Our daily lives, made up mainly of obligations towards our families and jobs, are filled with many routine tasks. Although we may dedicate some of the precious time in our busy schedules to reading and studying different ministry publications, much of our time is inescapably occupied with mundane matters, when there is still so much of the ministry to be explored. How can we redeem some of this lost time? Recently Living Stream Ministry has developed a new feature on www.ministrybooks.org, making an enormous amount of the ministry available in audio format. Now we can redeem and even treasure the time we spend performing menial tasks by making fresh discoveries in the ministry publications.

We need to redeem these times not merely because our days are busy but because the days are evil. Ephesians 5:15-16 says, “Look therefore carefully how you walk, not as unwise, but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil.” Since the days are evil, we need to consider carefully how we can redeem the time in our daily walk. Commenting on these verses in the Life-study of Ephesians, Witness Lee explains:

To redeem the time is to seize every available opportunity. This is to be wise in our walk. We must redeem the time because the days are evil. In this evil age (Gal. 1:4), every day is an evil day, full of pernicious things which destroy, injure, and spoil our time. Therefore, we must walk wisely that we may redeem the time, seizing every available opportunity. If we do not seize every opportunity, our time will be wasted. Many evil things will come in to distract us and frustrate us. We may be distracted by telephone calls, letters, or visitors. We may be enjoying the presence of the Lord and suddenly be attacked through a negative telephone call. Because the days are evil, we must be on the alert to take advantage of every opportunity. (p. 433)

Although most may agree completely that we need to seize every available opportunity and redeem the time, it may still seem to us that we simply do not have enough occasions to sit down and devote more time to getting into the truth. We would, however, like to highlight some activities in our daily lives, such as cooking meals, doing the dishes, cleaning the house, or commuting to and from work, that are excellent opportunities to redeem our time without neglecting our human responsibilities. We can redeem and fill these activities by listening to the ministry. In this way, we not only seize an available opportunity to redeem the time but also to avail ourselves of the life supply available to us through the ministry and receive the grace needed to live Christ. Witness Lee himself testified to the benefit that listening to the ministry had on his wife:

Although I have labored much on the Life-study messages by speaking and polishing them, I still enjoy reading them again. Each time I read the messages, they are altogether new to me. My wife also enjoys listening to the audio tapes of the Life-study messages while taking care of household chores. She can testify that each time she listens to the messages, she receives fresh light and spiritual nourishment. We need to read the Life-study messages in order to receive a revelation concerning Christ and to receive the life supply so that we may experience Christ in our daily life. (The Collected Works of Witness Lee, 1979, vol. 2, p. 544)

By listening to the ministry while we address our unavoidable responsibilities, these tedious tasks can actually become glorious opportunities for us to gain the life supply and usher us into the experience of Christ. The more we listen to this rich ministry while we do our chores, we may find that it is difficult to stop listening to the ministry. We may even look for more chores to do to continue our listening! In this way, our daily living can become more and more full of the experience of Christ.

Living Stream Ministry has long offered many different audio options to our subscribers, such as the wealth of audio resources on www.lsmwebcast.com that includes audio messages from past conferences, trainings, Wednesday night ministry meetings, and even Bible reading. Recently, however, we have introduced an additional way of getting into the ministry by using the audio feature on the website www.ministrybooks.org. All subscribers to this website now have the ability to listen to The Collected Works of Witness Lee in its entirety as well as the Life-study of the entire Bible. This means that all 139 volumes of Witness Lee’s Collected Works, over 77,000 pages of ministry (much of which has never been published before), are now even more accessible. Now that all of these publications, in addition to the Life-study of the entire Bible, are available in audio format, we can convert times of drudgery into opportunities to sound the depths of this rich ministry through this new audio feature. Daily, we can make fresh discoveries in the gold mine of the ministry that will bless, strengthen, and uplift our lives in the midst of these evil days.

In order to make use of this feature, please see the instructional video in this month’s newsletter. We believe that this newly developed feature will facilitate our redeeming the time by seizing every available opportunity to dive into the ministry. Redeeming the time in this way will help us overcome these evil days and usher us into the life supply in our daily living.