Abiding in the Lord to Enjoy His Life: CHAPTER THREE UNCEASINGLY PRAYING AND IN EVERYTHING GIVING THANKS

CHAPTER THREE

UNCEASINGLY PRAYING AND IN EVERYTHING GIVING THANKS

Scripture Reading: 1 Thes. 5:17-18; Col. 3:16-17; Eph. 5:18b-20

ABIDING IN THE LORD CONTINUOUSLY

In chapter one we said that to abide in the Lord is to enjoy the Lord’s life. In chapter two we saw that for us to abide in the Lord and enjoy His life, we need to live and walk by the Spirit. After such a fellowship some brothers and sisters may not understand and still wonder how we can remain in spirit all the time. For example, a lightbulb functions properly when it “enjoys” and “abides” in the electricity. However, if the switch was not securely installed, the lightbulb does not function properly and, therefore, does not shine steadily. If one is a careless Christian, he is indifferent about continuously abiding in the Lord and does not think there is a problem. A seeking Christian, however, would consider, “How can I abide in the Lord continuously?”

As those who pursue the Lord, we should always pray and petition, longing to abide in the Lord continuously and enjoy His life that we may shine and function every day in a normal way. However, our experience is that we flicker every day. The reasons for our flickering are usually not the big things but the small things. Particularly, our family life and our married life cause us to flicker frequently. For example, both a husband and wife may shine normally immediately after their morning revival, but when they come to the dining table, the husband complains that the milk is too hot, while the wife complains that the husband is too hard to be waited on. Immediately both of them begin to flicker. The newly married ones are not the only ones who are in this condition; even those of us who have been married thirty to fifty years are in the same condition. We can sympathize with one another as fellow sufferers of the same ailment.

I have been saved for almost fifty years and have experienced more problems than you; the problems which you experienced I have also experienced. Hence, I know all the problems in your practical living. I also know that to suffer a relapse from an old disease is easy but to cure it completely is difficult. How then can we solve the problems, the flickering, in our daily life? When you repair a flickering lightbulb, you must first repair the switch and then turn it on; after it has been turned on, do not turn it off again. In your home life, however, your spouse and children, needless to say even you yourself, are capable of turning off your spiritual electricity. Sometimes you are doing well from morning until noon by having fellowship with the Lord and abiding in Him. In the afternoon, however, when the children come home from school and jump around the house, right away you cannot stand it, and your spiritual electricity is turned off by their jumping. Then you quickly repent and confess, praying to the Lord for the cleansing of His precious blood. In this way the switch is turned back on. But after another five minutes, your electricity is turned off again. This is our problem.

UNCEASINGLY PRAYING AND IN EVERYTHING GIVING THANKS ENABLING US TO ABIDE IN THE LORD CONTINUOUSLY

Hence, the best way to keep the spiritual electricity from being turned off is to install a safety box and lock the switch in. How do you lock it in? The way is to “unceasingly pray and in everything give thanks.” This is not doctrinal but experiential. In doctrine, no one can connect “unceasingly pray and in everything give thanks” with “abiding in the Lord.” There is one book in the New Testament that specifically covers the matter of abiding in the Lord, and that is the first Epistle of John. Yet in such a book there is no mention at all of unceasingly praying and in everything giving thanks. Knowledge is one thing, while experience is another. Often those with a Ph.D. are inferior to those who are experienced. Therefore, I am not telling you about knowledge or doctrine; I am speaking about experience. The secret, the key, to remaining in the enjoyment of the Lord is prayer and thanksgiving.

We all can understand what it means to pray and to give thanks. When we pray, we are shining within, but if we also give thanks, we will become enlivened within. Prayer may be likened to connecting the wires, and thanksgiving, to shining the light. Sometimes our “wires” have been connected, yet it seems that we do not sense any reaction. The light does not shine if there is only prayer but no thanksgiving. Therefore, if we want to have a life that is always shining without flickering, we need to pray unceasingly and give thanks in everything. According to our experience, if we pray and also give thanks, even if before we were not abiding in the Lord, we will spontaneously enter into the Lord and abide in Him. If we want to get in and not come out but remain inside all the time, we need to pray unceasingly and give thanks in everything.

A vile sinner needs only to believe and repent, praying to the Lord, “Lord Jesus, I am truly a vile sinner. I pray that You save me.” Immediately the “connection” is made, and Christ enters into him. This sinner, however, still has to say, “Lord Jesus, I really thank You.” Then the light in him will shine, and he will abide in the Lord. Hence, whether we are believers or sinners, we all need to abide in the Lord through prayer and thanksgiving.

THE CHRISTIAN LIFE ULTIMATELY BEING A MATTER OF GIVING THANKS IN EVERYTHING

Apparently, we cannot find the truth of giving thanks in everything throughout the whole Bible. Actually, the Bible, which is a book of mysteries, contains an untold measure of light beneath the surface. Among the twenty-seven books of the New Testament, only three—1 Thessalonians, Colossians, and Ephesians—mention the matter of giving thanks in everything. All three of these books were written by the apostle Paul, and their contents show a sequence that is mysterious and wonderful.

The first of these books, 1 Thessalonians, speaks of how we can be saved and how we should have a holy life so that our spirit, soul, and body may be wholly sanctified, making us ready to meet the Lord at His coming. This concerns a proper, general Christian life. The second book is Colossians, which concerns Christ and which eventually speaks about experiencing Christ. The life of experiencing Christ is a life of giving thanks in everything. Not only is the proper, general Christian life a life of giving thanks in everything, but also the life of experiencing Christ is ultimately a matter of giving thanks for all things. The third book, Ephesians, which is a sister book to Colossians, concerns the church, and at the end it speaks about the experience of the church. We can have the church life only by living in the spirit. Likewise, such a church life is a matter of giving thanks in all things.

Hence, we can see clearly that whether it is the proper Christian life, the life of experiencing Christ, or the church life, each concludes with giving thanks in all things. Our Christian life is of three stages: the general Christian life; the life of experiencing Christ, abiding in Christ, and living Christ; and the church life, the life of experiencing the Body. Every stage of our Christian life involves the giving of thanks in everything. Our Christian life becomes deformed whenever it is separated from the matter of giving thanks in all things.

The first ten years after I was saved was a life in 1 Thessalonians. As a saved one, I desired to learn to be sanctified in everything and to preserve myself daily from uncleanness that my spirit, soul, and body might be preserved and I could be ready to meet the Lord. This was the initial stage of my Christian life. As I gradually progressed, I began to study the Bible and some of the books concerning the inner life; thus, I gained more knowledge concerning Christ. I began to know Christ as my life. I also began to realize that the life which God wants us to live is not merely a life of holiness that is without uncleanness but a life of being filled with and saturated by Christ. Unless I live a life of being filled with and saturated by Christ, my living is not much different from the living based on the moral teachings of the Chinese philosophers. These philosophers taught people to develop their “bright virtue” and to be blameless and pure, yet they did not have Christ in them. We, however, have Christ in us. Hence, Christ should be our all, and our living must be Christ. This is the second stage of the Christian life.

After experiencing Christ in a deeper way, I began to realize that the life of experiencing Christ is not for me individually but for His church and for the testimony of the church. We have all received Christ by grace, and the result is that we are the church. Hence, eventually we need to live in the church, to have the church life. This is the deepest stage of the Christian life. All these three stages of life conclude with the matter of giving thanks in everything. Without giving thanks in all things, we cannot live the proper Christian life.

PRAYER AND THANKSGIVING BEING A CHRISTIAN’S SPIRITUAL FEET

Prayer and thanksgiving are like our two feet; one foot cannot walk without the other. Prayer without thanksgiving will not work; thanksgiving without prayer also will not work. Hence, we must not only pray but also give thanks, and we must give thanks with prayer. We must do both simultaneously. It does not matter which comes first. As long as you have both, you can conveniently walk on the pathway of your Christian life. Likewise, when we take care of and nourish the new ones, we should teach them not only to pray but also to give thanks.

As you walk on the spiritual pathway, do not ask whether you should start with your right foot or with your left. Actually, to this day I still do not know which foot goes first when I walk. If you pay your attention to trying to decide which foot should go first, you will probably have difficulty in walking. Therefore, in our Christian life we should pray and give thanks, and we should give thanks and pray; we should always walk this way. Perhaps before you go to bed, you pray first and then give thanks, but in the morning when you get up, you give thanks first and then pray. Prayer and thanksgiving are the Christians’ spiritual feet. If one foot is missing, walking becomes extremely difficult; if both feet are missing, walking becomes impossible. If Christians do not pray and give thanks, they cannot have a proper Christian life.

UNCEASINGLY PRAYING

How can we pray unceasingly? When I first became a Christian, I was amazed when I read in the Bible that we should unceasingly pray. I asked myself, “Does this mean that I should devote all my time praying and not do anything else? Then what should I do about eating, washing, going to work, and sleeping?” In the literal sense, this is illogical. If Paul were here, I would ask him, “Brother Paul, you told us to pray without ceasing. How is it possible?” Paul did not say, “Pray constantly” or “pray continually”; instead, he said, “Pray unceasingly.” “Pray unceasingly” is a stronger expression than “pray constantly” or “pray continually.” Constant or continual conveys only a sense of continuation. For example, I eat three meals a day; this is continual. I release a message every week, that is, I preach once every seven days. This is a continual preaching. However, if I eat or preach unceasingly, this means that I eat or preach all the time, twenty-four hours a day. Therefore, how can we pray without ceasing? Since my youth I tried to solve this problem, yet I could not find the answer.

However, every spiritual matter can be confirmed by practical things. We thank the Lord for this. This is God’s sovereign arrangement. For example, Hymn #231 in the Chinese hymnal borrows the good wine and sweet honey of our daily life, the great sea and vast ocean on earth, and the sun and moon in heaven to depict the Lord’s love. All these things describe the Lord’s love. Furthermore, the third stanza of Hymns, #482, says, “This the secret nature hideth, / Harvest grows from buried grain; / A poor tree with better grafted, / Richer, sweeter life doth gain.” This is true. Then, what can we find in nature to signify unceasing prayer? Eventually, I found that there is only one thing: our breathing.

There is no way that we can do anything continuously, without interruption. According to God’s law, within twenty-four hours there must be a night, and we must have eight hours of sleep. If you go to bed and rise up every day at a regular time, you will have a healthy body. George Müller, who lived to be over ninety years of age, said, “We Christian workers travel frequently, but we must avoid traveling at night because God has ordained nighttime for our sleep. If we work at night instead of sleeping, we act against God’s ordination.” This is true. By practicing a regular schedule of sleep at night we will not feel tired when we work during the day. But if we were to sleep during the day, we would not sleep well. Also to work until deep into the night would be very tiring, yet to sleep at night is very fitting. This is God’s law.

Not only is there a night for rest within each day, but there is also a day for rest every seven days. This is not a Jewish regulation; this is God’s ordination. However, today many people ruin such a day of rest and become even more tired by their indulgences. In God’s creation almost everything has an intermission, but in God’s ordination there is one thing that has no interruption, and that is our breathing. Eating, drinking, and sleeping are intermittent; only breathing is not intermittent. When breathing is interrupted, the result is death. While you are eating, drinking, and sleeping, you must still breathe. Therefore, our uninterrupted breathing is actually a picture of our unceasing prayer.

THE PRACTICE OF UNCEASING PRAYER

It is easy to explain the truth concerning unceasing prayer, but it is very difficult to practice it. We can breathe continuously, but how can we pray unceasingly in the same way we breathe? Yes, I have found out that breathing is a secret in nature which is very logical, because it is the only thing among the great things of human life that is unceasing. However, I could not understand how we can pray unceasingly as we do in breathing. We cannot use our physical organs incessantly; if we do, we will have problems. For example, after talking too much, our throat is tired and needs a rest. When our hands become too tired after carrying a heavy load for a long time, they need a rest. But among the organs of our body created by God, there is one that is used continuously, and that is our nose, which we use for breathing. We have never heard anyone say that he has been using his nose for breathing all the time and, therefore, his nose is tired and needs a rest. All our organs get tired, but we thank and praise the Lord that our breathing organ never gets tired.

Therefore, what does it mean to “unceasingly pray”? We must understand and realize that we have a spirit within us, which is our spiritual breathing organ. The reason we do not want to pray or cannot pray is that we basically do not use our spirit. To pray, we must use our spirit. Whenever we use our spirit, we are enlivened. The first function of our spirit is to pray. Your spirit prays automatically even without your prompting. Hence, in order to pray unceasingly, you must not interrupt your spirit’s activity. Instead, you must allow your spirit to be active all the time.

The spirit’s activity is to pray to the Lord. Even without opening my mouth to make a sound, my spirit automatically “breathes” in me to have fellowship with the Lord. Sometimes I may feel deflated; at that time I need to take a deep breath and call, “O Lord Jesus!” I may not make a sound, but still I am breathing in the Lord. We all should practice this kind of inaudible yet uninterrupted prayer.

When I was newly saved, I felt that it was very hard to pray unceasingly. Sometimes I stopped what I was doing in order to pray. Others thought it was strange and wondered why I would stop in the middle of my task and go away to pray. At that time I did not know what it meant to exercise my spirit; I never even heard of such an expression. It was not until later that I realized that there is no need for us to put aside the task at hand in order to devote ourselves to pray. To pray unceasingly means that we should always exercise our spirit to contact the Lord.

We are fallen people from our birth, and the spirit of a fallen man is dead. We have the organ, but it is dead and has lost its function; we basically do not use it. Hence, when we were young, we did not use our spirit. When we went to school, no one taught us to use our spirit, and we did not use our spirit in our daily walk. It was not until we heard the gospel and our conscience was enlightened by the shining of the light of the gospel that we were touched in our conscience, which is a part of our spirit. We then began to repent and confess. When we repented and confessed, that was the exercise of our spirit. It was at that moment that our spirit was activated, was made alive, and was no longer deadened. In this way we were saved.

At the time we were saved, our spirit was made alive. However, we still did not become accustomed to exercising this organ, and even when we prayed, we did not use it very much. In that period of time we had two kinds of prayer. One kind was that we closed our eyes and prayed in a routine way to the heavenly Father for several matters and then asked Him to give us peace. Another kind was when a great calamity came upon us. At such a time, even a Christian who does not know how to pray will be able to cry out, “O Lord Jesus, rescue me!” When we are so hard pressed, our spirit is stirred even though we may not know how to use it. This kind of prayer is a genuine prayer because our spirit truly has been exercised. All of us need to be reminded that we should not wait until a calamity comes to call on the Lord. Today we must exercise our spirit to pray. We should not pray from our mind or only because of an outward circumstance.

Forty years ago, by the Lord’s mercy, I learned to practice praying by exercising my spirit. Now I can say that I am accustomed to using my spirit. Just as we walk when our feet move, so we pray when our spirit moves. Hence, we all need to exercise our spirit that it may become living and strong. The secret to our abiding in the Lord and enjoying His life is that our spirit is living. Just as our eyes are our seeing organ, so our spirit is our praying organ. The function of our eyes is to see, and the function of our ears is to hear. Likewise, the function of our spirit is to pray. God created such a spirit for us. Therefore, we need to practice using our spirit that our spirit may be living.

Furthermore, we need to practice doing everything in our spirit and according to our activated spirit. If we do not move according to our activated spirit, we will practice religion. When our spirit is active, that is prayer; when our spirit is inactive, that is religion. Even when eating and drinking we need to practice having an active spirit. When our spirit is active, we pray. When we live and walk in our activated spirit, we pray unceasingly, and spontaneously we abide in the Lord and enjoy Him as our life.