[UntoHim]

Originally Posted by Evangelical

If we are believers then the "phone line" is already installed in us. So when we "dial the number" by calling the name, we get the Person, always, 100%, there is no dropouts and nothing further we must do to access the Person. So to us the name equals the person.

Actually, it is not just saying the name. We must use our spirit. This is emphasized very much in the Recovery.

Romans 10:9
if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

My brother, according to Witness Lee, "calling on the Lord" WAS TO "use our spirit". They were/are part and parcel of the very same thing. "Pray-Reading" was to use our spirit as well. You caught yourself, so you admit: "Actually, it is not just saying the name".

The verse I have cited above, though it ostensibly relates to our initial salvation, applies to the matter at hand, I believe. "Confess" is with the mouth - "Believe" is with the heart. I must tell you that to "believe in our heart" is altogether something different than "using our spirit" as taught by Witness Lee. Believing is a matter of conviction - a firm persuasion of heart and mind. "Calling on the Lord", even if taken in the sense you have presented, is only half the equation (at the very least in our salvation), yet it is taken to be much more in the teaching and practices established by Witness Lee, and continued by his followers to this very day.

I would contend that the vast majority of Local Church brothers and sisters have a firm persuasion of heart and mind towards the teachings and practices established by Witness Lee, but are decidedly and blissfully ignorant of the teachings and practices established by the Lord Jesus in the Gospels, and those established and exemplified by the original and scripture writing apostles of the New Testament era. There simply is no evidence that the early Christian apostles or disciples practiced verbally calling out "Oh, Lord Jesus", or even anything of the sort. There simply is no evidence that the early Christian apostles or disciples practiced "pray-reading" as practiced in the Local Church, or even anything of the sort. This is NOT to say that these practices are necessarily un-biblical per se, only that they are in no way provable to be "recovered truth".

OBW says it better than my babbling above, so I'll just re-post the applicable portion:

Originally Posted by OBW

Simply calling on the Lord over and over is like picking up your phone and dialing a number over and over but never letting it connect or talking to the person at the other end of the line.
To be honest with you, the whole idea of this kind of uber-religious mantra of calling on the name of the Lord reminds me of something like going to your father's house, studying the furniture in the various rooms, and occasionally knocking on the door to the room in which he resides, but never entering the room.
He knows you are out there. He knows that you speak his name over and over, and that you study about him. But you don't enter the room. Once inside the room, it is time for something besides the continuance of the mantra.