«　WEEK 2　DAY 6　»

　　1 Cor. 2:9 …”Things which eye has not seen and ear has not heard and which have not come up in man's heart; things which God has prepared for those who love Him.”

　　Phil. 4:11 …I have learned, in whatever circumstances I am, to be content.

　　13 I am able to do all things in Him who empowers me.

　　According to my experience, nothing pleases the Lord so much as for us to realize that He does not want us to do anything. He only wants us to love Him, to open ourselves up to Him, and to let Him live from within us….From the very beginning when God created man, God had no intention to ask man to do anything for Him. God's intention was to create a vessel to contain Him and to express Him, so God only wants an opening of the vessel. If the vessel is open, God can fulfill His purpose, but if the vessel is closed, God's purpose is frustrated.

　　God wants us only to love Him and to keep ourselves open to Him. “Lord, I love You. I fully realize that I am just an empty vessel, yet You treasure this earthen vessel because this earthen vessel was created by You according to Your eternal plan to fulfill Your heart's desire. Lord, I just love You. I like to contain You. I like to be filled up with You. I like to be saturated and permeated with You. Have mercy upon me that I may keep myself open to You all the time.” (CWWL, 1980, vol. 1, “Perfecting Training,” pp. 239-240)

　　You yourself are just a peculiarity. Without the Lord filling you as a vessel to work out something from within you, your whole being is a peculiarity. The only solution to our problems is the filling up of the Lord within us. And this depends upon our loving Him and keeping ourselves open to Him all the time. The proper prayer, the deeper prayer, the genuine prayer, is just to keep yourself loving Him and open to Him….You will be a living vessel absolutely calmed down so that your Master has the absolute free course to fill you up. When He fills you up, He does everything for you. Then you simply enjoy His doing. This is the proper, genuine Christian life. A genuine Christian life is one that loves the Lord and keeps itself open to the Lord and stops its doing. Then the Lord comes in and the Lord does everything and this vessel just contains the Lord and enjoys the Lord's filling up and enjoys the Lord's doing. This is the proper and genuine Christian life. (CWWL, 1980, vol. 1, “Perfecting Training,” p. 247)

　　Today those of us who have some amount of experience of the Lord can testify that when we love Him, pursue Him, and fellowship with Him, we spontaneously live in a condition that is beyond human description. We can endure what others cannot, and we can live a life that others cannot, even a life that goes beyond humility and meekness. We can live such a life because we live by the Lord. The Lord Jesus was a great mystery when He was on the earth. Hence, as the followers of Jesus, we also become a mystery that is incomprehensible to others. At times they think that we should lose our temper, yet we behave as if nothing has happened. At other times, they think that we should jump with joy, yet we act as usual. When they think that we should weep, we still can praise, and when they think that we should exult, we bow down in worship. We live not according to the environment but according to the Lord's moving and leading within. Sometimes our environment is very good, and apparently we should be happy and rejoicing. Nevertheless, within we feel that we have fallen short of the Lord's glory, that we have not sufficiently caused those who are around us to know the Lord, and that we have not adequately expressed Him and lived Him out before them; therefore, we weep in self-reproach. This is the mystery of being a Christian, which is incomprehensible to the Gentiles. (CWWL, 1984, vol. 1, “The Four Crucial Elements of the Bible—Christ, the Spirit, Life, and the Church,” pp. 138-139)

　　Further Reading: CWWL, 1980, vol. 1, “Perfecting Training,” ch. 22; CWWL, 1979, vol. 1, “Basic Lessons on Life,” lsns. 1-2