God Wants only our Cooperation: we need to Stop Ourselves and Let God Speak and Work

The Bible doesn’t give us a specific list of things we should do when serving God, but throughout the Bible we see a few important principles which we need to apply to our daily life for our cooperation with Him. One of these principles is that all our work and service in the church must not be initiated by us but by God, and it must be according to His desire.

Genuine service for God comes from God; God infuses us with a burden for what He wants to do, He reveals it to us, and then He operates in us both the willing and the working for His good pleasure. Only what is initiated by God is service according to revelation, and only the service coming from God is genuine service.

Throughout the Bible there are many examples of people who loved God and worshiped Him, and they did their best to serve Him, but their service was not from God nor was it in His way, and therefore their service was rejected by God.

Cain invented his own “religion” when he worshipped God not with the sacrifice of lambs (as God ordained) but with the fruit of his labor; his service and offering was rejected by God, and he hated and even killed his own brother because of religious jealousy.

Anything that is initiated or started by man – no matter how much it is for God and to “serve God” – it is a religious activity, and it results in division and confusion rather than the building up of the Body of Christ.

Seeing how damaging it is for us to initiate service for God, we need to open to the Lord, learn to live one spirit with Him, and in everything take Him as our source and originator, learning not to initiate things in serving God but simply enjoy Him and be one with Him.

On the positive side in Antioch in Acts 13 we see that five brothers of different backgrounds and races were ministering to the Lord, and the Holy Spirit initiated the service, calling out two of them – Paul and Silas – for the service.

May we be those who minister to the Lord and not initiate anything, but are fearful that what we are doing for God is not initiated by God but by ourselves.

God Wants only our Cooperation – He doesn’t Need us to Do Anything for Him

In serving the Lord we need to learn a very important principle: God wants only our cooperation – He doesn’t need us to initiate something or do anything for Him.

We see this very clearly in the example of David: king David had a good intention and heart to build a temple for God, a house for God to dwell in, but when God’s word came to him, he immediately stopped his work and let God work (2 Sam. 7).

David didn’t stop building the temple because he couldn’t build it or because he didn’t have the ability to do it, but he stopped simply because God didn’t want him to work. The fact that David stopped working for God when God wanted him to shows us two things: first, all the work in the universe should come from God, and second, what matters is not what man can do for God but what God does for man.

Before David could build a house for God, God first wanted to build David a house and establish his kingdom, and his seed after him will build God a house. However, David fell; even after God spoke to him, he still murdered Uriah and usurped his wife Bath-sheba (2 Sam. 11:2-17, 26-27) and numbered the children of Israel (2 Sam. 2:1-10).

After each of these failures he repented deeply, and our of his union with Bath-sheba came Solomon, who built the temple, and from his offering a sacrifice to appease God in His wrath for his numbering of the people came the site for the building of the temple (see 2 Sam. 24:18-25; 1 Chron. 21:1; 2 Chron. 3:1).

The son and the site for the building of the temple both came out of David’s being forgiven of his sins. Those who can see this will bow their head and worship God, saying, “It is not we who can do something for You, but You who does something for man.” We must learn deep within that God wants only our cooperation; He does not need us to do anything for Him. Even if we could do something for God, He does not need it; He needs only our cooperation. We must stop all our opinions, decisions, and ideas; we need to let Him speak, let Him come in, and let Him command. All we need to do is cooperate with Him. Witness Lee, Knowing Life and the Church, pp. 198-199

God wants us to cooperate with Him, but He doesn’t want us to initiate anything; we are not the initiators but the cooperators, those who work together with Him as the source of our service.

Our wonderful God is in us as the Initiator, originator, and Operator,a nd He needs our cooperation; we are His fellow workers (1 Cor. 3:9; 2 Cor. 6:1), doing the work of the Lord with the saints (1 Cor. 16:10).

Every day we need to begin our day in an intimate fellowship, enjoyment, and coordination with Him, loving Him with our first love, worshipping Him in spirit and reality, enjoying Him as our unique source, loving Him, and calling on Him, and He will have our cooperation.

We need to let God come in to speak, initiate, and command, we need to simply cooperate with Him. We simply need to be those who practice to be one spirit with Christ as the initiator, and we need to be those cooperating with Him to carry out the work for the building up of the church.

Lord Jesus, we want to learn deep within that God only wants our cooperation – He doesn’t need us to do anything for Him. May we learn to stop our doing and opinions and simply enjoy You, fellowship with You, and take You as our unique source and initiator, following Your lead and entering into Your work. Lord, may we realise that all the work in this universe should come from God, and may we let You work in us and on us so that we may work together with You, being Your fellow-worker in the work of the building up of the church as the Body of Christ!

In Serving God we must Stop Ourselves to Give God the Absolute Opportunity to Speak

How can we let God initiate the work if we are so full of opinions, ideas, and zeal to do something for God? Before we believed into the Lord we didn’t want to hear anything about God, but now that we love the Lord and have Him as our life within we have a great desire to serve Him and do things for Him.

However, before we do anything for God or work for God we need to stop ourselves, stop our opinions, and let God speak to us. In Job’s case, God waited for him and his friends to finish speaking and be silent, and then God came in to speak. When we are finished and have no more words to speak, God can come in to speak.

The unique requirement to receiving God’s revelation is to stop our speaking, our opinion, our view, and our self. However, it is easy to understand the principle of stopping ourselves but it is not easy to stop!

God’s counsel is darkened by man’s words; our opinions are expressed through our words, and when we speak and give our opinion, God is silent and withdraws.

We need to stop everything of ourselves in order to know God’s will, in order to receive a revelation of the mystery of His will (Eph. 1:9) and be renewed in our mind unto our transformation, so that we may know what the will of God is, that which is good and well pleasing and perfect (Rom. 12:1-2).

The only way for us to stop ourselves is to die; we need to live one with the crucified Christ, realizing that we are finished and the life we now live is in faith, in the organic intimate union with Christ to be one with Him as the source.

The deepest desire in the Lord’s heart and perhaps the top way for us to cooperate with Him to serve Him is by practicing to be joined to the Lord as one spirit (1 Cor. 6:17). We need to practice staying in the romantic, organic union with the Lord as our source, so that He would have a way to build up the church.

In the matter of serving God, we must stop ourselves in order to give God the absolute opportunity to speak.

The four living creatures in Ezek. 1 were very busy, running to-and-fro on earth to accomplish God’s economy, but when God spoke, they stopped and lowered their wings to listen (Ezek. 1:25). We may be busy in serving God, but we need to stop and listen to Him, take Him as our unique source, and have a coordinated living and serving by taking God as the source in our service.

The Lord’s directing is by His speaking and by our having an ear to hear Him. We need to have an ear to hear what the Spirit says to the churches; when we love Him with the best love, we will do the first works and have an ear bored through at the doorpost, listening to the Lord’s speaking.

If we don’t listen to the Lord’s speaking, giving Him an opportunity to speak, He will withdraw and, as we initiate things and do things for Him, He will interrupt. Oh, Lord Jesus! We need to exercise to listen to the Lord by stopping ourselves and letting Him speak, giving Him the absolute opportunity to speak.

Lord Jesus, save us from darkening Your counsel by expressing our opinions and ideas in serving God. We want to learn and exercise to stop ourselves, stop our opinion, stop our view, and stop our self in serving God. Oh Lord, we wan to practice staying in the romantic organic union with You as our source so that You may have a way to build up the church! Come in, Lord, and have the full opportunity to speak, command, and direct us. We give You our best love. Circumcise our ears. We freshly give You our ear to hear You as our Master, the Speaking Spirit!

References and Hymns on this Topic

• Inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message for this week, and Knowing Life and the Church (pp. 191-201, by Witness Lee), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Service for the Building up of the Church (2016 Spring ITERO), week 4 / msg. 4, The Service that is from God.
• All Bible verses are taken from, Holy Bible Recovery Version.
• Hymns on this topic:
  # Oh Lord, we would cooperate / With all Thy Spirit’s inward move; / That we’d become Thy masterpiece, / Th’ eternal purpose thus to prove. (Hymns #1120)
  # I dwell with the King for His work, / The work, it is His and not mine; / He plans and prepares it for me / And fills me with power divine. / So duty is changed to delight, / And prayer into praise as I sing; / I dwell with my King for His work / And work in the strength of my King. (Hymns #904)
  # To wait on the eternal God / Means that we terminate ourselves. / That we stop ourselves with our living, / Our doing, and activity; / Receive God in Christ / As our life, our person, replacement. / Receive God in Christ / As our life, our person, replacement. (Song on being replaced by Christ)