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Throughout the centuries scholars and philosophers have tried their best to find out the meaning of the universe and the meaning of human life. None of them has ever found the proper answer. But the Lord’s simple illustration in John 15 of a vine and branches and a husbandman reveals nothing less than this.
I was saved as a teenager over fifty-six years ago and since then have never fallen away. Yet for many years in the early period of my Christian life, I did not know what God’s economy was. I tried my best to love Him, to study the Bible, and to testify of Him to others, but I was ignorant of His economy. (This word in Greek as used in the New Testament means a dispensing of something in a kind of administration; a stewardship to dispense something into certain vessels.)
One day I saw that God chose and redeemed us with a purpose, a purpose so high that no human mentality can grasp it. It is that the Triune God, the infinite God, wants to dispense Himself into our being. Then I began to understand why God created us tripartite. We have a body outwardly, a spirit within, and in between a soul. Just as a glove is made for a hand, so we were designed for God to get into us.
We have the wrong impression that we must do something for God. Christianity has instilled in us the concept that we should serve God, preach the gospel, win souls, improve our behavior, honor our parents, love our enemies, and be kind and humble. This is the kind of Christian I tried to be for years, without ever realizing that God did not want this.
God does not want you to do things by yourself for Him. If He wants something done, He can do it Himself. In creating this universe, He just spoke and it came into existence. When He said, “Let there be light,” there was light. God does not need you to work so hard. Mankind, with all its religions, is off from God’s goal. God would have us take Him as life. This God is embodied in Christ. Outside of Christ you cannot find God. Christ is God, the practical God, not the doctrinal God. This God is to be your life and your person.
Before I realized this, I hated my sins, my evil deeds, and my bad temper. I tried to love the Lord and to work for Him. But one day the Lord said, “My little child, I do not want you. I want Myself. Even if you were not so ugly, if you were lovely and excellent, I still would not want you. You can never satisfy Me. I want Myself, but it must be Myself in you. Once you take Me and leave your self out, I shall be happy.”
When I saw that vision, I prayed, “Lord, have mercy on me. From now on I shall never live by my self.” After that prayer I felt that I had wings. I wanted to run into the street and proclaim to everyone that from then on I would live by Christ, that it was no more I but Christ living in me. All this was more than forty years ago.
But after such an experience and such resolve, I still did not express much of Christ. Mostly I was still expressing myself. Why? Because I was born into this way, I was raised and educated to express myself, and I had been practicing this all my life. In actuality, however, it was not so much that I had grasped the vision; rather, something from heaven had grasped me. It controlled and directed me, again and again reminding me when I was living by my self. I would be about to do something when the vision would come, and I would see, “That is you again! That is your self.” I would stop in the middle of what I was doing.
If you see this vision, it will rescue you from your struggle. God does not want husbands by themselves to love their wives or sisters to submit to their husbands. God wants you neither to love nor to hate but to live by Him. It is not a matter of religion or ethics but of Christ. Paul says that he was crucified with Christ, that it was no longer he but Christ living in him (Gal. 2:20). If I hate, I hate by Christ. If I love, I love by Christ.
To see this will save you from arguing. When I was a young Christian, I loved the Lord and the Bible. I would fight whatever I thought was wrong doctrine. I was sprinkled when I was young, and one day I realized that was wrong. From then on I fought for immersion. But one day I said, “Why am I fighting for immersion? Neither sprinkling nor immersion is Christ. He just wants Himself in me.”
In the churches these days there is discussion about whether to meet in homes or in the meeting hall. Some even say that they like to go to the beach to enjoy the Lord. We must drop all the talk about ways to meet. No way is wrong; no way is right. As long as we have Christ, every way is right. Without Him, every way is wrong. Let us forget all the arguments and come back to the center lane, Christ Himself.
“Abide in Me and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me” (John 15:4). The real Christian life is described in this one verse. It is not to work for Christ but to abide in Him. When the Lord said, “Abide in Me and I in you,” He meant that He can only abide in us as we abide in Him. If we do not do our part by abiding in Him, He cannot do His part by abiding in us. If you are quarreling with someone and saying hateful words, can the Lord abide in you? No. For Him to abide in you, you first of all have to abide in Him.
The Lord did not say that we have to get into Him. He said, “Abide in Me.” This means that we the branches are in Christ already. To abide means to remain; some versions render it this way. Just stay where you are. If my arm does not abide in my body, it is detached from all life supply. God has put us in Christ (1 Cor. 1:30). This happened the day we believed in the Lord Jesus.
How can we abide in Christ constantly? Let us use the illustration of a radio. Inside a radio are some complicated mechanisms that must all work properly in order for it to receive the waves from the air. One simple thing can be wrong, and the radio will not work. So it is with us. Inside we are complicated by a conscience, a mind, a will, and emotions. If these are not all properly regulated, the heavenly electric wave cannot come in. If just one is out of order, this radio does not work. Should our conscience have an offense on it, for example, our abiding in Christ is frustrated.
As we know, man is composed of a body, a soul, and a spirit. A large part of our spirit is our conscience. If we add to the conscience the three parts of the soul — the mind, the emotion, and the will — we have the heart. The other two parts of the spirit, the intuition and the fellowship, are not part of the heart. Only the conscience is part of both the spirit and the heart. See the diagram that follows:
Of all God’s creatures, only human beings have a conscience. This is the part within that either accuses or excuses us (cf. Rom. 2:15). When we deal with our conscience, we are dealing with both our spirit and our heart. If our conscience has never been dealt with, we are of no use to the Lord. A radio has a little receiver, without which it will not work. The paint may be chipped, but the radio will still work as long as the receiver is good. The same is true of our conscience; it must be kept in good working order. When we first received the gospel, the Lord required that we confess our sins. Confessing our sins clears our conscience. Without repenting and confessing our sins, we could not have been saved. The Spirit of God could not have gotten into us. Once we repent and confess, the Spirit enters into us. The more thorough the confession is, the more Spirit we have within.
The Spirit, then, comes into our being through our cleansed conscience. Without this cleansing, He cannot enter. Hebrews 9:14 says that the blood of Christ purifies our conscience from dead works to serve the living God. Do not think that serving the living God means doing something for Him. In the Bible to serve Him means to contact Him, to receive Him, to have Him infused into us. The proper service or worship of God is that we give Him an opening so that He can infuse Himself into our being. This kind of serving requires a purified conscience. The blood of Christ purifies our conscience so that we may serve not the doctrinal God but the living God.
In Matthew 5:3 the Lord said, “Blessed are the poor in spirit.” Without a purified conscience, your spirit cannot be poor. Then in verse 8 He said, “Blessed are the pure in heart.” Even more, a pure heart requires a purified conscience.
We need to go to the Lord to deal with our conscience. You may feel that you have only one little, unimportant thing to confess. If you will just confess that one thing, that initial confession will be a little turn to lead you onto the highway. You may then find that you need a long time to complete a thorough confession.
As soon as you attempt to deal with the Lord in this way, the phone may ring. Once you take care of that phone call, it will take some effort to get back on the highway of your confession. After you confess two more things, the phone may ring again, this time probably a wrong number. This is the subtle enemy. It is best to get away by yourself, away from the phone and everyone else, or at least take the phone off the hook. If you share a room with someone else, you may need to find another place so that no one can disturb you.
Once you kneel or sit before the Lord and open up to Him, you will find that you have miles of confession to make. You may need hours to confess all your shortcomings, your weak points, your evil doings, your sinfulness, and your flesh. When you start cleaning your house, you may think that you can finish in fifteen minutes. But when you get into it, you will find dirt and dust all over, in all the corners. You are like your house. In every corner of your being, in every room, on every shelf, there is dirt. Your eyes have been dirtied by the many sinful things you have looked at day after day. Your ears have been sullied by listening to gossip. Your mouth needs cleansing from the gossip you have spread.
After such a confession you will not want to go back home. You will be afraid that you may hear more gossip. It takes a great deal of effort to clean a badly smeared window. Once it is clean, you will try very hard not to let it get dirty again. This is the way to keep a clear entry for Christ to come into you. This entry, your purified conscience, will keep you from gossip.
Thus, to abide in Christ we must first purify our conscience by making a thorough confession. Once your conscience is purified, you can be poor in spirit. You will no longer feel that you know so much. You will be humble and hungry for the real experience of the Lord. If you are proud, your spirit is not open to the Lord, and He has no way to abide in you. Purifying your conscience will issue in an open spirit.
A further effect of making confession is the purifying of your heart. Your heart will be pure because your conscience is cleansed. I have traveled this way myself; these are not doctrines I have learned merely through studying the Bible. Rather, they are a map I have drawn for you, based on my travels through all these experiences.
If your conscience is not purified and your spirit is not open to the Lord, if you are not poor in your spirit and pure in your heart, what kind of mind will you have? It will be sloppy and dull. You may come to the meetings and listen to the messages, but after a time you will conclude that all the messages are about the same. To you, a “b” is about the same as a “d,” an “m” is about the same as a “w.” You have no discernment.
But once your conscience is purified, your mind will be keen and your discernment clear. No one and nothing can deceive you. This is what the Scripture calls a sound, or sober, mind (2 Tim. 1:7). Whenever you hear a message, your mind will be sharp to grasp and confirm what is being said.
A purified conscience will also affect your emotion. Before you make a thorough confession of your failures and weak points, your emotion is just lukewarm. (If your emotion were cold, you would be going to places of entertainment rather than coming to meetings.) But once you have confessed, your lukewarm emotion will catch on fire. You will declare, “Lord Jesus, I love You! I am on fire for You!”
Your will also will be changed from being stubborn to being submissive. You will enjoy obeying (cf. Phil. 2:12). Whatever it is, big or small, you will be willing to obey.
With such a purified conscience, open spirit, pure heart, sober mind, loving emotion, and submissive will, there will be a flow of the Lord within your whole being. You will surely be abiding in Him and He in you. This is the way to have the Lord added to your being all day long. The key is the thorough confession. Without it this chapter is just doctrine.
Let us look to the Lord that we may see the unique vision concerning God’s economy. His only desire is that we take Him as our life and person and live by Him. Branches bring forth fruit by abiding in the vine. In the same way our fruit-bearing is the outflow of life. It is not a work but our living. The same is true of our meetings and our gospel preaching. Our gospel is the Christ we live. This will also take care of the spreading; it is not something that we need to plan. In Christianity nearly everything is a matter of doing. In the Lord’s recovery everything must be a matter of living, living by Christ and living out Christ.
