CHERISHING PEOPLE IN THE HUMANITY OF JESUS (2)
In Philippians 3:10 Paul says that he desired to know Christ, the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death. In order to experience Christ as the resurrection, we must always deny our self. Our self is a sinful self, but Christ’s self was not sinful. Even though His self was not sinful, He still rejected Himself. He said, “The words that I say to you I do not speak from Myself,” and, “The word which you hear is not Mine, but the Father’s who sent Me” ( John 14:10 , 24 ). This shows that the Lord Jesus lived by another source in resurrection. This is very deep and very touching. Especially in these last few years, nearly every day I have been under a strong light. Under this light I am checked within by the Lord: “Is this from yourself or from another person? Is this from your natural life or from the life of Christ?” This life is the Triune God Himself, who is resurrection.
When we contact people, we should not put on a mask. This is hypocrisy. Instead, we should be persons who are crucified in ourselves and resurrected in Christ. Then we will live in the same way that Jesus lived. We will be genuinely charming without any masks.
We should not teach people to be humble, because this does not work. To teach people to be humble is to teach them to wear a mask. Paul’s teaching is real. His teaching breaks our mask. In our teaching on character, we have shared that we need to be genuine, exact, and strict. But this is possible only for a resurrected person… When we contact people, they will be touched by us because we are living in resurrection. Then our humanity is not the original humanity but the crucified and resurrected humanity.
In order to be vital as members of the vital groups, we must be such persons. When we visit people, we must have the Lord’s presence. His presence is the charming factor, and that presence comes from the cross plus resurrection. We must be a person on the cross and in resurrection. Then we will have the real presence of the Triune God with us, and that presence is resurrection.
How can we be vital? We may say that we have to pray much. This is right, but we need to see that the real prayer is by a person crucified in resurrection. If we are not a person crucified in resurrection, we cannot pray much. The genuine prayer means crucifixion plus resurrection… We can experience this only by being crucified and resurrected. This is stressed by Paul in Philippians 3:10 . In order to know Christ, we have to know the power of His resurrection to be conformed to His death. His death should be a mold to which we are conformed. By experiencing Christ in this way, resurrection will be our portion, and we will have His presence. This presence is the Triune God as resurrection experienced by us in our being crucified and conformed to the death of Christ. (The Collected Works of Witness Lee, 1994-1997, vol. 5, “The Vital Groups”, ch. 10, pp. 144-146)
The church in Zamboanga 