God is not concerned with what we do; He is concerned with what we are according to His nature within us. He does not care much about what we say to our wives, but He does care about the life by which we speak to them. According to what nature do you speak to your wife? Sometimes you may say, “Dear, I love you.” This is a good word, but in saying it you might be playing politics. Any kind of political talk, even if it is about love, is like rotten honey because it originates from our corrupted nature. It does not issue from the divine nature in your being. Likewise, God does not care whether or not you go to the mission field. He cares about the life by which you go to the mission field. I do not go to any sinful place, because the divine nature in my being does not allow me to go. I do not live according to religion or regulations; I live according to the divine nature in my being. When we live day by day according to the divine nature, we shall be saturated with Christ and transformed to His image. During the twenty years he was in Laban’s home, Jacob did nothing, but he underwent a good deal of transformation. Jacob was not instantly transformed; it took more than twenty years.
In the church service, it is not just a matter of serving according to the anointing and of not serving according to organization. If our service is merely like this, before long we shall be fighting with one another. We may even fight over cleaning the chairs. One brother may say, “Don’t you know that this is my territory? Don’t touch it and don’t bother me. Go someplace else to clean.” This brother’s way of cleaning is according to his corrupted nature. Although he might have been sent by the anointing, he cleans according to his fallen nature. Following the anointing is not as important as living according to the law of life. We may all be sent by the anointing to clean the meeting hall, but still not have any building among us. Everyone may become independent, saying, “Don’t bother me. We are in the new church service. In the old service we had an order and a sequence. According to that order, I was last and could not say anything. But now I’m the same as everyone else. Don’t tell me what to do. I’m not under you—I’m under the anointing.” If this attitude does not come out immediately, it will come out after a few weeks. A brother who claims to be following the anointing but who does not live according to the law of life may say, “We are not in the organization—we are in the organism.” But this is the “organism” of a corrupted nature. If we live this way, there can be no building. I cannot find a verse in the New Testament which says that the building comes from the so-called anointing. But in Romans and Ephesians we see that the building issues from the growth of life. The more we grow, the more of the building we shall see.
How can we grow in life? By obeying the anointing which teaches us to abide in Christ. To abide in Christ is to live according to His nature. His nature is working and functioning within us. As we have seen, the functioning of the nature of life is the law of life. The more we live according to this law of life, the more we become the kind of being God desires.
According to the Bible, God’s work throughout the centuries will consummate in the New Jerusalem. It will not consummate in a work, for there will be no work in the New Jerusalem. The New Jerusalem will be a being bearing God’s image. Hence, the very being of the New Jerusalem will be God’s expression. The church life today must be a miniature of the New Jerusalem.
We should not care much for work, but we should care for our being, for what we are according to the nature of God within us. I would like to hear a brother or sister testify, saying, “I thank God that in recent days I have been living according to the inner law of life. Last night I was distracted from the law of life, but the anointing checked me and told me to return to the divine nature within me. After a few minutes I did return, and now, once again, I am living according to the law of life.” I would also like to hear a brother testify, saying, “This morning I began to speak to my wife in a nice, yet political, way, but because my speaking did not correspond with God’s divine nature within me, I could not even complete one sentence.” Learn to live according to the law of life. The anointing is God’s presence to direct us, to correct us, and to bring us back to the law of life. It is the law of life which works in us to transform us. If the brothers and sisters in the churches live according to God’s divine nature in their being, the Lord will have a prevailing testimony on earth today. This testimony will shame the enemy and bring the Lord back. This is what the Lord is waiting for. We all must see that it is not merely a matter of following the anointing; it is absolutely a matter of living according to the law of life, according to the functioning of the divine nature of God in our being. As God’s nature works within us, it makes us exactly the same as He is, transforming us and conforming us to the image of the Firstborn Son of God. In this way, God will have the complete sonship for His corporate expression.
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