On good days, believers can be very powerful and victorious. They might serve with zeal, apparently faithfully. They can boldly proclaim how much they love the Lord. But one day, a bad day will come, when the Lord desires to deepen His work on these believers a little bit — to deny themselves, to go on the cross, to carry His testimony before the world. On that day, they suddenly become bankrupt, their testimonies crumpling like a paper bag.
And because of the years of “serving,” their pride becomes their biggest barrier and blinder to be touched again by the Lord. Paul tells us if we do not know the resurrection life, then we are of all men most miserable (1 Cor. 15:19). If we are stubborn and resist the breaking of ourselves, we “mature” or longtime believers are truly more miserable than nonbelievers, because the sins we have we cannot confess or refuse to acknowledge. A sick person has no pride when he comes to the doctor because he desires to be healed, but are we able to come before the Lord to beg for our salvation to be saved from our pride, our spiritual sickness? We can say all the right things and say that we will “take the cross,” but our testimony remains a fallen countenance (Gen. 4:6). What can set us free from the curse of our independence? What can cause us to drop ourselves, our faces, our old beliefs, our old thoughts?
In 1 Cor. 16:22, Paul says, “If anyone does not love the Lord, let him be accursed! The Lord comes!” Who is cursed? It is those who insist on their wholeness rather than to be broken in the church. What can change us from our curse? There is something called love, specifically “loving the Lord.” For all those who have been touched once by Him, this love is the solution to our human curse and the driving force for the corporate church life. It is not just a nice slogan or a nominal thing to proclaim, “I love the Lord!” Rather, it is our safeguard from being cursed in ourselves, from being stuck in our religion, from being hardened with pride and self knowing, from preserving ourselves from being used by our Lord. Today, whenever we are stuck in our miseries, whenever we feel the sting of that ancient curse, whenever we experience resistance and darkness, we must turn back to the Lord in love. Even after many years as believers, if there is one thing we must have and do, it is to love, and to set our mind on the heavenly things — away from the curse of death, earthen values, and dust of our flesh.
Brothers and sisters, this love will salvage all our relationships, it will sustain our churching, our gospel outreach and our family life manyfold, and our enjoyment will overflow the brim. That’s biblical! When we love the Lord, we will also automatically love the saints. The church will become sweet. We will love our church life. We will protect and serve her! May we always have freshness when we think of Him, may we always be hot and fervent when we recall our high calling, may we have tears to minister to our Lord — never from self pity but out of our breaking, out of our loving His Person and His desire that is expanding within us!
(Above are notes of fellowship taken from a gathering on 5/8/24, not reviewed by the speaker.)