AWAKE, SLEEPER, AND ARISE FROM THE DEAD, AND CHRIST WILL SHINE ON YOU (3)
To have the vital groups you must be like a person sowing the seed. You have to contact the Lord. You have to be enlightened. You have to be touched by the Lord. You have to be exposed in His presence. You have to make a confession to Him. You have to have yourself fully saturated by Him. Then you will have a very close relationship with Him and an intimate fellowship with Him. This is the start of the vital groups. Then you will spontaneously pray, “Lord, I need a companion. Prepare a companion for me. I don’t like to select one. I don’t want to exercise my choice, my preference, anymore. You lead me. You bring me someone or send me to someone.”
I am very sorry today when I see your present situation. It seems that you have been moved, but you do not move. This is because you have not gone to the Lord. If you do not go to the Lord and have a thorough repentance and confession in His presence, you are deceiving yourselves. Repenting and confessing must be done by yourself. Having an intimate fellowship with the Lord must be done by yourself. Without these three things you will remain the same until you see the Lord at His judgment seat (2 Cor. 5:10).
We should not read the Lord’s Word in a light way. Instead, we should tremble at His word (Isa. 66:5a). Ephesians 5:14 says that the sleepers should awake and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on them. We need to consider ourselves in the light of this verse. Are we sleeping? You may still be sleeping and yet claim to practice the vital groups. That is not the practice of the vital groups. That is a new routine. According to the speaking Spirit within me, I feel that we have not yet had a real start in the vital groups.
God is the source. You must go to Him to contact Him. Please take my word and bring this word back to the Lord. You can pray, “Lord, I have heard that we haven’t started the vital groups yet. Lord, I come to You. Tell me how to start a vital group.” Right away the light will be there, because God is light. To go to the Lord is the first principle in carrying out the vital groups.
We also need to realize a second principle. This second principle is that there are many imperatives in the New Testament that tell us what to do. All the words spoken concerning the overcomers are imperative. When Paul says, “Awake, sleeper, and arise from the dead,” this is an imperative. You have to do it. The book of Revelation is a particular book full of imperatives for those who desire to overcome. The Lord charged those in Laodicea to buy from Him gold refined by fire that they might be rich, white garments that they might cover their nakedness, and eyesalve to anoint their eyes that they might see (3:18). No one would give these things to you. You have to buy them at a cost; you have to pay the price. From the beginning of the New Testament to the end, every step of God’s grace to us is imperative. We are told to repent and believe into the Lord Jesus. This is imperative. The Lord Jesus told us to come to Him. This is imperative. No one can do it for you. You have to do it. (Collected Works of Witness Lee, 1993, vol. 2, “The Training and Practice of the Vital Groups”, ch. 8, pp. 326-327)
The church in Zamboanga 