Dear saints, let’s pray that the saints would to do everything in the table meeting—whether the singing and speaking of the hymns, prayer and praise, Bible reading, or words of inspiration—by taking the Lord as the center and would overflow with their personal experiences of Christ (Luke 22:19-20; John 20:14-18; Hymns, #863, ss. 1-3, 5).
All these verses [John 20:11-18; Luke 24:1-36] show how so many of the disciples in the early days, before they were in the meetings, had some strange, wonderful, and precious experiences of Christ. We also need to have this kind of personal experiences of our dear Lord in our daily life. Then when we come to the meeting, we have something bubbling and overflowing from us as a testimony to all the others. We have something as our experiences of Christ to speak about in the meeting. You know, many times when we are sharing something of our experiences of the Lord in the meeting, while we are talking, Jesus Himself is with us; we are so conscious of His presence in our midst. In our daily walk we need some extra portion from a sweet contact with the Lord Jesus that we may have something to bring to the meeting. Take this principle and put it into practice. Day by day we should have some personal, intimate, sweet contact with the Lord Jesus.
Many times I have had the same kind of experience as those two brothers going to Emmaus. Many times when I have opened the Bible, it seemed that I could not see Jesus in the Word, but after a while, it was so wonderful; Jesus appeared. My heart was bubbling and burning within me; then suddenly, it seemed that He disappeared, and I was so disappointed. Have you ever had this kind of experience? Then I have felt that I must go to the meeting and tell the brothers what a wonderful, personal contact I have had with Jesus that day and how He seemed to disappear. When I have gone to the meeting and while I was giving such a testimony, there Jesus was! Many times it is like this. We need the personal, sweet experiences of the resurrected Christ in our daily walk. (Collected Works of Witness Lee, 1969, vol. 1, “How to Meet,” ch. 3)
More details via Beseeching.org, day 401.