Dear Ray,
We have treated vision much as we have treated reckoning. To have a vision means that we see something, understand it, or comprehend its spiritual significance. That can be valuable. But seeing something isn’t the same as entering it, and comprehending a truth isn’t the same as experiencing its reality.
Suppose I develop a magnificent vision of cooking. I read the finest cookbooks. I study the greatest chefs. I learn the history of French cuisine and can explain precisely how heat transforms every ingredient. I imagine myself standing confidently in a beautiful kitchen. I strengthen that image with positive declarations: “I am a great cook. I understand cooking. I have the vision of cooking.”
All of this may be wonderful—except for one troubling fact:
I’m not cooking.
There is no food on the table. No aroma fills the house. No one is being fed. My vision of cooking has become a substitute for cooking itself.
I believe the Recovery suffers deeply from this problem. We have become so knowledgeable about the higher things of God that we are more than willing to explain cooking. We explain it, memorize the explanation, repeat it in the meetings, and train others to communicate the same “vision.” We become increasingly skilled at describing the ingredients, the kitchen, and the meal. Because everyone around us uses the same language, we assume that the meal must have been served.
But where is the food?
We can explain God’s eternal purpose, God’s economy, the Body of Christ, the New Jerusalem, the mingling of God and man, and Christ as the life-giving Spirit. We may possess what Witness Lee presented as the highest vision of the age. Yet after decades of hearing this stratospheric vision, are we actually living in God? Are we abiding in Christ? Are we speaking from the Spirit—or merely repeating what the vision taught us to say?
I don’t believe the early saints possessed our vast, systematized, stratospheric vision. They probably couldn’t have explained many of the things we explain today. Yet they possessed something more revolutionary: the immediate experience of Christ as their life.
They didn’t need to reckon themselves into a spiritual position. They didn’t need to imagine themselves living in the heavenlies. They didn’t need to continually announce that they were standing in faith. They abided in Christ. They remained quiet until the word of life rose within them. Then, when they opened their mouths, something living came out. They may have lacked our vocabulary, but they possessed the reality our vocabulary describes.
Whether we call it reckoning, seeing the vision, standing in faith, or declaring the accomplished facts, none of these is necessarily the experience of abiding. None of them is the engine of resurrection. Resurrection isn’t activated by mental agreement, doctrinal accuracy, positive declarations, or the determination of the will. Resurrection is Christ Himself rising, moving, speaking, and living within us.
What I experienced last Lord’s Day wasn’t a high point of this resurrection life. It was a low point. I heard explanations of the vision, further details about the vision, and attempts to encourage everyone to continue learning the vision. The answer to our spiritual need appeared to be more instruction, greater accuracy, and a stronger determination to keep learning.
But I didn’t experience the meal. I experienced people explaining the recipe.
There may have been nothing outwardly wrong with what was said. It may all have been accurate according to the ministry. Yet the accuracy itself made the absence of life more painful. We spoke about the riches of Christ without being brought into the immediate experience of Christ. We were encouraged to keep learning when what we desperately needed was to stop, become quiet, and abide.
This exposes one of our deepest problems: the mind is always willing to perform the work assigned to the spirit. The mind sees, understands, organizes, memorizes, and repeats. It then congratulates itself for having entered the reality. But it hasn’t entered anything. It has only constructed a mental representation of spiritual life.
The will then joins the deception. It promises to accomplish what only the Spirit can do: “I will reckon. I will stand. I will overcome. I will live according to the vision.” But the stronger the natural will becomes, the more easily it occupies the place belonging to the indwelling Christ.
Perhaps even our greatest vision must pass through the cross. The issue is no longer whether we can explain God’s purpose.
The issue is whether Christ is presently living it through us.
The world doesn’t need our vision of cooking.
It needs the food.
Your brother,
Brent
