Contacting the Lord in a Definite and Prevailing Way

In chapter 3 of Contacting the Lord, Being Filled in Spirit, and Having Proper Christian Meetings for the Accomplishment of God’s Eternal Purpose, Brother Witness Lee refers to a “crisis” in his early life with the Lord in 1931. He had been saved for a number of years and was a faithful and dutiful Christian. Though he was given to the study of the Bible and was entering into church service, the Spirit’s conviction within was that he was dead and barren. For a period of seven months, he went up to a mountain near his home every morning for a lengthy period of time. He went not to pray for matters, persons, or things. During this time, he learned how to contact the Lord in a definite and prevailing way. He learned how to confess his failure and shortage under the Lord’s enlightening. He learned how to be filled with the Spirit by crying out to the Lord and calling on His name. He learned the difference between being religious and being spiritual. 

Out of this new and living contact with the Lord came his entrance into the ministry and the beginning of the church life in Chefoo. Both his living and his service were changed by this “crisis.” He often shared that genuine spiritual experience involves a crisis and a way. The crisis leads us onto a way. Often, without the crisis, it is difficult for us to walk on the way. The crisis serves as a doorway into the proper experience. Looking back after many years, Brother Lee often pointed to this experience as the model for the beginnings of a vital group. He put his trust less in organization and more in the saints’ living contact with the Lord.

Brother Witness Lee shares the following in the chapter mentioned at the beginning of this post:

God’s desire is that all His people would be genuinely spiritual. However, in order for us to become spiritual, we all need to have at least one time when we come to the Lord and are met by Him in a definite way. We must come to the Lord in a definite, purposeful way, not to pray for various things but to meet the Lord and to be met by Him. We must tell the Lord, “Lord, here I am. I am ready to be searched by You. I am ready for You to meet me, break me, and speak to me. I am ready. Lord, here I am.” We all need to go to the Lord and have such a time with Him at least once in our life. (Contacting the Lord, Being Filled in Spirit, and Having Proper Christian Meetings for the Accomplishment of God’s Eternal Purpose, ch.3)

Maybe some of us have never had a time like this in our life. Maybe others have, but the onslaught of human life with its increasing responsibilities, the draw of the world, and the snare of anxiety have snubbed out the flame of our consecration. Others, perhaps, have remained faithful brothers and sisters in the Lord’s recovery yet still have an inner registration of deadness and dryness as our former burden has slowly deteriorated into religious obligation. Maybe our consecration is not up-to-date with the changes in our human life, Christian life, and church life.

Whatever our current situation may be, we all need a reminder to keep our contact with the Lord fresh and living by spending the time to contact Him in a definite and prevailing way. We may have a general contact with the Lord in morning revival, Bible and ministry reading, and in the church meetings. Along with this, we need to contact Him in a definite way, in a particular, special, and desperate way to cry out to Him and to be beside ourselves to God. In addition, our contact with the Lord should be prevailing, meaning that it should be powerful and effective. Though we should not have any expectation regarding what the Lord will do in this time, we should go with the expectation that we will meet the Lord and will be met by Him.

We may not have seven months, but at least we can set aside seven days to spend some additional time with the Lord, if not in the morning then at some other time during the day. During this time, our burden should not be to study the truth or to bear particular burdens before the Lord but to be refreshed, to be revived, to be revitalized. We should learn to go to the Lord without a particular agenda other than to meet Him and to be met by Him. May we all find some time to set aside before the Lord, particularly in such a time as this in the Lord’s recovery and in the Lord’s move!

(Please respond with testimonies of your experience in line with Brother Lee’s for our mutual encouragement, exhortation, and learning.)