The Meetings and Spiritual Exercise of the Local Church

Additional Quotes about the Local Church by Watchman Nee and Witness Lee

In this excerpt, Witness Lee relates calling on the Lord with reading the Bible.

Paul in Ephesians 6 said that the Spirit today is the word. The Bible must become the word as the Spirit. This means your Bible must be one with the Spirit. Your Bible is the Spirit, and the Spirit is your Bible. How can we get this? There is no other way except by calling on the Lord, by touching the Lord daily and moment by moment. If we are all such persons living in the presence of the Lord by calling on Him, by praying to Him unceasingly day after day and hour after hour, we will be the reality of the fulfillment of the typology in 1 and 2 Kings.

This is my strong burden I would fellowship with the elders. Every local church needs this. Do not invent many formalities. You yourself should practice calling on the Lord. You yourself should practice pray-reading the word as the Spirit. You need to practice the unceasing prayer. You need to practice never quenching the Spirit, but rather, fanning the Spirit all the time into flame. You need to practice not despising any prophesying.

(Witness Lee, Living a Life, 32-33)

Elsewhere, Witness Lee exhorts the believers to cultivate the spiritual exercise of calling—drinking the water of life—together with praying and reading the Scriptures:

Make calling, praying, and reading three-in-one. Then it will be hard to discern whether you are reading, praying, or calling on the name of the Lord. While you are calling, you are praying; while you are praying, you are reading; while you are reading, you are praying; while you are praying, you are calling. Then the word of the Bible becomes spirit and life to you (John 6:63). It is by this way that we take the Lord into us all the time.

…At the end of the whole Bible, the last call from God is a call to take the water of life freely (22:17). The Spirit and the bride yearn that the thirsty ones would come to take the water of life for their satisfaction. When you drink the water, you get the food. This is God’s final call, and this will produce the new city, the holy city, the New Jerusalem. All that we need is to come and drink the water of life that we may feed on Christ as the tree of life. This will produce the Body of Christ, the church life, the local churches, and ultimately the holy city, New Jerusalem.

(Witness Lee, Growth of Christ, 20-21)

We receive the Word as the Spirit by calling on the Lord. Regarding this practice, Witness Lee remarks:

The submission comes out of the seed that has been sown into us. The divine power has given us all the things pertaining to life and godliness. This power is the Spirit within us. We also have been given the great and precious promises in the Word outside of us. We should not keep away from the Spirit within and the Word without. We have to continually contact the Spirit within and pray-read the Word without. We do not merely study the Word as a book. We pray-read the Word by calling upon the name of the Lord. We have the Spirit within as the divine power and the holy book without as the great and precious promises. All the riches of the divine life are our portion for us to enjoy. When we enjoy these riches, we will have the expression of life, godliness, in our living. Our living will be one of godliness, the expression of God as life.

Main

Meetings

Lord’s Table

Prayer

Prophesying

Small Group

Gospel

Children’s

OT Type

Spiritual Exercise

Reading

Praying

Singing

Speaking

Thanksgiving

Praising

Serving

Calling

Pray-Reading

Bibliography

Links