What a wonderful change in my life has been wrought

In addition to the organic gospel preaching, the organic nourishing, and the organic perfecting, we must pay attention to one other point, which is to avoid organizational arrangements. For example, suppose the district meetings are in the saints' homes, and one district has only ten to twenty saints. However, since the responsible brothers have said that there should be at least thirty people in each district, the saints might try to find ways to reach this number. Since the responsible brothers have also said that nothing should be done individually but that everything should be done in groups, they might assign everyone to a group, deciding which ones should be in each group. None of this is organic. If we are organic, there are a great deal of things that we can and may do, but the crucial question is whether or not we are living and organic. If we are organic, there is no need for such arrangements. Neither is there a need to form groups in an organizational way. For example, suppose a family of three is baptized. If we have a burden to take care of them, we will first pray. After prayer someone may suggest that we visit them twice this week, once on Wednesday night and then on Saturday night. As everyone agrees, we go and knock on the door of this family. Before the door is opened, we can start to sing, "Since Jesus came into my heart!" (Hymns, #309). As we sing, the door will open, and we can sing as we enter the house. In this way this home meeting will begin the moment we knock on their door.

A nursing mother must eat and digest her own food in order to have milk to supply her children. We should not think that the home meetings are easy. The home meetings depend on whether we are living or dead. Before going out, we need to come together to pray thoroughly for those whom we are about to visit. We need to pray until we are filled with the Holy Spirit. We may even begin to sing the hymn "Since Jesus came into my heart!" (Hymns, #309). When we enter a person's home in this way, he will be enlivened by us. Whatever a living person says is living. However, if we rigidly knock on the door, go in and sit down, speak on the Life Lessons for half an hour in a dry way, and then chat about the weather, this home meeting will surely be dead. During a meeting a new believer may disclose that he has recently quarreled with his wife; if we are living, we will be able to speak a word to him organically according to his situation.

We should not think that if we speak spiritual matters to a new one who was saved only yesterday, he will not understand. Once a person is saved, we need to visit him the following day in order to have a home meeting in his home. Even if the new believer does not understand anything, we still need to find a spiritual lifeline to feed him. For instance, the first item in Christian meetings is hymn singing. Thus, when we visit a new believer, we can bring a recording of a song and play it so that the new one can listen. Whenever we sing hymns, people's hearts open up. Suppose we sing "Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine; / Oh, what a foretaste of glory divine!" (Hymns, #308) or "What a wonderful change in my life has been wrought/ Since Jesus came into my heart! / I have light in my soul for which long I had sought,/ Since Jesus came into my heart!" (Hymns, #309). When we lead a new believer to sing, his mouth will open, and his open mouth will cause his heart and spirit also to open. After singing a hymn, we can select several lines from the hymn to pray over, and then we can continue to sing. By singing and praying, the new believer's spirit will come alive.

If we have made an appointment with the brothers and sisters to have a home meeting at 7:30 tonight, then by 6:30 we should be ready. We should begin singing. We do not begin the meeting at the meeting place. Rather, we begin it before we leave our house. Perhaps while we walk we sing, "Since Jesus came into my heart!" (Hymns, #309). We do not have to wait until we knock on the door before we sing. We can sing one stanza for each floor that we ascend. When we reach the saint's home and while we are ringing the bell, we can still sing, "Since Jesus came into my heart!" Those inside the door who hear the singing may respond by singing also, "Since Jesus came into my heart! Floods of joy o'er my soul like the sea billows roll, since Jesus came into my heart!" The children in the house may then echo the singing. How living that would be!

The Bible says clearly that we must understand God's word, pray, speak, and sing. We must know and understand the truth (1 Tim. 2:4). We also must continue steadfastly in prayer and in the ministry of the word (Acts 6:4). The apostles prayed until there was an earthquake, and they had the power to speak the word of God (4: 31). Speaking is the main thing. Nevertheless, the book of Ephesians tells us that we should also sing and psalm with our heart to the Lord (5:19). Furthermore, Colossians 3:16 says that the word of Christ should dwell in us richly through psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. However, we do not need to spend a great amount of time to study how to sing or how to arrange music. In the proper order of things, the young people should come to the meetings with hymns; they should come to the small group meetings with hymns that contain the truth, such as "Since Jesus came into my heart!" (Hymns, #309). Everyone must learn and emphasize the truth.

Stanzas 2, 3, 4, and 5 are completely different:

2. All sin's bonds, inward, outward, have fallen away,
Since Jesus came into my heart;
Lust of flesh can no more captivate me today,
Since Jesus came into my heart.

3. This world's pleasures are colorless, tasteless to me,
Since Jesus came into my heart;
Life's anxieties, too, have no hold upon me,
Since Jesus came into my heart.

4. All my wand'ring has ceased, life no longer feels vain,
Since Jesus came into my heart;
His sweet rest satisfies me again and again,
Since Jesus came into my heart.

5. All my old ways are gone and I love them no more,
Since Jesus came into my heart;
Path of righteousness run, with blest hope set before,
Since Jesus came into my heart.

We are not preaching philosophy or religious doctrines, nor are we persuading men to join a dead religion. We are speaking the truth to people and showing them the proper path. God created man with a spirit so that man could receive Him. We were created by God, and in us there is a God-created spirit; therefore, we need God. If we do not have God, our life will be empty, vain, void of real power, without a center, and without meaning. For human life to be meaningful, we must receive this God and Savior Jesus. He is waiting for us to receive Him. He is the Spirit, and He desires to enter into our spirit to be our life, content, and calming power. Only through Him can our human life have a center, content, goal, and foundation; only then can we be satisfied. This is a tremendous gospel. I hope that when you hear this gospel, you will open up from within and pray, "o Lord Jesus, I thank You. You are God, You are the Creator of the universe, and You are also my Creator. You died on the cross to bear my sins so that I could receive You into me to be my life, content, and meaning." If you would receive the Lord Jesus deep within, your life will be like the hymn that says, "What a wonderful change in my life has been wrought/ Since Jesus came into my heart!" (Hymns, #309, stanza 1).

Some people say that Christ is the model for mankind and that we should imitate Him. If we try to imitate Christ with our natural life, we will be like a monkey in the zoo trying to imitate a human by eating a meal with a knife and a fork. If a trainer holds a whip and stands nearby, the monkey will behave itself and eat properly and slowly with a knife and fork. But as soon as the trainer walks away, the monkey will show its true nature and eat with His fingers. Monkeys do not have man's life; hence, they cannot have man's living. In the same principle, we cannot imitate Christ, because our life is corrupt. If we try, we will be like a monkey imitating a man. The way of God's salvation is not by imitation, but by God entering into us as our life and living in us. In this way, we can live Him out, rather than just imitating Him in an outward way. The Lord Jesus desires to enter into us and live in us; what a glory this is!

In God's way of salvation, He redeems us from our sinful, fallen, corrupt, and lost position. He also regenerates us by entering into us as the Spirit to be our life. Through regeneration we have God's life in addition to man's life. God's life is divine, glorious, holy, and good. This life enables us to have a divine living, to know God, and to express God by living Him out. Hymns, #309 says, "What a wonderful change in my life has been wrought / Since Jesus came into my heart!" This is the glorious gospel of God.

When we preach the gospel, we should also be familiar with hymns on the assurance of salvation, such as Hymns, #309. It is not difficult for young people to sing hymns, because many of them have a good foundation in music. It is especially not difficult for the sisters to sing hymns, because God created them in this way. In Ecclesiastes 12:4 Solomon is referring to the vocal chords when he mentions "the daughters of song." When young people sing, there truly is music.

Among the hymns on the assurance of salvation, Hymns, #322, which is about "the Fountain that never runs dry," is a good hymn. Another good hymn is #296, which was written by Charles Wesley. This is not an emotional hymn; it is very elegant. The first stanza says, "And can it be that I should gain / An int'rest in the Savior's blood? / Died He for me, who caused His pain? / For me, who Him to death pursued? / Amazing love! how can it be / That Thou, my God, shouldst die for me?" The fourth stanza is also very good. When the young saints invite their professors to a meeting, it is good to sing hymns with them. We can choose a stanza that we like and lead our professors to sing with us. This will help them to receive the Lord Jesus. When we sing a hymn, others should be touched. We should then sing with them according to how they are touched. Hymns, #499 is also a good hymn to sing. If we are always singing these hymns, it will be difficult for our gospel friends not to be touched and to believe in the Lord.

Hence, to experience Christ, we need to see that Christ is the Spirit. If He were not the Spirit, we could not experience Him, and He could not come into us. Ephesians 3:17 says, "That Christ may make His home in your hearts through faith." The chorus of Hymns, #309 says, "Since Jesus came into my heart!" If Christ is not the Spirit, how can He come into my heart and make His home in my heart? We should not merely repeat what others say. Perhaps we do not understand this mystery, but we must know this fact and experience this reality. Since Christ as the Spirit lives in our heart today, we can sing, "Floods of joy o'er my soul like the sea billows roll." Throughout the generations, Christians who love the Lord all have experienced the joy of the Lord's making His home in their hearts by their having intimate fellowship with the Lord and touching His Spirit in their spirit. Although many of them can neither understand nor speak this truth, they have experienced the reality. Every word of the Lord is established. Hence, we may not understand why, but if we just "amen" His word, we will have the reality.