CHRIST ONLY—NOT MATTERS OR THINGS
Scripture Reading: John 8:28; Col. 3:3-4; 1:16-20
MAN’S THOUGHTS AND DEMANDS
The first gift we received from God was the Son of God, who is Christ. But different people have different degrees of knowledge of God. Among God’s children, some know the Lord Jesus as one of the many gifts of God, while others know Him as God’s unique gift. Many people confess that the Lord Jesus is God’s gift, which means that they recognize Him as God’s unique gift. But many other people accept the Lord Jesus only as their first gift. Apart from the Lord Jesus, they still see many other gifts. There is the first gift, but there are also the second, the third, the fourth, the fifth, the tenth, the thousandth, and even the ten thousandth gift.
When many people believe in the Lord, they accept Him and they are saved. But after they are saved, they find that in spite of their salvation, they still have many shortcomings and needs.
Some people find that they have a quick temper. Although they are saved, they still have their temper. Some people find that they are very proud. Although they are saved, their pride still follows them. Many people find that they are weak and timid. Although they are saved, they are still timid.
Hence, among God’s children, we very often find that after many believe in the Lord Jesus and are saved, they hope, ask, believe, and pray before the Lord, and subsequently receive many gifts. They regard the Lord Jesus as one of the many gifts. They consider the Lord Jesus as one from among many gifts of God; that is, He is only the first among many gifts.
It is very interesting that at the beginning of our pursuit of the Lord we see many needs in ourselves. We think that since we are Christians, we should not do this and that. We are very sure that we are genuine Christians, yet we still have many shortcomings. It does not matter what the shortcomings are; as long as there are shortcomings, we consider them as wrong, and we try all we can to deal with these shortcomings. For this reason, we pray before God, we hope, we believe, and we strive, and eventually we receive something. When this happens, it seems as though we have overcome our shortcomings, and we rejoice in our heart that we have acquired a gift.
In this circumstance, many of God’s children begin to think that the purpose of God’s gifts and grace is just to fill up our lack. When some people hear this, they may ask, “If God’s grace is not here to fill up our lack, what is it for?” Many people think that God’s grace is for filling up our lack. This is like a Bible that has two thousand pages. If it is short one page, we try to make up the missing page. This is what we do when we try to use God’s grace to fill up our lack. In other words, we think that we are lacking just a part; we think that we are lacking only a little and that as long as we can fill up that little part, we will be perfect. Some have said that they lack five things, and as soon as they have the five things, they will be satisfied. Some have said that they lack ten things, and as long as they have the ten things, they will be satisfied. Some may say that they have love and that they only need a little more humility, a little more patience, or a few other things. As soon as they have these few things, they say that everything will be fine. Man’s thought is merely one of lack and shortage. What does he do? He prays to God and asks God to give him what he lacks.
But the problem is that many of us have come to realize that what we think we lack before the Lord and what we ask for are merely things. Our lack and our prayers are all centered around the matters and the things; they are all individual, countable objects. We say that we lack this or that, and if God will fill up our lack, everything will be all right.
We lack patience. But what kind of patience are we looking for? Most of the time our eyes do not look to heaven. If our eyes did look to heaven, we would be looking upward. But most of the time, we cannot look upward; we can only watch and look at what is around us. We sigh and say that certain people are good but that we are not like them. What they have is patience, and what we have is a temper. What they have is meekness, but what we have is pride. We wish that we could be as patient and meek as they. Once I prayed to the Lord—it might have been my first prayer—that God would give me a Bible like the one I saw in a certain brother’s hand. We can only pray for things that we see. We can only pray after we have seen something, and we can only pray for what others already have. We cannot pray for something from heaven which we have never seen. As a consequence, when we pray, we ask for patience like that of a certain person, or we ask for humility like that of another person. In our mind, we already have a picture of what humility is and what patience is.
If, when we were first saved, God had told us that He was going to pluck patience from a certain person and give it to us, would we not have been overjoyed? If we could have patience and humility on top of what we already had, we would have been satisfied and thought that we were perfect.
Patience is a thing to us; it is a thing that others possess. There is a certain thing called patience among the brothers and sisters, and we want it. We often hate ourselves, and we blame our parents for begetting us and giving us such a bad temper. We wish that we could be like certain persons, because they have something which we do not have. Many of God’s children are after patience as a thing. They want something that will stop them from losing their temper. They think they need something called patience. With many people, patience is a thing. God has this thing, and it is found in many places on earth, but they do not have it. They think they need this thing, patience, so that they can become a patient person.
Here lies the basic difference between genuine Christianity and wrong Christianity. Many of God’s children are looking for things which they think can be found everywhere except in themselves. They think that it is found in Mr. Chang, in Mr. Yu, in Mr. Hsu, or in this or that person, but not in them. They are pursuing after a thing that can be found on earth. This is Christianity in the mind of many. They are craving for and pursuing after things, and they have acquired things. Many people only acquire a thing; yet their heart rejoices and they thank the Lord because they have acquired it.

THERE BEING ONLY CHRIST IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD
Many Christians have not seen that there are not many things in the spiritual world; there is only Christ. There is no patience in the spiritual world; there is only Christ. There is no humility, sanctification, or light in the spiritual world; there is only Christ. There are not many things in the spiritual world; only Christ exists.
The Lord has to do a fundamental work in us. This is what we need before the Lord. If you would not misunderstand me, I will say that we need a second salvation. In our first salvation, we saw that our need was Christ and not works. We saw that salvation was through Christ and not through work. Now we need another strong and thorough vision: we do not need things; we need Christ. We need to have an experience as thorough and strong as our first salvation, and we need to have as many things torn down as when we were first saved. When many people were first saved, many things were torn down, and they gained Christ. In the same way, many things need to be torn down in them today. The difference is that what was torn down the first time were sinful things, while the things that need to be torn down now are spiritual things. The first time their pride, jealousy, vainglory, temper, and other sins were torn down. Now their patience, humility, and so-called holiness need to be torn down. These things must be torn down before they will see that Christ is their life and that He is the One who is. This inward Christianity is absolutely different from the Christianity that man commonly believes in.
If you would not be offended, I would say an honest word to you. In the past, many brothers and sisters have come to talk with me and have asked me many questions. I could only say to them, “You may think that you are better than many people, but I am afraid that you will be the same as you are tonight for the rest of your life. You have many things. You have a great deal of patience and humility. You are a very capable and nice person. You are loving, helpful, and forgiving. You are willing to do this and that. Humanly speaking, it is hard to find a Christian like you. But I must speak an honest word: you only have things. You have to realize that what is truly spiritual before the Lord are not things, but the Lord Jesus Christ. What you are, what you can do, or what you have does not matter; only Christ matters. The only thing that has any spiritual value is what Christ has accomplished in you.” In the spiritual world, there are not many things; there is only Christ. Christ is the matters and things of God.
TOUCHING CHRIST BEING TOUCHING LIFE
Perhaps I can cover some practical experiences. Please excuse me for mentioning some of my personal experiences. During the past few days, a brother encountered an accident at home. Because of my responsibility, I should naturally have gone to visit him. By visiting him, I would be able to help him by expressing my personal concerns and also save myself a considerable amount of work later—we should either want to be a loving Christian or not want to be a Christian at all. But the strange thing is that when I resolved to visit the brother, I became colder and colder within while I was on the road. Nothing seemed to respond within me. I immediately knew that I was trying to perform an act of love. I was trying to perform an act of brotherly love, but as I was doing it, I touched death. It was the right thing to do. It was a good thing, but it was not Christ. I was doing it myself. After I did this, the result was an inward death. I touched death within, and I became cold. I touched an act; I did not touch life. This was an act of love, but I did not find the Lord in the act; I could only say that I was the one who loved. Every time we touch Christ instead of a work, we touch life. But every time we touch a work, we will surely die. Any time we try to do something by ourselves, we will surely die.
We have to see that Christianity is just Christ. The Christian life is just Christ. We should not pile a thousand good things together and call them the Christian life. Even if we put all the patience on earth, all the humility, and the myriads of good things together, we still could not make a Christian. If we put the myriads of things together, all we would see is a list of things; we would not see Christ.
A few years ago, my co-workers were always teasing me about “face-saving.” I not only tried to save my own face, but others’ faces as well. I do not like to expose others, and I do not like others to feel bad when they leave my house. I do not like to embarrass others by what I say. Before others feel any embarrassment, I become embarrassed for them already. I like being a gentle person, but when I try to be a good and gentle person before my brothers, something within often tells me that I am dead. I immediately become dead. There is no more life in me, and I touch death. The only reason for this is that gentleness is a thing; it is something that I have worked up. It is not Christ. This is why I immediately fall into death. I touch a corpse. I become weakened and powerless. Something within collapses and tells me that everything is lost.
The problem is that, in God’s eyes, whenever we are involved with a thing, we find nothing but death in it. Once we just have a thing, we immediately touch death because what we have is not Christ. But if we touch Christ, we will immediately touch life because Christ is life.
ONLY THE TREE OF LIFE BEING LIVING
We often become convicted in our work. Those who serve the Lord want to serve Him more. It is a good and right thing to serve the Lord. Our service to the Lord often demands that we suffer, sacrifice ourselves, and expend our energy and our money. But the strange thing is that when we do these things, we often do not touch life. Instead, we touch death, we become weakened, and we feel that something is wrong inside. Something within us tells us that we are wrong. Why are we wrong? While we are serving the Lord, while we are working and planning to do this and that for the Lord, we become weakened, and something within strongly rebukes us. Many times, the rebuke we suffer through sin is not as severe as the rebuke we suffer through doing many good things.
Many people think that the Lord within only rebukes them when they sin. But no! The Lord often rebukes us while we are doing good. The proper principle in God’s eyes is not the principle of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, but the principle of the tree of life. Being able to differentiate between good and evil is not enough. Everything hinges on life. All those who eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil will surely die the day they eat it; only the tree of life is living.

TWO KINDS OF CHRISTIAN LIFE
Among God’s children, there are two kinds of Christian life. One kind is filled with things, and the other kind is just Christ. Outwardly, both kinds look equally good. One cannot detect much of a difference between the two. One talks about humility; the other also talks about humility. One talks about meekness, and the other also talks about meekness. One talks about love, and the other also talks about love. One talks about forgiveness, and the other also talks about forgiveness. Outwardly, both are more or less the same. They appear to be the same. But with one, we just have a list of things, while with the other, we have Christ. In reality, the two are entirely different.
WITH CHRIST, THERE BEING THE NEED OF THE CROSS
I would like to point out that when we have things, we do not need the cross anymore. With Christ, there is the need of the cross. The cross restricts us not only from sin, but from our own activity as well. The cross not only tells us that we should not sin, but forbids us from our own activities. The problem with God’s children is that they think everything is fine as long as they do something well. They have not seen that the good things are only things. God cares for Christ. Christ is the very good thing. He is the life. If He does not move, we cannot move. It is easy for us to say many comforting words to others. But if He has not said them, we should not, because once we do, we will touch death; we will be inwardly weakened and deflated, and we will collapse. We can help others in many ways. We can be very gentle, and others may consider us nice men. But when we act this way, something within us collapses, and we become weakened. Here we see the need of the cross. The many things we gain through good works do not require the cross. When we allow the Lord to live in us to be our everything, and when He becomes our things, we need the cross. When He does not move, we cannot move. We have to ask the Lord to deliver us from good and righteous acts as much as we ask Him to deliver us from sins. It is easy for us to ask God to deliver us from sins, because we have condemned sins already. But it is not easy to be delivered from the natural life, because many of us have not condemned the natural life in us. We have not seen the natural life, and we have not rejected it.
CHRIST BEING THE HEALING
What does it mean for Christ to be our matters and things? What is the significance of having Christ as our matters and things? I think we can draw a good analogy from our physical body. Many people are very weak physically. They ask God to heal them. We find three kinds of results or three kinds of faith in this asking. Some people believe that God is their Healer. Others believe that God will give them health and heal them. But a third group believes that God is their healing.
How does a person pray when he has an illness? What does he seek after? He expects God to be his Healer. God is living, and he wants God to be his Healer, to touch him with His power, to be his Physician and demonstrate His healing power and healing ability. If this is the case, his God is as far from him as his doctor is from him. I wonder if you have heard what I said. This is a crucial word. Many people want God to be their Healer, but the distance between God and such people is as great as the distance between them and their earthly doctors.
Other people are a little bit better. They want God to heal them and give them health. Then one day God heals them, and they recover. Many people pray, make supplications, and expect healings. But why are they continually weak? There are still many weak ones among us today. Many people expect God to be their Healer or to heal them. But having God as the Healer and being healed are outward experiences; they are merely things.
What is the result of these experiences? Many times God is willing to heal us. I am not saying that God will not heal us. God can deal with little children this way. But many times, He will not deal with us this way. When we first believed in the Lord, God might have been willing to be our Healer, and He might have been willing to heal us. But after we have believed in Him for a while, He will put us in His hands, and He will educate us and teach us. Then God will no longer be our healer and will no longer heal us. God reserves the best for those whom He considers the best; He becomes healing to them. He does not give them healing, but becomes healing to them. He does not become the healing God to them; He becomes the living God who is healing to them. God is our healing. I do not know how to put this in any better way. I can only say this most reverently before the Lord, that Christ is our healing.
The trouble is that many people only see healing as a thing. They think that this is something apart from Christ and that everything is over after He has performed the healing. You may remember the story of the woman who touched Christ and how He felt the power go out from Him. The Bible says that He perceived that power had gone out from Him (Luke 8:46). I take the liberty to make this word more plain by saying that Christ Himself went out. He was not performing a healing. Rather, He was the healing. When He became the healing, men were healed.
We often may be weak and may still have physical ailments. But we can lift up our head and say to the Lord, “Lord, I do not expect You to be my Healer, only to go away after my sickness is gone. I do not expect You to heal me, and then find You gone even though the healing remains. Lord, I expect You to be my healing. It is true that You are my Healer, but I want You to be the Healer in me. It is true that You are my healing, but I want my healing to be something personified. My healing should be a person; it should be something personified. It is a person who becomes my health.” God becomes my health. Christ becomes my health. Is there a difference between being healed and knowing Christ as my healing? The difference is great! When I learned this lesson, I found that I not only possessed something called healing, but I possessed a person who has become life to my body. Once I saw this, all problems were solved, and I saw that my body has much to do with the Lord. When I have a problem with the Lord, my body immediately has a problem with Him. If He wants to put us through His test or do anything else to us, there is nothing that we can do to resist Him. Everything that we have depends on the Lord. We can only look to Him; we can do nothing. This is absolutely different from making healing a thing.
I thank the Lord for healing me many times. I can say that I was sick on a certain day of a certain month of a certain year, and God healed me on a certain day of a certain month of a certain year. I can tell you many stories about how I was healed at a certain hour of a certain day in a certain month and a certain year. I can count many cases of healing. But those healings were small healings. They were isolated things, and they can be counted. Whether there is one case, two cases, ten cases, or twenty cases, they can be counted. But I can also tell you another story, that at a certain hour of a certain day in a certain month and certain year, God opened my eyes to see that Christ is my healing. This is something that cannot be repeated; it is something that cannot be quantified. Once is enough. It is not a thing that can be counted. It is a person, a personified healing. My healing is a person who is in me as my healing all the time. Praise the Lord that this is a fact. Having God heal me and having Him as my healing are two entirely different things. One is a thing; the other is a person.
Paul was not healed, but he received the healing. Can we see the difference between these two? Paul showed in 2 Corinthians 12 that he was not healed (v. 9). He did not receive the thing which we call healing. But with Paul, we see One who was his healing continually. His weakness remained with him, but his healing also remained with him. His weakness was chronic, but his healing was abiding. What is a healing? To us, a healing is the removal of something. No, healing is not a removal; healing is acquiring something. Healing is not the removal of weakness but the presence of strength.
When I first saw this matter, the light came very slowly because my mind was filled with things; everything around me was a thing. I did not realize that the Lord wanted to be my thing, and I did not know that healing was not a thing. I only knew that the Lord promised me something; I did not know that the Lord wanted to be my healing. I only knew about the Lord’s promise; I did not know about the Lord as my healing. One day I read Paul’s story in 2 Corinthians. It was very strange to me. It would have been an easy thing for the Lord to grant him the healing. Removing the thorn was as easy for the Lord as a doctor removing germs. But why did the Lord not heal Paul? I prayed about this, and while I was praying, the Lord showed me one thing. In 1923 Brother Weigh invited me to preach at a certain place. In order to get there, I had to take a little boat along the Min River. The boats often became stuck to the riverbed because the water was too shallow and the rocks were big. The boat owner often had to tug the boat along. While I was praying, this scene suddenly appeared in my mind. I said, “God, it would be easy for You to remove the rocks. Would it not be wonderful if You removed the rocks, and the boat floated on the water instead?” I read 2 Corinthians 12 and realized that this was exactly how Paul prayed. The water was too shallow, and the rocks were exposed conspicuously; Paul prayed that God would remove the rocks so that he could sail on the water once again. But God answered by saying that He would not remove the rocks. Instead, He caused the water level to rise. When the water rises, the boat can pass over the rocks. This is what God is doing. Our problem and our prayer are that we are only for a thing—healing. But His answer is for Him to be our healing. When He is present, we can glide over our problems. Paul’s weakness was still there; he did not use his own strength to fight it. If he fought with his own strength, he could only say that his own strength had tabernacled over him. But it was the power of Christ which tabernacled over him (v. 9). It was God who was working. There is a basic difference here. One is God giving me a thing, and the other is God Himself becoming my thing. God in me becomes the thing that I need. God Himself is that very thing.
“THINGS” CANNOT GO ON FOREVER
The same is true with spiritual things. What do many people desire and seek after? They are after a “thing.” Many sisters have come to me and said that they want patience. I often felt that the word “patience” was too small to them. They wished they could be patient. They thought it would be wonderful if God gave them a dosage of patience and they took it and became patient. They sought patience. This is a dosage to them, and it will last for three to five days. But there is an expiration date on it. After a while, the word “patience” becomes smaller and smaller, until one day the word runs out. If it is a thing, there is always a day when it will run out. Even if it is something one receives through prayer, it will still run out. Sometimes to answer His children’s immediate need and to accommodate their foolishness, God answers their prayers. But God does not answer such prayers all the time. He will not go on this way forever.
In God’s world, there are not many “things.” Christ is all and in all. God only has Christ. He cannot allow patience, humility, or love to continue to exist as things by themselves on this earth forever. What does He want in the end? In the end He wants to show us that Christ is patience, Christ is humility, and Christ is love. He gives Christ, not “things.” One day when our relationship with the Lord becomes proper, the matter of patience will be settled. It is a matter of Christ, not a matter of patience. Once our relationship with Christ is normalized to the degree that God expects it to be, the matter of patience will be settled, the matter of pride will be settled, and ten thousand other matters will also be settled. The issue is Christ; the issue is not “things.”
THE KNOWING OF CHRIST
Hence, in God’s eyes everything depends on how we know Christ. What does it mean to know Christ? Some people know Christ as their love. Others know Christ as their humility. Some know Christ more, while others know Him less. Whatever “thing” you know Christ to be, that “thing” becomes your proper knowledge of Christ. This is the meaning of knowing Christ. The “knowledge of Christ” is not an abstract term; it is not something objective. Our knowing of Christ is positive and substantial. We know Christ by knowing Him as the various “things”; we know that He is this to us or that He is that to us.
Some of you can stand up and testify, “I did not know what it was to be clean, because everything with me, from my heart to my head and thoughts, was all unclean. But thank the Lord that Christ has become my cleanliness. God has made Him cleanliness to me.” You can see immediately that this “thing” is not something that you have; this “thing” is Christ. When Christ lives in you, He brings this “thing” along with Him. It is something that He brings along with Him; it is not something that you have in yourself. This is genuine Christianity.
I must say bluntly that unless a child of God has his eyes opened to see that Christ is his things, he is not of much use, because all that he has is behavior. He is always the one who is doing the works. Even if he prays and God gives something to him, he only has temporary things that have no spiritual value in God’s eyes at all.
To some people, grace from God comes in the form of separate individual things. To others, who also have the experience of grace, their grace comes in the form of a person, who is the Son of God. One day you will say to God, “I thank You and praise You because the grace I have received is Christ. My grace is a person; it is something personified.” When you can tell the difference between these two things, you can tell the difference between life and death. Many brothers can only differentiate between right and wrong; they cannot differentiate between life and death. They can only differentiate between what is good and what is bad. There is only one simple explanation for this: they do not see that everything is in Christ. He, the person, is the matter. He, the person, is the thing. In the spiritual realm, there is only Christ; there are not many matters or things.
If God opens your eyes one day, you will see that this and that are things as soon as you touch them. This is very strange, yet it is very real. A man may be full of many things. He may be patient, meek, humble, faithful, loving, warm, forgiving, and merciful; he may be filled with many things. But what you see is only a big pile of things. You can at least tell the difference between a man’s ring and his finger. You can at least tell the difference between a man’s hat and his head, his glasses and his eyes, or his clothes and his body. If you can tell the difference between these things, you should be able to tell the difference between a thing and Christ. If you have never seen this, you will be surprised by what I am saying. But if you have seen this, you will see that this is a simple matter. Everything that is a thing is dead in itself, and outwardly it produces nothing but death. It is dead in itself, and when you perform this thing, if you have any spiritual sense at all, you will feel dead as well. While you are doing it outwardly, you sense that the result is death and not life.
The only thing you can say about certain persons is that they are very good, that they are nice men. You can only see good and evil in them; you cannot see anything spiritual in them. You can only say that some brothers are good, that they are nice men, that they have a good temper, that they are patient, and that they can suffer and deny themselves. That is all you can say. If patience, suffering, self-denial, humility, and love are only things, you may love them, but the minute you touch them, you are deadened within, and something collapses within you. There is a reaction against these things. Life has a strong reacting power. Sometimes a person says a very nice word, yet it is something that should not have been said, and there is immediately a very violent reaction within you against it. Take the prayer meeting as an example. What does it mean for you to say amen? It means that you are touched by life. When a brother prays, and the prayer touches your life, spontaneously you respond with an amen from within. Other prayers may be very earnest; the words may be very nice and the tone very loud, yet the more the prayer goes on, the colder you feel within. You wish that the prayer would stop because the prayer is exactly like the person who prays. There may be a thing, but it brings nothing but death. Just as a thing is dead in you, it is also dead in others. Things have no spiritual value at all, because man is doing all the work.
If what we have said is true, there is nothing more we can do before the Lord. We can only look to Him; we cannot do anything or perform any work. Brothers and sisters, we should realize more and more that works are abominable in the eyes of God. If we are truly led by the Lord to go on in this way, we will surely find out one thing: God hates sin, and He also hates behavior. When man sins, God says he will perish. When man behaves, God says he cannot be saved. God rejects behavior as much as He rejects sins. God only accepts one thing: His Son Jesus Christ. Only what Christ has done in us counts. Thank God that it is Him and not us. It is not we who are humble, but He. It is not we who love, but He. He does not give us the power; He is our power.
Brothers and sisters, I do not know what to say. I hope that the newly saved ones would pay special attention to this matter. As soon as you are delivered from the spiritual things, you will touch the Lord. The sooner you are delivered, the better it will be. The more you procrastinate, the more you will not see. Those who have many things piled upon them cannot see easily. God will have to do a great deal of work in chastising you and putting you down before He can take many things away from you and before you will take Christ. Nevertheless, as you advance somewhat in your Christian life, God will take things away day by day so that He can give you Christ.
I hope that this day will come. One day all the things in heaven and on earth will be headed up in Christ. One day God’s Word will be fulfilled, and Christ will be all. Those who do not know that Christ is all today can never expect that Christ will be all. Today Christ is all my things already. He is already all things to me. God has given us His Son already. He has given us Himself. This is what He has given us. Today Christ has to be all in us. There must be no difference between Christ and things. Nothing can be considered a spiritual thing in itself. Only Christ is all. All things are Christ. Christ is all and in all. This has to start in the church; it has to start with us today. We can declare that He is all because we know and acknowledge that He is all. We can also declare that He is in all. He is in our patience, He is in our meekness, and He is in our love because He is in all. One day (and we hope that that day will quickly come) God’s Son will be all and will head up all things because He is all and in all! In that day, we will know that what we learned today is for that day. May the Lord bless all of us!
PRAYER
O Lord, we pray for grace before You. Lord, we confess that our eyes are blind; we do not see clearly enough. We know about things, but we do not know Christ. Our Lord seems so far away from us. The things seem so real to us, while Christ does not seem real to us. Lord, we pray that You would open our eyes so that Christ would become real to us, so that the things will pass away and life will fill us. Lord, we pray for deliverance from the many things, so that we can know the Lord as a person. May the Lord who is our person become our things so that everything in us becomes living and full of life, and so that others would see Christ when they see the things. Lord, we know that these two ways are entirely different. How different is the sinner’s way from the way of the righteous. In the same manner, how different is the way of a genuine Christian from that of a false Christian. Many things need to be broken. You have to break us. Do not allow us to deceive ourselves, to think that we have seen it when we have not seen it, to think that we have touched the right way when we really have not touched it, to think that we are full of life when we are full of behavior, and to think that we are full of Christ when we are full of things. Lord, touch us. Lord, build up Yourself in us in a powerful way so that everything within and without us is just Christ, just Yourself.
Lord, bless these words so that they would bear fruit and would bring men back to Yourself in a rich way. May You utter what man cannot utter. May You cover man’s weakness and forgive man’s foolishness. May You gain something among us. We need to be laid bare. May tonight be the night when many are laid bare, when they see themselves as You see them. May a little light enter us, and may it shine through all falsehood and all performance so that we would see the replacements and everything that is not You. Bless Your own word, and glorify Your name. In the name of the Lord Jesus, amen.