Question: If it is possible, could you explain suffering for Christ a little bit more? Does it mean physical suffering? I cannot seem to grasp exactly what it means. Going along with that, knowing we are to welcome suffering, how do we know what suffering is from the Lord? An example says physical suffering. So, Stephen, maybe you could address that.
As we mentioned during one evening, the sufferings of Christ are of two categories. One category is the atoning suffering of Christ, and in that category we cannot have any share in it. It is a suffering that our Lord Jesus went into alone, all by Himself. Because of His sufferings, we receive the benefit of it: our sins are atoned for, forgiven, and we are saved.
But there is another category of the sufferings of Christ, of which we are called to have fellowship. In other words, if we do not fellowship with Christ in that category, something is missing. We have failed in our calling.
So it is not just a matter of whether there will be such a thing. As a matter of fact, it is a matter of calling. We are called to suffer, and it is to be considered an evidence that we are the Lord’s, because we are not only saved, but He has counted us worthy to suffer for Him.
The first thing we need to remember in this matter of suffering is that it really is not a luxury, as if you may have it or you may not have it, and it is better if you do not have it. If you really see what suffering is in the plan of God, it is a necessity. If you do not have fellowship in the sufferings of Christ, you have failed your calling. Something is lacking.
When we are talking about sufferings for Christ, or fellowship in His sufferings, it covers a very large area. Physical suffering is just one symptom, one appearance, or one phenomenon of suffering. Physical suffering may or may not be suffering for Christ; it may or may not be fellowship in His sufferings.
For some people, physical suffering is fellowship in the sufferings of Christ. To other people, it may not be at all. So it is not the physical suffering itself; it is the cause, the root, the reason why there is suffering.
For instance, in the case of Paul, he suffered physically a great deal. He was imprisoned often, he was beaten, he was stoned. These are physical sufferings, but these physical sufferings are sufferings for Christ because there is no other reason for them. He could avoid these sufferings if he were not in fellowship with the gospel of Jesus Christ.
When persecutions come, we read stories about how Christians suffered in Europe, in China, and in other countries. They suffered because they were Christians. As 1 Peter says, do not suffer because you have done something evil. If you have done something evil and suffer for it, there is no glory in it, and God is not glorified at all.
But if you suffer for the name of Christ, or because you are a Christian, then physical sufferings—whether being scourged, imprisoned, sent to a labor camp, or tortured—are for the sake of Christ, for the sake of the gospel, and because you are a Christian. Or, for the sake of righteousness, you refuse to compromise because of principles of Christ, and for that reason you suffer. These physical sufferings are considered sufferings for Christ.
But suffering in the physical sense is actually the least of all. Sufferings for Christ are not exclusively a matter of physical life.
We who live in this country probably have a kind of mentality. I often hear people express this thought: “Look, we have no suffering. We have no chance to suffer for Christ. How can we have fellowship with His sufferings, because there is no opportunity?”
In a sense, I always feel that people hope this country will be under a communist regime so that Christians can be persecuted. They almost have that kind of desire. I think that is really not right—not right. It is because we look at suffering as something physical alone.
We must remember that sufferings can be in many different areas. Suppose you are working in an office, and there are practices that have almost become common among your fellow workers. They do something that they feel everybody is doing, but your conscience will not allow it.
Because your conscience does not allow you to do the same thing, you suffer. You not only suffer the loss of what other people gain, but you may even suffer loss of popularity, or your colleagues may look at you as an odd person. These sufferings are included in the fellowship of His sufferings.
It is very broad, very broad. Here is another illustration. As you continue on with the Lord, you will find the Lord beginning to deal with you—whether it is something, some person, or some relationship. The Lord begins to deal with you in these matters.
When the Lord deals with you in these matters, and you are willing to deny yourself, take up the cross, and follow Him, that involves something. So far as your flesh is concerned, you lose something. That is the reason why the Lord said that if you lose your life, it is more than just losing something. It is losing your soul-life.
Your soul-life is attached to certain things and certain persons. In your walk with the Lord, that thing or person may become a challenge or a conflict, trying to take the place of Christ. When such things happen, you will find the Holy Spirit comes and speaks, and you have to let the thing or the person go.
In doing that, your soul suffers. You may suffer emotionally, mentally, or in a relationship. You have to let go and suffer the loss of it. But if we lose our soul-life for the sake of Christ, then we gain it for eternity. This also is part of the sufferings of Christ.
Suppose in your family you have family members who are not the Lord’s. Because you are the Lord’s, on the one hand, for the sake of Christ you may have to suffer because you live differently and act differently. The things they do, you cannot do and will not do. Your family may feel that you are strange, and you will be misunderstood. That is part of suffering for the sake of Christ.
On the other hand, because you have the compassion and love of Christ for your family members, how you long to see them come to the Lord, and you travail for them in prayer. That is suffering.
Or in the matter of the church: when we serve the Lord together, do not think that it is all joy. When you serve together, you find how you rub against each other and how you cannot have your own way. You cannot push your own will. Even at times when you feel that you are right, you have to give in. When such things happen, suffering is involved. But are you willing to suffer for the Body’s sake?
In another area, because you are the Lord’s, you are involved in spiritual warfare, whether you are conscious of it or not. If you are not a Christian, certain things will never happen to you because the enemy is not interested. But because you are a Christian, you will find that certain things suddenly happen to you, to your family, to your work, or to your environment.
Sometimes it may be a physical attack. Other times it may be anguish in your spirit. At times it may be a kind of pressure, a kind of darkness descending upon your spirit that you cannot explain. You find yourself pressed beyond measure. Things like that involve suffering.
So I would say, when we think of having fellowship with His sufferings, or suffering for the sake of Christ, it is very, very broad. The only thing you need to find out is this: Is it for Christ’s sake? If it is for Christ’s sake, then that is fellowship with His sufferings.
The second question is this: knowing we ought to welcome suffering, how do we know whether suffering is from the Lord? As a matter of fact, we do not welcome suffering.
If anybody has read the biography of Madame Guyon, you know that she was a sister in the Lord, I think, in the seventeenth century. Her life was so beautiful that some people even say that, aside from the life of Christ, the life of Madame Guyon seemed to be the most beautiful life.
If you read her biography, you do find that her life was beautiful. But you have to remember that the biography you read has already been edited and edited. In her time she suffered a great deal for Christ because she was considered one who promoted what was called prayer from the heart. She was involved in pietism in Europe and was imprisoned in the Bastille because of that.
As you read her life story, she really welcomed suffering. She welcomed it to the extent that the only fault in her life was that she was too passive. In other words, she just received everything as from God. But some suffering did not come from God; it came from the enemy. Yet she received everything.
So I think we need to learn to discern whether a suffering comes from the Lord or from the enemy. We cannot just receive sufferings whenever they come.
In one sense, it is true that we are in God. Even the hairs of our heads are numbered. Nothing can come to us except God allows it. That is true. But, on the other hand, God may allow the enemy to attack us in order that we may learn the wiles of the enemy.
It does not mean that whenever suffering comes, you just take it, embrace it, and love it, like Madame Guyon said that she kissed the cross. That attitude is good, but somehow you find that she lacked discernment.
We really need to discern whether it is from the enemy, whether the suffering comes from God, or whether it comes from your own sin. If it is because of your own sin and you suffer, what you need to do is confess. Do not take suffering in as if God has given it to you. There is no glory in it.
Discernment is needed in suffering. Spiritual discernment is something no one can teach you. Spiritual discernment is something you have to learn by experience. It is not something you can learn from a book. It depends on your spiritual life. As your spiritual life grows, your spiritual discernment increases.
Whenever sufferings come, do not take a fixed position right away—either reject it or accept it. When suffering comes, the first thing to do is go to God and inquire whether this is from God, whether it is purely for the sake of Christ, whether it is from the enemy, or whether it is because there is something you have done that has brought the suffering to you.
If we learn these things gradually, your discernment will increase. Whenever suffering comes, you may be able to discern it in a moment. It grows with your spiritual life. There is no fixed rule to say, “This is from God; this is from the enemy; this is from yourself.” The only way is to go to the Lord and let Him deal with you.
Question: This still has to do with suffering. We have all heard testimonies of different servants who came down with some inexplicable problem. Is that suffering for Christ? What happens when you are suffering and you come to God, and His grace is sufficient, but you cry out to God for healing and nothing apparently happens? You know that you are in God’s keeping hands, but you are still overwhelmed with the feeling because of the problems involved. Do you just continue in that overwhelmed state and say, “Well, God’s grace is sufficient,” or what do you do?
I think something is deeper than the question. The question is just a symptom. I think there is a root behind it. The root is a kind of mentality: number one, we should not be sick; number two, if we are sick, we must be healed; number three, if we are not healed, it is because we do not have faith.
If we have that kind of mentality, when physical sufferings come, first we ask the Lord to remove them. Then, if they are not removed, something must be wrong. We cannot rest because we cannot believe that God will not heal us. Even though we say His grace is sufficient for us, down deep within us we feel that it should not be that way.
I know there are two different schools in this matter of divine healing. One school believes that healing is in the atonement. That is to say, when Christ died on the cross, He not only took our sin; He took our sickness away. Therefore, anyone who comes to Christ and confesses sin has his sins forgiven. In the same way, anyone who comes to Christ and claims healing is healed, because it is in the atonement.
If it is in the atonement, there can be no exception. Can you imagine a person who sincerely comes to the Lord, confesses his sin, asks for forgiveness, and God will not forgive him? Impossible. If God does not forgive him, that would make God deny Himself and make God unfaithful. God is faithful, even though we may be unfaithful.
In that kind of thinking, can anyone come to the Lord, really believe that the Lord is able to heal, and ask God to heal him, and not be healed? They would say he must be healed, because we dare not say that God is unfaithful. Therefore, they say, our faith must be lacking.
Personally, I do believe God heals. I have many experiences myself in this area. But at the same time, this is my personal feeling. You do not need to agree with me, and if you differ, thank God for that. God loves variety. I often say variety brings in fullness.
I will not force my opinion upon you, and I respect your conviction. But personally, as I ponder over this matter, I feel it is very unkind when we see some Christians sick and not healed, and conclude that something is wrong with them.
I know Christians who love the Lord and have spiritual maturity in the Lord, and yet they are never healed. Who am I to say that they do not have faith? They have proven their faith in many things.
Let me use an illustration. Our dear brother Watchman Nee, when he was young and first serving the Lord, did not know how to take care of his body. He overdid himself. In his early years, he developed tuberculosis.
The doctor told him that he was dying. The last time he went to a German radiologist in Shanghai and had an X-ray taken, the doctor took another X-ray and put the two pictures together. He asked which one was better. Of course, it was evident that the other one was better. The doctor said, “He died in one.” He told our brother, “Do not come back. It is a waste of money.”
Our brother was in bed for over 170 days. He was not out of bed for all that time. He was dying. One day some brothers and sisters went to his room and prayed for him. He was hoping that through their prayer God might do something.
After one prayer after another, nothing touched his heart. They said, “Well, that is the end.” Then one sister began to pray, “Lord, there is no praise in sickness.” That touched his heart.
After they left, he stood within himself before God. The word came to him: “I live by faith.” Then he felt that God wanted him to get up. He said, “Lord, I cannot do that. I have not been standing up for more than 170 days.” But the word came to him: “I stand by.”
So he stood up and put on his clothing. He told us that when he stood up, he felt as if he were treading on cotton. Then he felt the urge to walk. He said, “Lord, I cannot do that.” The Scripture came to him, “Walk by faith.”
He walked down from his room. In China, the stairways were very steep. At first he looked at the stairway and said, “It is much more comfortable to die in bed than to die standing on the road.” But, by the grace of God, he walked down the stairway, crossed the street, and knocked on the door of some sisters who were praying there.
They opened the door and looked at him. For an hour nobody talked. Then he gave his testimony. He was healed of tuberculosis. From that day onward, his lungs never troubled him.
But later on he developed a heart condition. His heart was enlarged to double size. Many nights he could not lie down. Many times, before he came to speak, he was agonizing in bed. Then he got up, came down, and spoke for hours. After he finished speaking, he went back to bed in agony. It happened often. God never healed him.
I remember one day Brother Nee gave a message. He said, “I knew the healing of the Lord, but I also know the Lord as my healing.” I believe he referred to the healing of the Lord in relation to his tuberculosis. But when he said, “I know the Lord Himself as my healing,” he referred to his heart condition.
Knowing these incidents, I do not have the heart, when I see people not healed, to say that they lack faith. I just could not do it.
This is not just sentiment. As I study the Scripture, I have to say that our God is the God who heals. That is true. He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. He has not changed. I believe that He is able to heal, and I believe that He heals.
Yet the Scripture, “By His stripes we are healed,” is often misquoted. We quote this Scripture to prove that healing is in the atonement. But if you read Isaiah 53 in context, “By His stripes we are healed” does not refer to physical healing. It refers to the healing of the soul.
This can be proven because when Peter quoted that verse, the context was the saving of the soul. It has nothing to do with physical healing.
But there is one verse in Isaiah 53 that has to do with physical healing:
Surely He hath borne our griefs,
And carried our sorrows.
—Isaiah 53:4
Then you find Matthew 8:17:
Himself took our infirmities,
And bare our diseases.
In Isaiah you find griefs and sorrows, but the application of the Holy Spirit in Matthew 8 is infirmities and diseases. So it does refer to sickness. But when was this Scripture fulfilled? It was not fulfilled on the cross. It was fulfilled when our Lord Jesus was in His ministry and healing the sick. It was not fulfilled in His death; it was fulfilled in His life.
Because of this, I believe He heals, but I cannot take the position that healing is in the atonement and therefore all must be healed.
I do not think it is wrong if anybody gets sick and asks the Lord for healing. But I think it would be much better when you are sick that the first thing is not to ask for healing, but to inquire of the Lord as to why.
Whenever we are sick, immediately we ask for healing. To me, it seems as if all we are concerned with is our sickness. We do not care whether we learn any lesson, if only we are healed.
But if we come to the Lord and inquire, we may learn various things—very valuable lessons. Maybe you have sinned somewhere and need to confess. If the Lord healed you right away, your sin would not be confessed. That would be worse than remaining sick.
Maybe the Lord is trying to discipline you. If you do not want the discipline, physically you may be well, but you may be really sick spiritually. So I think the better thing is that the first thing to do is not to ask the Lord for healing. The first thing is to inquire of the Lord.
If it is an attack from the enemy, resist it in your way. If it is because of your own sin, confess it. When the Lord forgives you, His hand is lifted and you are healed.
Or perhaps the Lord wants you to learn a deeper lesson, just like Paul. The thorn in the flesh was never removed. Whether you refer it to something physical or spiritual depends on your interpretation, but the thorn was not removed. The infirmity was not removed. Why? Because God wanted to prove something, and Paul needed it.
Dear brothers and sisters, this is the way I view it. Because of this, I do not feel that I have to be restless if healing does not come. On the contrary, I rest in the Lord, believing that when His purpose is fulfilled, He will either heal me or I will experience His grace that is always sufficient.
Again, I say that there are many who love the Lord and believe healing is in the atonement. God does heal and uses them to heal people. I believe all these things. I have no quarrel with them. Sometimes I feel, if only I had more faith like they do. I really do.
But so far as my understanding is concerned, I think this is correct. If you really have the word from the Lord that His grace is sufficient for you, then why are you restless if you are not healed?
The reason you are restless may be, first, that you believe you must be healed, and if you are not healed, something is wrong. Second, perhaps the word, “My grace is sufficient for thee,” is a word you try to grasp instead of a word that has grasped you. I think that is the difference.
If it really comes from the Lord, I believe you will rest. If it is something you try to grasp, you will be restless. Either the Lord heals you, or the Lord gives you His word that His grace is sufficient for you. Either way, you rest.
Question: As we find our responsibility growing in the Body of Christ, we find our time to be with the Lord diminishing. In fact, when there is time, we are so tired that all we want to do is rest. As a brother serving in responsible matters, there is difficulty at times in finding what responsibility comes first: the Lord’s work, my work, or my home. What are the principles that would shed some light on seeing a way through?
Actually, people have asked me this already. If my brothers want to expose my ignorance, I have to obey. They have already answered these questions, and I tremble that I may say something wrong. If I do, I hope you forgive my offense.
I do think this is a very practical problem. Everyone who has a desire to serve the Lord, and anyone serving the Lord in any capacity, sooner or later will face this problem.
Because of the many duties and responsibilities you carry in the church or in God’s work, you may find that you even neglect your own life with the Lord. This is not a new thing. If you read the Song of Solomon, you find this was the problem with that virgin:
They made me keeper of the vineyards;
But mine own vineyard have I not kept.
—Song of Solomon 1:6
If we do not love the Lord and love ourselves, we spend all our time on ourselves. But once you have a certain spiritual stature and the Lord begins to give you responsibility, there is always a temptation: you will do more than the Lord really wants you to do. Another temptation is that people will make you do more than you should do.
That is always the case. A brother or sister who has no heart for the Lord, no one will ask to do anything. But once you have a heart for the Lord, everybody begins to say, “Brother, you do this,” or, “Sister, you do that.” People will let you work in their vineyards, and the result is that you neglect your own vineyard.
Another thing involved is this: as the service begins to increase, instead of falling back to the Lord for our supply, we begin to draw supplies from ourselves. That exhausts us.
You find exhaustion—not only physical exhaustion, but spiritual exhaustion. If you are engaged in work physically, you will be exhausted; there is no doubt about it. But there is no reason why you should be spiritually exhausted.
Our Lord Jesus was physically exhausted, sitting by the well and waiting to be refreshed with water. There came a Samaritan woman who refused to give Him water. Yet our Lord Jesus reached out to her and tried to give her the living water. When the disciples came back, the Lord said, “I have already eaten.” He had never had a meal.
He said:
My meat is to do the will of Him that sent Me,
And to accomplish His work.
—John 4:34
In a sense, after you have done the will of God, spiritually you should be full, not exhausted. Physically, you will be exhausted because we are human beings. Mentally, you may be exhausted because gospel work is more than a physical thing; it is a mental thing. But spiritually, you should not be exhausted.
If you are spiritually exhausted, either you have done something out of God’s will, you have overdone God’s will for you, or you are drawing upon your own resources.
When you come to this kind of situation, it is time to return to the Lord and reconsider the whole matter, instead of continuing on. If you continue on, the workload will increase; it will not decrease. You will be drawn out more and more until one day you experience not only mental exhaustion, but perhaps a nervous breakdown. This is something we must avoid.
We need to return to the Lord, reconsider the whole situation, and do whatever we feel is in the will of God. Doing God’s work is not governed by needs; it is governed by God’s will.
The problem today is that when we do God’s work, we are governed by needs. Here is a need, there is a need, and you have a big heart. You cannot see the needs and do nothing, so you try to meet every need. Nobody can do that.
Even the apostles could not do that. They did a poor job in serving tables and a poor job in ministering the word because they did too much. The church suffered. Sooner or later, brothers and sisters, there will come a point where you begin to see that work is not governed by need; it is governed by God’s will.
If it is not God’s will, do not do it. Why? Do we just let the need go unmet? No. God will raise up somebody else to do it. You are not the only one. We often think we are the only one. That is not true.
If you are in that kind of situation, you should reconsider. Probably there are certain works you have to lay down. We cannot serve the Lord if we are not rightly related to the source. If we have no time to pray, no time to study the Word, and no time to be before the Lord because we are too busy, it is time to stop working.
I cannot forget that many years ago Brother T. Austin-Sparks mentioned that, in England, ministers came together for a conference. They were discussing how the works were not going on as they should, what needs there were, and how they could solve all the problems.
Brother Sparks suggested that they come together and pray, perhaps for three days. The ministers said, “No, you cannot do that. We have no time to do such a thing.” I have never forgotten that.
We can be so involved in work that the momentum is so great we cannot stop. Whenever you find this happening, it is time to stop. If you serve God and you cannot stop, it is a dangerous sign. It is time to stop, return to the Lord, and try to do whatever the Lord has apportioned to you.
This situation is created by the abnormal condition of the church. If the church is normal, all the brothers and sisters should bear some responsibility. In the Body, every member has some responsibility.
If most members do not take any responsibility and let a few members take all the responsibility, sooner or later those few members will die, and the whole Body will die. That is impossible.
I often feel that in the church today, responsibility rests upon a few people. They do everything, and the rest of the people are simply there being served. They create this problem.
All the brothers and sisters are responsible before God. We need to see that every brother and every sister, on the day you are saved, has a responsibility in the church and to the church. If we can share our responsibility, this situation can be avoided.
Many who serve the Lord, many brothers in responsible positions, work themselves to death. Why? Because the rest are not working. That should not be. To correct the situation, we must try to draw all the brothers and sisters into some responsibility. Then there will be no one who has the whole world upon his shoulders.
Now, as to this matter: you have a job, you have the church to care for, and you have your family. It is true: your family demands your whole attention, your work requires your whole attention, and your church requires your full attention. Nobody is willing to get less from you, so you really have a problem.
How do you solve that problem? Well, actually, you need Solomon to solve your problem. I am no Solomon; I do not know how to solve your problem. Is there any Solomon here, please?
The Lord is greater than Solomon. But if I give you any advice, I feel myself to be like Joab. Joab gave advice, did he not? When they wanted to number the children of Israel, he advised against it. He was such a politician; he knew how to maneuver. Sometimes it came out right, sometimes wrong. I feel myself as Joab, so I am not sure whether my advice would be right or wrong.
Number one, I feel there is no fixed rule about it. It is an individual matter that you have to deal with before the Lord. To say that we divide our time into three equal parts is an ideal; it is never done and can never be done.
As to how you divide your time, each one has to go to the Lord and let the Lord give wisdom to decide. Some people may be able to give more time to the church and less time to their work. Other people may not be able to give more time to the church because their work demands more time.
The same is true of family. Some families need more time, especially families with children who are growing up. If your children are already grown, they do not require as much time from you. It really depends upon your individual situation. You have to go to the Lord, set priorities, and try to find a balance between these things.
Number two, if the church is normal, such a situation should be greatly relieved. If all the brothers and sisters take some responsibility in the church, it will not require all of anyone’s time. There is no need for it.
This is not only a personal matter; it involves the whole church. This question cannot be solved without the whole church being involved. If the problem of the whole church is not solved, it is difficult to solve the personal question, because the affairs of the church may depend upon a few individuals.
In the Bible, you find that there were some elders who were so involved with the affairs of the church that they gave so much time to the church that they had no time to manage their earthly work. They may have had to give up their jobs or sacrifice their jobs. Therefore, in 1 Timothy, elders who labor in teaching should be remembered financially by the church.
Especially elders who also teach are to receive double honor, and the double honor includes financial support. This problem is not new; even in apostolic times they had the problem. It can be solved in many ways.
So how is it solved? Number one, individually, we have to go to the Lord. Number two, it has to be solved in relation to the whole church. That is all I can say.
Question: Since it is Friday, perhaps there is one more question that has been asked twice. Stephen, could you describe a little more what it means to live a simple life before the Lord? In seeking first the kingdom of God, what does it mean that other things shall be added unto you? How do you live this simple life?
First of all, this is my personal opinion: I feel that modern life is not conducive to spiritual growth, because modern life is too complicated. Modern life is too involved. There are too many interests, a lack of concentration, and a lack of time. We do not have time to wait or meditate before the Lord.
Unfortunately, we live in this time. So what we can do is try to live as simply as possible. Again, there is no rigid standard. To one person, something may be considered simple; to another person, it may be considered too complex. There is no criterion that we can put down—one, two, three, four—and say that if you live this kind of life, it is a simple life.
Suppose you are a farmer. You can live a much simpler life, as it were, than if you are a businessman. If you are involved in the business world, you may have to live according to a certain standard in order to carry on your business.
A farmer does not need to dress in suits and ties, but he cannot criticize the brother who has to wear a tie and say that he is naturally complex. There is no fixed criterion.
Again, everyone has to go to the Lord and find out for himself what the basic necessities of life are for him and for his family. If you really go to the Lord and try to find out what the basic necessities are for you as a Christian in the environment where you live, I believe you will discover there are many things that occupy your energy and time that are really unnecessary.
You think you need them. You think you have to have them. You think you have to spend time and energy in order to get them. But if you return to the Lord and consider them one by one before Him, I believe you will find a large list of things that are unnecessary.
These are not only unnecessary for you as a Christian; they are even unnecessary in relation to your environment. It is not that, because you do not have these things, you cannot do your business.
Let me illustrate. I knew a brother back in China. Before he was saved, he was a person who dared to do anything. He was involved in all kinds of things. He was one of the best fortune-tellers China ever had.
He was a banker, but he earned more money by telling fortunes than as a bank manager. People came from other parts of China and stayed in hotels, waiting for him to tell their fortune. He never charged anybody. After he told a fortune, they gave whatever they wanted to give. Because he was so accurate, they gave a great deal.
He became very wealthy. By telling fortunes, he won first prize twice in horse lotteries or horse races. But he was miserable.
He said that after he became rich, whenever he went into a restaurant, everybody said, “So-and-so has come. You must treat us.” So he told the restaurant, “I will pay for the whole house.” He said, “I owe everybody.”
He said, “My family—my wife and my children—they want my money; they do not want me.” He became very lonely.
But thank God, God saved him. When he was a banker, he was very busy. In China, as a banker, you had entertainment every night. You did not stay home and eat supper. Every night he was entertaining somewhere or being entertained.
But after he became a Christian, he took a stand. He put a large Bible on his desk. When people came in, he would share Christ with them. He told people, “If I have a meeting, I will not be entertained.”
He went to so many meetings that people began to complain. They said, “People worship God on Sunday because Sunday is the day of worship. Now you seem to worship so many days.”
You have to understand Chinese. The way we call the days of the week is worship one, worship two, worship three, worship four, worship five, worship six, and worship Sunday. That is the way the Chinese call the days of the week. So he said, “I worship every day.”
Did his business suffer? No. They respected him.
This is what I mean. If you really return to the Lord, you will find there are many things you can cut off. Many times you can say no, and the time you save, you can devote to the Lord.
This is what I mean by living a simple life. I do not mean that to live a simple life you have to drink water and eat bread. Even Paul said, because of your stomach, drink a little wine.
I would not suggest that you have to sleep on the floor. Actually, sleeping on the floor is better for me because of my back. But anyway, simple life is not measured by things or by whatever you possess. It is measured by your attitude before the Lord.
If your attitude before the Lord is right, you will find out that there are many things you can go without, and it will not hurt. It will work.
As to the other question, seeking first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things being added unto you, it is really the same thing. As Christians, certainly we should have our priorities set. Our priority is the kingdom of God and His righteousness.
Our priority is not, as with the people of the world, what we shall eat, what we shall drink, or what we shall be clothed with. Our heavenly Father knows these things. If we seek the kingdom first and His righteousness, He will add these things to us.
That does not mean that when you seek the kingdom of God and His righteousness first, you do not work. That is a misunderstanding. You may have to work. Paul said:
If any will not work, neither let him eat.
—2 Thessalonians 3:10
For that person, working may be seeking the kingdom of God. It does not mean that, if you seek the kingdom of God, you spend all your time in the church doing spiritual work and hope that heaven will provide for you. No. You will starve.
Dear brothers and sisters, I believe it is the will of God that we should sweat and work. As we work, God may begin to call us to do more of the work He has for us, until the time literally comes when it takes over. Then you will find that all these things are added unto you.
We do thank Brother Stephen for answering these questions. As you review all that he has said, he has basically said that we need to go to the Lord and find out what He has to say regarding these various matters. It is good to have principles, guidelines, and examples, but in the end we have to go to the Lord and find out how He is leading and dealing in our own personal life.
Lord, we just want to come to You and say that You are our life. In these questions that we share, we thank You for the practical help we receive from one another. But, Lord, we want to depend upon You and upon the wisdom that comes from above.
We thank You, Lord, that You are leading in all of our lives: some whom You are raising up into ministry and responsibility, and some who are desiring to be faithful to You in their jobs and in their homes. Lord, in whatever way, we ask that You give us wisdom to know how to number our days.
When we hear messages that the end is near and difficult times are at hand, it stirs us to want to be wholly and entirely for You. Yet we know at the same time, Lord, that You want us to be content in the situation we are in and learn how to rest and be satisfied with what You call us to.
Lord, teach us to number our days and to have wisdom to walk in a way that is pleasing to You. We thank You, Lord, for this counsel from Yourself. In Jesus’ name, amen.