Life-Study of Genesis Quotes

“The tree of life is the center of the universe. According to the purpose of God, the earth is the center of the universe, the garden of Eden is the center of the earth, and the tree of life is the center of the garden of Eden. We must realize that the whole universe is centered on this tree of life: nothing is more central and crucial to both God and man than this tree. It is very meaningful to see man in the garden standing before the tree of life.”
― Witness Lee, Life-Study of Genesis

“The tent was for Abraham’s living. Abraham did not take care of his living first. That was secondary. With Abraham, the primary matter [560] was to consecrate everything to God, to worship and serve God, and to have fellowship with God. Only then did Abraham pitch a tent for his living.”
― Witness Lee, Life-Study of Genesis

“Calling on the name of the Lord follows the building up of an altar to the very God who has appeared to us. In the church life, under the oak of Moreh, we have the intimate appearing of the Lord. What shall we do in response to this? We should build an altar to Him and put everything we are and have on the altar. We need to tell the Lord that everything we are and have is for Him, and then we need to call on the name of the Lord to [549] maintain a deeper, richer, and more intimate fellowship with Him.”
― Witness Lee, Life-Study of Genesis

“Whenever we read a line of the Bible, we must say, “Lord Jesus, let me contact You in the divine Word. Lord, You are the living Word. Without You as the living Word I can receive nothing as life from the written Word. Lord, I must contact You. Although You are so mysterious, I praise You that You have given me such a tangible Word. This Word is solid, concrete, and substantial. I thank You for the Word that I can read and pray with. Yet, Lord, what I need is not the letter in black and white, but You, the living Spirit.”
― Witness Lee, Life-Study of Genesis

“Lord, I contact You in Your way. I don’t contact You by my thought, concept, or knowledge. Lord, You are my way.”
― Witness Lee, Life-Study of Genesis

“After having had so many dealings under God’s hand, Jacob was undoubtedly tired of human life. He was weary of supplanting, cheating, struggling, and fighting.”
― Witness Lee, Life-Study of Genesis

“However, there is no retirement in the spiritual life, and God intervened to upset what appeared to be Jacob’s retirement.”
― Witness Lee, Life-Study of Genesis

“You can never forget His appearing and His speaking to you.”
― Witness Lee, Life-Study of Genesis

“Neither Noah nor his sons were for their own interests. They were all for God’s goal. What was God’s goal? God’s goal was that man should express Him and represent Him. Noah and his family had no other God and no other goal. Their goal was not farming, education, or industry. Their goal was not their own self-interests. Their unique goal was to express God and represent Him. We must be deeply impressed with this. Although we have one God, we may have different goals. If we have different goals, we shall be divided. What is your goal? Is it to make a name for yourself or to be famous? Is it to build up something other than God’s purpose? We are here in Anaheim to express God and represent Him. We have a strong standing to declare to the whole universe, even to Satan and to all the rebellious angels, principalities, powers, and demons, that we, the local churches, are standing one with God for His purpose. Our unique goal is to express our God. We are here to express Him.”
― Witness Lee, Life-Study of Genesis

“However, if you live the church life, the very Christ whom you offer to God will heal you. He is better than any psychiatrist. Do not go to a psychiatrist—come to Christ and offer Him to God. Then you will be healthy, sober, and emotionally balanced.”
― Witness Lee, Life-Study of Genesis

“Since the church life is the proper life, it brings in God’s blessing. Peace, joy, love, sympathy, kindness, normal living—all are signs of such a blessing of life which comes by the experience of Christ through the cross.”
― Witness Lee, Life-Study of Genesis

“As long as he can keep us from God’s way and frustrate us in fulfilling God’s purpose, Satan will even motivate us to do things for God. This was how he worked in Cain.”
― Witness Lee, Life-Study of Genesis

“As the Almighty God, Jesus is high, but when He came to us as food He was lowly. He was a loaf of bread. He was even the crumbs under the table (Matt. 15:21-27). The very Jesus who came to us as life in the form of food was not tall and great; He was small and lowly.”
― Witness Lee, Life-Study of Genesis

“When we realize that our need corresponds to God’s need and then pray accordingly, God will answer our prayer. Actually, His answer to our prayer is the fulfillment of His purpose. Our need must be God’s need, and the prayer for our need should also be the prayer for God’s need. When our need corresponds with God’s and when we then pray for our need, God’s need will be met also. When Isaac prayed for a child, whose need was greater—Isaac’s or God’s? Surely God’s need was greater. Nevertheless, the greater need of God could only be fulfilled in the smaller need of Isaac. Only when man realizes his need and prays for it does God have the way to come in to fulfill His need. God has a purpose, and we have a need which corresponds to God’s purpose. But God cannot do anything until we realize our need and pray about it. Then God will answer our prayer to meet our need for the fulfillment of His purpose. Eventually, Isaac had a son, Jacob, who not only fulfilled Isaac’s need but also fulfilled God’s eternal purpose. [845] Out of Jacob came Christ, who brings in the church, the kingdom, and the New Jerusalem. All these eternal things came about through the meeting of Isaac’s need, a need which corresponded with God’s need.”
― Witness Lee, Life-Study of Genesis

“Whenever we participate in and enjoy God’s provision, we have a vision. We see God and He sees us. Because we are in His provision and have the vision, everything is clear, nothing is opaque, and there is no separation between us and Him.”
― Witness Lee, Life-Study of Genesis

“There are a great many Hagars in the Christian world today. Do you want to live a Christian life by yourself? It is better for you to stop. Do you want to preach the gospel with worldly means? It is better that you stop this as well. Stop living the Christian life by yourself and stop working for the Lord with worldly means. Then you may say, “If I stop, I’ll be finished.” That is right. That is exactly what God expects. Although Abraham fully answered God’s call when he was seventy-five, God did not do anything with him until he was ninety-nine because until then he still had his natural strength.”
― Witness Lee, Life-Study of Genesis

“To exist is one thing, and to fulfill God’s purpose is another.”
― Witness Lee, Life-Study of Genesis

“At Babel, men built a tower to make a name for themselves. At Shechem, Abraham did not build anything to make himself a name; he built an altar for calling on the name of the Lord (12:8).”
― Witness Lee, Life-Study of Genesis

“God did not appear to Abraham without speaking to him. When He came to Abraham, He called him. God spoke to Abraham. Calling means speaking. It is not a small thing to hear God’s speaking.”
― Witness Lee, Life-Study of Genesis

“When you come to our meetings, you can see nothing outwardly. But in all [454] probability you do see something—God Himself expressed. Perhaps after attending a meeting you wonder within yourself, “My, it was very good there with them, but I can’t pin down exactly in what way they are good. Their singing is not that musical. No one is dressed in an attractive way. There is no outward beauty or form. But, there is something there among them.” This “something” is the expression of God. God is our expression. He is our form, beauty, and attraction. As the church, we have returned to God’s original purpose, to the purpose He had in the beginning—that man express Him and represent Him. This is the Lord’s recovery.”
― Witness Lee, Life-Study of Genesis

“Whenever you feel that you are weak, you must call for God’s faithfulness, saying, “O God, You are faithful. I am weak, but You must make me strong according to Your Word.” We are all living under the covenant with God’s faithfulness as the sure sign that the flood will not come. This is the church life.”
― Witness Lee, Life-Study of Genesis

“To love the world is to feed on the dead things condemned and judged by God.”
― Witness Lee, Life-Study of Genesis

“This age is truly crooked, perverse, and adulterous; it is full of fornication and immorality. People talk about immorality without one bit of shame. Who can stand in such a generation? Not one of us is able to stand. We all have a fallen nature within us, the same evil nature that all men have. We need grace. We must come to the throne of grace boldly and say, “Lord, I am here. I need Your grace. I am not coming to ask You to give me good things. I am coming to find grace to meet my need. Lord, I cannot go to work or to school without Your presence. Lord, I cannot go to a department store without Your presence. Lord, I need You to stand with me. Come to be my strength. Lord, uphold me and sustain me.”
― Witness Lee, Life-Study of Genesis

“Why do people attend the movies and go dancing? Because [327] they are empty. They do not have God as their joy. The reason I do not attend the movies is not because the church has a regulation against it. The church does not have a list of commandments against such things. However, although there is no such prohibition, I would not attend a movie even if you paid me thousands of dollars to do it. I have something better. I am filled with Christ and I have no capacity for anything else.”
― Witness Lee, Life-Study of Genesis

“What is the church? The church is a part of Christ; it is nothing less than Christ Himself. The church is the element of Christ in the believers. When this element in so many believers is added together, it equals the church. The church is not a composition of Americans, Mexicans, Japanese, and Chinese. The church is the totality of the Christ in all His believers.”
― Witness Lee, Life-Study of Genesis

“Knowledge or religion means to be good and to do good, to worship God or to work for God without having the living presence of God.”
― Witness Lee, Life-Study of Genesis

“The disciples, under the influence of a natural, religious concept, asked Him, “Who sinned, this man or his parents, that he should be born blind?” (v. 2). Listen to the Lord’s answer. “Neither has this man sinned nor his parents, but that the works of God might be manifested in him” (John 9:3). Here is the significance of the Lord’s reply: people always appraise situations according to yes or no, right or wrong, which are the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, but the Lord Jesus always brings people back to the tree of life, which is God Himself.”
― Witness Lee, Life-Study of Genesis

“To merely search the Scriptures is to come to the tree of knowledge; to contact the Lord through the Word is to come to the tree of life.”
― Witness Lee, Life-Study of Genesis

“Christ is the bread of life (John 6:35). Whatever we take into us as food will be assimilated into our being. This is very meaningful and significant. God is life to us in the form of food. We need to receive Him by eating Him. Once God enters into us, He becomes the flow of life within us. For proper eating we need food and drink. John 6 covers the bread of life for our eating, and John 7 covers the living water for our drinking.”
― Witness Lee, Life-Study of Genesis

“God has a purpose, and for the fulfillment of His purpose He created man as a vessel to contain Him, making him with a human spirit. The Lord Jesus told the Samaritan woman that God is Spirit and they that worship Him must worship in spirit (John 4:24). If we are going to worship God, we must use the proper organ. For example, we cannot drink water with our ears, but with our mouth. God is living water. If we want to drink Him as our living water, we must exercise our spirit to contact Him. When we exercise our spirit to contact God the Spirit, we are actually drinking of God as the living water (John 4:24, 14). Thus, God made man with a spirit to contact and worship Him.”
― Witness Lee, Life-Study of Genesis