HAVING ENTERED THROUGH THE NARROW GATE AND WALKING ON THE CONSTRICTED WAY (3)
We are being trained in the God-ordained way revealed in the Bible. The God-ordained way is to have a living and a working that are always narrowed and constricted. The gate is narrow and the way is constricted that leads to life. But the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction. In the spiritual field there is no broad way. The way in the spiritual field is always constricted. On this way our freedom is always restricted.
Every tree is restricted. If all the trees grew without restriction, that would be a calamity. But all the trees grow and spread in the way of constriction. The trees need the God-ordained constriction plus the human cutting, the human trimming. The trimming is human. The constriction is God-ordained. Even though the trees are constricted according to God’s ordination, they still need the human hands to trim them.
In the spiritual realm we also need the trimming. A miracle is not mentioned in John 15 concerning the bearing of fruit, but trimming is strongly referred to by the Lord. Are you going to bring forth fruit? You need to be trimmed, pruned (v. 2). To be trimmed is to be constricted. We should not spread too much. We should not be wild but constricted.
We may wonder why we cannot see much bearing of fruit among us. The fruit of life does not come by means of a miracle. We need to see that the more we are constricted, the more we are regulated. The more we are regulated, the more we are healthy. Then we are ready to bear fruit. Fruit comes out of our health. A sick tree cannot bear fruit. Living things that are sick cannot produce. God’s ordination is for living things, such as the trees, to grow vitally. We Christians should also be growing vitally. To be vital means to be healthy. We need to be healthy and normal. We should not expect to get many persons saved. We should always be prepared to bear one remaining fruit a year. We should pray, “Lord, give me one fruit per year, remaining fruit, healthy fruit, fruit that is healthy just as I am.”
We might think that the apostle Paul would bring thousands to the Lord, but we can see in Paul’s history that this was not the case. In Colossians 1:28-29 Paul says that he labored to announce Christ, admonishing every man and teaching every man in all wisdom that he might present every man full-grown in Christ. He desired to admonish every man, teach every man, and present every man. The “every man” work could never be a miracle. Paul was the biggest gift, so we may think he would do everything miraculously. But the Bible tells us that Paul was not able to do that many miracles. Paul was not one who depended upon miracles. He was one who labored all the time. (Collected Works of Witness Lee, 1993, vol. 2, “The Training and Practice of the Vital Groups”, ch. 13, pp. 372-373)
The church in Zamboanga 