could contact three persons in the morning. You could contact the same three persons every morning to pray-read with them, fellowship with them, and enjoy Christ with them in a very brief way. Within three months each person can be contacted at least eighty times. After three months of this kind of consistent contact, these ones can be gained for the Lord’s interest.
Logically speaking, this practice works, but will we do it? Of course, when we endeavor to have morning watch with other brothers, we should ask them what time will be convenient for them and try to fit into their schedule. We should restrict our time with them in the morning to pray-reading the Word and having a little fellowship about the enjoyment of Christ. This practice will enrich us and the ones for whom we are caring. Furthermore, we will gain them.
Anyone who is not having a morning revival with the Lord is defeated. All the elders should keep morning watch and should also practice having morning watch with others on the phone. I would encourage the elders to try to do this with others six days a week. We should not do this with the same person throughout the week. Instead, we may have morning watch with six different people on the six days of the week. This will really help people. When we help people in this way, we are the ones who receive the top benefit. There is the urgent need everywhere to help and to stir up the saints to participate in this new way of morning watch. (CWWL, 1991-1992, vol. 1, “Elders’ Training, Book 11: The Eldership and the God-Ordained Way (3),” ch.9)
EXERCISING THE SPIRIT IN THE MORNING REVIVAL
The First Step in the Exercise of the Spirit—
Calling On the Name of the Lord
When Paul wrote the Epistles to Timothy and Titus, he had the thought of the exercise of the spirit. He says in 1 Timothy 4:7, “Exercise yourself unto godliness.” The exercise here is like some kind of gymnastics. We have to exercise our spirits and to live out Christ in our daily lives. Paul says in 2 Timothy 1:7, “God has not given us a spirit of cowardice, but of power and of love and of sobermindedness.” All the parts of our spirit are like the parts of our body; they need exercise. There are many ways to exercise. Some Chinese like the “Eight Section Brocade” exercise, whereas others like the “Tai-chi” boxing. The Westerners have aerobic exercise, golf, and jogging. But the simplest way to exercise the spirit is to call on the name of the Lord. During the past twenty years or longer, we have learned to call “O Lord Jesus!” Everyone among us knows how to call on the name of the Lord. This kind of calling is very good. But this is not the main body of our prayer; it is only the prelude to our prayer. When we call “O Lord Jesus,” what follows? We cannot simply call on the Lord without praying. There must not be a prelude without the main theme. After we call on the Lord, we have to go on to speak to the Lord. We can say to the Lord, “Lord Jesus, I love You! I want to live for You!” The first step in the exercise of the spirit is to pray, which is to speak to the Lord.
Many people pray with their mentality, in their mind. To speak to the Lord in the mind, to pray in the mind, is to exercise one’s mentality. The prayer that comes from the exercise of the spirit is different from the prayer that comes from the exercise of the mentality. When you call on the Lord Jesus and say to Him that you would love Him more and would live to Him, this is a prayer that stirs up your spirit. The more you speak this way, the higher your spirit becomes. However, you must be careful not to turn back to your mind after a while. Once you turn back to your mind, you should have a warning sign that goes up like the red signal light at the crossroad. At this time you must immediately call on the Lord Jesus and turn to the spirit to speak in the spirit. Hence, to pray is the first step in the exercise of the spirit.
Not only do the New Testament saints call on the name of the Lord. Even the ancient psalmists in the Old Testament called on the Lord as well. David says in Psalm 119:147, “I anticipated the dawn and cried out; / I hoped in Your words.” The crying here is to call by saying “O Lord!” It is also to pray and to speak to the Lord. To cry unto the Lord is to call on Him and to speak to Him. We cannot call on Him without praying to Him, and we cannot say His name without speaking to Him. The longer we speak to the Lord, the better it is. The calling plus the speaking to the Lord is like a man’s deep breathing. When you speak out all that you have, you are breathing out. When you take in the grace of the Lord, you are breathing in. We breathe out carbon dioxide, and we breathe in the oxygen from God. In this cycle we are spontaneously cleansed within, and our whole being becomes healthy.
The Second Step in the Exercise of the Spirit—
Pray-Reading the Lord’s Word
After this crying, David says that he “hoped in Your words.” In hoping in the Lord’s words, it is better that we do not speak, lest we interrupt the Lord’s speaking. David says again, “My eyes anticipated the night watches, / That I might muse upon Your word” (v. 148). This shows us that in the experience of the Old Testament saints, there was the prayer, the hoping in the Lord’s word, and the musing upon the Lord’s word. Today for us, the New Testament believers, the quickest way to receive the Lord’s word is not to muse upon His word; rather, it is to pray-read His word. It is easy for the mind to receive the Lord’s word with its mental faculty. But in pray-reading the Lord’s word, there is the crying and the calling, and it will be spontaneous and natural to turn the Lord’s word into prayer.
For example, you may have read Genesis 1:1 in the morning: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” If you consider these ten words, you may wonder what is the beginning. The beginning is surely the start. But it is the start of what? For you to do this is to muse upon the Lord’s word. If you would turn these ten words into pray-reading, you would say, “Lord, in the beginning. Lord, in the beginning. Without You there is no beginning. With You there is the beginning.” When you speak to the Lord this way, your spirit will be full of feeling. Perhaps you will say, “Lord, may my wedding engagement have You as the beginning, and may my wedding have You as the beginning. May my future home have You as the beginning, and may my childbearing also have You as the beginning.” Following that, you will pray-read, “God created.” You may say to the Lord, “God, it is not by imagination or by illusion but by creation. Only You can create. We cannot create. The most we can do is but to manufacture.”
If we have tasted the pray-reading, we will treasure every word of the Bible. If I had the time, I could pray-read Genesis 1:1 for a whole day. The more we pray, the tastier it becomes. “O God, You have created the heavens. We cannot create the heavens. Today we can only enjoy the heavens. You have done too marvelous a work in creating the moon, the stars, and the sun in the heavens. Not only have You created the heavens; You have created the earth as well. All things on earth are created by You!” This kind of pray-reading will fully mingle the Lord’s word with our spirit. It will give our spirit the greatest exercise. (CWWL, 1989, vol. 1, “The Organic Practice of the New Way,” msg. 4)
REJECTING THE OLD WAY OF KNOWLEDGE
AND EMPHASIZING THE NEW WAY OF LIFE
What is the old way of knowledge? We may illustrate this with John 1:1, which says, “In the beginning was the Word.” If a person who reads this verse studies it only with his mind, he will ask what “in the beginning” is. When is “the beginning”? What does “the beginning” mean? As a result, he may go to check with the dictionary and discover that in Chinese there is only “in the ancient times” and not “in the beginning.” We may use another example in which a person reads Genesis 1:1: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” He may ask, “What is this God? How did He create the heavens and the earth?” As a result, after thinking for half a day, he still will not understand anything. This is the old way of knowledge, a natural and lifeless way of reading. A person may read the Bible for half a year or a full year and not receive any life at all.
It is this old way of knowledge that we have to reject. When we open the Bible, we should care for nothing else. The Bible says, “In the beginning,” and we should follow to say, “In the beginning. Amen, in the beginning. Amen! Oh, the beginning is the starting point. In the beginning was the Word. Amen! Oh, at the starting point was the Word. Amen! The Word was God. Praise the Lord, at the starting point was God! Oh, in the beginning was God, and God is the starting point, the origin, and the source!” If we read in this way, we will receive life. We can use another example. Genesis 1:1 says, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” We may pray, “Oh, God created. Praise the Lord, God did not form or make the heavens and the earth, but He created them! Oh, God created the heavens. God created the earth. Eventually, He created me!” In this way the Bible, the word of God, is applied to us. This is the proper way to read the Bible, reading it in the way of life.
Reading with the Eyes, Comprehending with the Mind,
and Receiving with the Spirit.
Over thirty years ago we began to have a “life-study” of the Bible. Previously, such a thing could not be found in the history of Christianity. From that day onward, our study of the Bible has been a study in life, not in knowledge. We study with our spirit, not with our mind, and we study by prayer, not by thinking. If we study by thinking, we would use our mind to explain. This is the old way of knowledge. Instead, we study with our spirit, which requires us to pray. What do we pray with? We pray with the Scriptures that we read. For example, in the sentence, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth,” there are five excellent words or phrases: in the beginning, God, created, the heavens, and the earth. Although we do not read mainly with our mind, this does not mean that we do not use our mind at all. We still have to use our mind to understand the text. We need to understand the literal meaning of this sentence—in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth—by using our mind. Therefore, when we read the Bible, we read with our eyes, then comprehend with our mind, and then receive what we read with our spirit.
Reading with the eyes, comprehending with the mind, and receiving with the spirit are the three steps of reading the Bible. A big mistake of the old way of knowledge in general is that after people read with their eyes, they think too much with their mind without going on to the third step of receiving with their spirit. The ones who read in this way do not seem to have a spirit, or their spirit seems to be dead, so they rely entirely on their mind. Consequently, after studying for a long period of time, they are killed and do not receive any life supply. Whatever we do, we need to use the right organ. Therefore, when we read a verse like Genesis 1:1, we read first with our eyes, we understand the text with our mind, and then we receive and assimilate these words with our spirit. How do we use the spirit? It is by praying. We can compare this to walking. Can we forget about our legs and use our nose, ears, shoulders, or head to walk? We all would say that this is foolish. In order to walk, we must use our legs. When we step out with our legs, we spontaneously are walking. It is the same with spiritual matters. Once we pray, we are using our spirit: “O Lord Jesus! In the beginning. Oh, in the beginning God! God created. Oh, God created the heavens, the earth, and man! God also created me. Thank You, God, You created the heavens and the earth, and You also created me.” In this way our spirit is activated.
If We Pray-Read in This Way, We All Being Enlivened
When we are sad, we should not try to listen to joyful messages. The more we listen to them, the sadder we may become. Neither should we use our mind to look for some verses in the Bible about rejoicing. We simply need to open up the Bible. When we read, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth,” we can say to the Lord, “O Lord, in the beginning! O Lord! In the beginning! In the beginning God created.” Once we use our spirit in this way to touch God, we will spontaneously rejoice. It is not by reading the word rejoice that we rejoice. Rather, we rejoice when we use the spirit to touch God. Similarly, some people say that Christians should have power, but we do not have power by talking about power. Instead, power comes from our touching God through pray-reading. This is a very wonderful matter.
In the past some people said that what we are saying here is merely a kind of psychology. They say that when a person calls on the Lord and pray-reads, he is only emotionally released and uplifted. If this is only psychological, they can try praying to George Washington, calling, “George! O George! O Washington!” He can also try calling on Confucius or a popular Chinese idol to see if he will receive an inner feeling. It is remarkable that the more a person calls on an idol or George Washington, the less of a joyful feeling he has. However, when he calls, “O Lord Jesus! O Lord Jesus!” the more joyful and powerful he feels within. This is absolutely not a matter of mental response, because calling other names has no effect. Only by our calling on the unique name of the Lord Jesus will something happen inwardly.
If pray-reading is entirely a matter of mental response, a person can also try to pray-read the newspaper and see what happens. For example, a newspaper headline may read, “Government decides to suspend foreign exchange controls.” One can start to read aloud, “Oh, foreign exchange controls! Government suspended!” Consider what the result will be. However, if we open up the Bible, even only to Matthew 1, which contains the genealogy of Jesus Christ, we can pray-read, “Abraham begot Isaac, and Isaac begot Jacob, and Jacob begot Judah and his brothers” (v. 2). If we pray-read in this way, we will all be enlivened.
We all must realize that in order to use our spirit, we have to pray. If we do not pray, we will have no way to use our spirit. It is impossible to use our spirit with our mouth shut and our eyes closed. Suppose I try to walk, but my two feet determine not to move. No matter how hard you command me to walk, it will be futile. As long as you use your spirit to pray, that is sufficient. It is not necessary to continually command ourselves to move our legs; as long as we walk, we are moving our legs. Similarly, it is not necessary to cry and shout in order to pray. Even if we speak to the Lord gently from within, “O Lord Jesus, O Lord Jesus, O Lord Jesus,” our spirit will be activated. Once we pray, our spirit moves.
By Means of Much Prayer
and Pray-reading, Causing Others to Receive the Life Supply
I hope that every time we lead a home meeting, we will do this. Then others will spontaneously follow. A mother teaches her child to speak not by reasoning but by speaking to him directly. When she says, “A rubber ball,” the child says, “A rubber ball.” When she says, “Play the ball,” the child says, “Play the ball.” When she says, “Kick the ball,” the child says, “Kick the ball.” As the child gradually understands, he will speak. Then when he grows older, he can speak everything. He will know how to say something even though no one has taught him to say it. This is very wonderful. Do not worry that you and other people do not understand the Bible. You simply need to pray and pray-read more and teach others to do the same. Then spontaneously and gradually they will understand.
We have to exercise to rely less on our mind and more on our spirit, rejecting the old way of knowledge and paying attention to the new way of life, by pushing out the word we read, sentence by sentence, by the spirit that brings life. Life is Christ, and Christ is in our spirit. When we use our spirit and push out our spirit, Christ is brought out. By using the spirit that brings life, we can push out the Spirit of God. Here we need to “push” and not merely to think. In this way we can touch others’ spirit so that they may receive the pneumatic Christ as the life supply.
We need to learn this particularly when we read with others in the home meetings. We must exercise to depend less on the mind and more on our spirit, reading sentence after sentence. Not only should we read the words, but we also need to use our spirit and push out our spirit to turn the words into prayer, which will bring forth Christ. Then our spirit will touch others’ spirit. When we use our spirit to read the Scriptures to others, this kind of reading will touch the spirit in them. This will affect them. We all need to learn to pray and read the Bible with our spirit to push out the word. The word entering into others will become the Spirit, which touches the spirit within them so that they can gain Christ in the spirit as the life supply. This is very important.
Needing to Repeat-read, Emphasize-read,
Vitalize-read, and Pray-read
The Bible verses in Life Lessons may not be quoted in their entirety but only in part, economically according to the need. Therefore, the verses are quoted concisely, not too much or too little, and adequately, being most suitable for the new believers. Furthermore, their explanations are both concise and adequate, having no need for further explanation. The only need is to repeat-read and emphasize-read. To repeat-read is to read with repetition, and to emphasize-read is to read with stress.
Besides repeat-reading and emphasize-reading, we also need to “vitalize-read.” To vitalize-read is to do what we mentioned before in the example of Genesis 1:1. As we read this verse, we can give thanks to God, thanking Him for creating the heavens, the earth, you, and me. Reading in this way will vitalize us. This is to apply the word in a flexible way without diverging from the subject and main points. We have seen the need to repeat-read, emphasize-read, and vitalize-read. Now we also have to add pray-reading.
If we want to read the Bible in a living way, none of these four ways of reading can be omitted. For example, when we read a verse and find it very good, we can first repeat-read it, then emphasize-read it, then vitalize-read it, and then pray-read it. These four ways combined together form an effective method for reading. Pray-reading contains repeat-reading, emphasize-reading, and vitalize-reading. These four ways mingled together are the best reading method. This does not come merely from our thinking but from our experience. (CWWL, 1987, vol. 1, “Bearing Remaining Fruit, vol. 1,” msg. 13)
Discussion:
1. How to share the burden of morning revival with people?
2. How to accommodate people’s different situations in scheduling morning revival with them and different mediums it can utilize (face-to-face, instant messengers, etc.)?
3. How to choose proper material for morning revival?
4. How to arrange the process of morning revival according to others’ condition?
5. How to lead people to exercise their spirit in morning revival?
6. How to enter into the Lord’s word to supply others?
