3. Go Bear Fruit
The Lord
having chosen us to go forth and bear fruit
Witness Lee held clearly in view the commission from the Lord not to produce a local church movement or a Lord’s recovery movement but to bear fruit! To bear fruit is what the vine does automatically because of the fruit-bearing life within. God is not producing a Lord’s recovery movement. Neither are His dear believers in the local churches producing a local church movement. Rather, there is an activity in life, bearing fruit.
You did not choose Me, but I chose you, and I appointed you that you should go forth and bear fruit.” (John 15:16). … from the time I first began to serve the Lord, He has been in me as my motivating power. This has been true even until today.
While I was walking on the road on the evening that I was saved, I was touched by the Lord within. At that time I did not know what it meant to be touched; nor did I know what it was to be chosen. But I lifted up my eyes to heaven and said to God, “O God, from this day on, even if the whole earth is offered to me, I will not take it. I will take the Bible and go to the villages house by house to tell people to believe in Jesus.” … I did not realize that by those few words I had sealed myself for God. Later, after I graduated from school, the Lord said to me, “Did you not say that you wanted to go to the villages with your Bible?” I tried to find reasons for retracting. But after some time, the Lord reminded me again, “Did you not say that you wanted to go to the villages with your Bible?” … There was something within that could not be shaken away. … it is the Lord’s choosing. … He does not let you go.
By this testimony you see that the Lord operated by life in Witness Lee from his initial salvation through his whole life. This was not a Lord’s recovery movement or a local church movement but the move of God by life.
It was the Lord who had chosen Peter and called Peter, He said, “I will make you fishers of men” (Matt. 4:19). After three and a half years, the Lord sent Peter forth to bear fruit (John 15:16). To be a fisher of men may still be an outward activity; but to bear fruit is an outflow of the inward life. It is a transmission, an expression, and a dispensing of life. For this the Lord charged Peter to abide in Him (John 15:4). … We are all branches, which are grafted into this tree. … We must live together with Him. He is our life within and we are His expression without, living Him out in our life. It is in this condition that we bear fruit ... fruit-bearing is not a movement in work (not a local church movement or a Lord’s recovery movement) but a result in life through man living before the Lord and being joined to Him.
Outwardly speaking, our spread … has some organization and arrangement. But … we are after … the things of life behind all these arrangements, activities, and moves.
Witness Lee repeatedly cautioned against doing something beyond what God was doing by His life within. Witness Lee never would agree to something merely as a Lord’s recovery movement and what he produced is not a local church movement.
Contents
1. God's Move 2. Movement or Life 3. Go Bear Fruit 4. Fresh and Mature 5. Dealing 6. Life Action Key Verses
Suggested Sites
Local Churches
Local Church
Lord's Recovery
church in Salt Lake City
