«　WEEK 5　DAY 6　»

　　John 7:18 He who speaks from himself seeks his own glory; but He who seeks the glory of Him who sent Him, this One is true, and unrighteousness is not in Him.

　　Matt. 16:24 Then Jesus said to His disciples, If anyone wants to come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me.

　　The first God-man did not seek His own glory but the glory of the Father who sent Him (John 7:18). I was with Brother Nee for about twenty years. What bothered him the most about the co-workers was that it was hard to see one who was not ambitious. To be ambitious is to seek your own glory. In the service we render to the Lord in the church life, there is always our ambition. A brother may have the ambition to be an elder. In order to become an elder, he feels that he must first become a deacon. To him being a deacon is a step toward being uplifted to the eldership…. We are all fallen descendants of Adam and sick of the same disease, the same sin…. By the Lord’s mercy I have learned the secret of dealing with my self and my intention, and this has helped me to deal with my self-glorification. (CWWL, 1994-1997, vol. 3, “The God-man Living, ” pp. 563-564)

　　We need to see that our self, our purpose, and our ambition are three big destroying “worms” in our work. If we are going to be used for the Lord always in His recovery, our self has to be denied, our purpose has to be rejected, and our ambition must be given up. We should not have our own purpose; instead, we should have only the Lord’s will. We all have to learn of these three things: no self, no purpose, and no ambition. We should only know to labor, to work for Him, by denying our self, rejecting our purpose, and giving up our ambition. Self, purpose, and ambition are like three snakes or scorpions in us. We must learn to hate them.

　　The Lord Himself “went out to the mountain to pray, and He spent the whole night in prayer to God.” The next day He established the twelve apostles to visit and take care of the people who were troubled by unclean spirits and heal them (Luke 6:12-18). Luke reveals that the Lord’s sending was according to the Father’s answering of His prayer. He asked the Father who among His followers would be qualified to be apostles.

　　Now we need to consider what we should learn from the Lord’s example. If we saw that a certain brother was harassed, troubled, or sick, what would we do? Perhaps we would not have the heart to care for him. On the other hand, we might care for him and want to do something for him in his need. As a result, we might hurry to see this brother and do things for him. This is our natural doing; it is not divine. Instead, we should learn of the Lord Jesus. We should go to the Lord and pray, “Lord, my brother is very sick. What would You do, Lord? Would You burden me to take care of him? If so, I will bear the burden. If not, I will not do anything by myself as a human being. I want to take care of him with You, to make this care not a human doing but a divine doing.” Sometimes when we go to the Lord about a certain needy brother, He may ask us not to contact him at that time, because this brother is in His hand. (CWWL, 1994-1997, vol. 3, “The God-man Living, ” pp. 564, 546-547)

　　Our contact with all the saints, brothers and sisters, elderly and young, must be pure in every way. In speaking to an elderly sister as a mother, you need to be pure in your motive. It is evil to have impure motives. To have an impure motive means to seek gain for ourselves, to seek some kind of advantage or promotion. In our contact with all the saints in the church life we should have just one motive—to minister Christ to them that they may grow in the Lord. (Life-study of 1 Timothy, p. 81)

　　Further Reading: Life-study of 1 Timothy, msg. 9; CWWL, 1984, vol. 2, “Elders’ Training, Book 1: The Ministry of the New Testament, ” ch. 3