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I. Our spirit has been regenerated by the Spirit of God — John 3:6.
II. The Lord Spirit lives in our spirit — 2 Tim. 4:22.
III. Our spirit is joined to the Lord Spirit to be one spirit — 1 Cor. 6:17.
IV. We need to set our mind on the spirit — Rom. 8:6.
V. We need to walk according to the spirit — vv. 4-5.
VI. We need to be renewed in the spirit of our mind — Eph. 4:23.
VII. We need to put off the old man and put on the new man — vv. 22, 24.
In this chapter we want to touch a matter that is very delicate. Thus, we must not do a rough work but a delicate one. The electrician who installs the lights in a building drills holes, fastens screws, and runs wires. This kind of work is rough. The work to install the lights is rough, but inside a light bulb itself, there is a filament that is very delicate. This filament cannot be handled in a rough way. We may say that in this chapter we have come to the filament inside the light bulb.
Man can be likened to a light bulb. In fact, this is a very fitting comparison. The sole function of a light bulb is to express electricity — if a light bulb is not filled with electricity and does not shine, it is vain and useless. In the same way, if we do not have God and do not express God, we are vain and useless. Like light bulbs created to be filled with and to express electricity, we were created by God for Himself so that we might be filled with Him and express Him.
The most important part of a light bulb is the filament. Similarly, our most important part is our spirit. We are like light bulbs, and our spirit is the “filament” within us. Any problem with our filament causes us to be insulated from God. Because our ancestor sinned, we were born in sin. Sin defiled our conscience, which is the most important part of our spirit, and as a result, our spirit became deadened. Thus, our filament was broken, and we were disconnected from God. Ephesians 4:18 reveals that we became “alienated from the life of God.” In electrical terms, we became insulated. When a light bulb’s filament burns out, the light bulb is insulated, disconnected, from its supply of electricity. As a result, it does not shine.
Every fallen sinner has a broken filament and is disconnected from God. However, the gospel is that the Lord Jesus came, died for us on the cross, and redeemed us from our sins. When we repent and believe into Him, His precious blood washes away our sins, and the Lord, who is the Spirit, contacts our spirit. On the one hand, He restores our spirit itself; on the other hand, He comes to live in our spirit, to be joined to our spirit, and to be mingled with our spirit as one. The Lord’s salvation is too great. Not only is our inward contact with the Lord restored, but also we are mingled with Him.
The meal offering in the Old Testament was made from fine flour mingled with oil (Lev. 2:1). The meal offering is a type of the Lord Jesus, who is a meal offering to God. The oil in the meal offering typifies the Holy Spirit, and the fine flour typifies the Lord’s human living. Therefore, the mingling of the oil with the flour typifies the mingling of the Holy Spirit with humanity. Through this mingling, the two — the oil and the flour — became one in the meal offering. Neither the oil nor the flour changed — the two remained the same — but the two were mingled together to become one.
Similar to the mingling of oil with fine flour, God has come into us and has been mingled with us to become one. God is the oil, and we are the fine flour. If fine flour is without oil, it is hard and dry, but if oil is added to flour and mingled with it, the flour becomes soft and moist. We can all testify that this picture matches our experience. Before we were saved, we were “hard” and “dry.” But after we were saved, we started to become “soft” and “moist” inwardly. Moreover, as we call, “O Lord, Amen,” more oil is added into us, we are mingled with the Lord more, and we become more moist and less dry within.
The salvation of the Lord is not to change us outwardly but to mingle Himself with us inwardly. He is the oil, and He wants to mingle with us in our spirit. Originally, our spirit was by itself, but now the Spirit has been added to our spirit, joined to our spirit, and mingled with our spirit. Therefore, we can say that our spirit is now a doubled or twofold spirit.
This twofold spirit, which is two spirits mingled to become one spirit, is often mentioned in the Bible. This is a problem for Bible translators, for they often cannot determine whether certain verses are referring to the human spirit or to the divine Spirit (cf. Rom. 8:4-6). Praise the Lord that these two spirits — the divine Spirit and the human spirit — have been mingled to become one spirit. The divine Spirit has been mingled with the human spirit, and our human spirit has been mingled with the divine Spirit. This is truly a mystery.
Please consider the following question — when you are praying, who is praying? If you are praying alone by yourself, then your prayer is too poor. Moreover, if this is the only kind of prayer you know, it may be that you are not yet saved. If you are saved, then the Lord as the Spirit lives in your spirit. Thus, when you pray with your spirit, on the one hand, you are praying; on the other hand, the Lord is praying within your spirit.
Hebrews 2:12 says, “I will declare Your name to My brothers; in the midst of the church I will sing hymns of praise to You.” This verse refers to what the Lord has been doing since His resurrection. However, have you ever seen the Lord Jesus singing hymns in the church? Surely, you have never seen this. Then how does the Lord Jesus do this? What does this verse mean? If we are genuinely in our spirit when we sing hymns, then the Lord Jesus is singing in our singing. Someone once asked me, “Should we or should we not shout and sing loudly?” I answered him, “The question is not whether we should or should not shout or sing loudly, but whether we have the confidence that the Lord is shouting when we are shouting and singing loudly when we are singing loudly. If you want to shout, but He does not want to shout, then you should not shout.”
If before you were saved, you liked to sing popular, worldly, music, try to sing this kind of music now that you have been saved, and see if the Lord Jesus will sing with you. If you try to do this, you will feel uneasy within. When you sing worldly music, something will stir within you and discourage you from doing so. This inner stirring is the Lord’s disapproval of your singing. When you sing hymns of praise to the Lord, however, you will feel something encouraging you from within and motivating you to praise. This inner encouragement is the Lord’s delighting in your praise. In this case, when you are praising, the Lord is also praising, and when you are singing, the Lord is also singing.
According to the same principle, when we are praying in our spirit, the Lord is also praying. Andrew Murray was the most spiritual person at the end of the nineteenth century and beginning of the twentieth century. One time he said that the best and highest prayer is the Christ within us praying to the Christ sitting on the throne in the heavens. When we pray this kind of prayer, we are praying, and Christ is also praying. How is it possible for us and Christ to pray together in this way? This is possible because the Lord as the Spirit has been joined together with our spirit to become one spirit.
In addition to a spirit, we also have a soul within us. Our soul, which is between our body and our spirit, is our person. The most important part of the soul is the mind. A person is generally governed by the thoughts in his mind. For this reason we must guard our mind. The devil is most vigilant, and he is very good at utilizing our mind. For example, when a sister wakes up in the morning, a thought may come into her mind. She may think, “My husband mistreated me yesterday.” If she accepts this thought, other thoughts will follow. As a result, she will have a long face when she gets out of bed. She will not want to look at her husband, and she may feel hateful toward him. Then the devil will use her hateful feelings and her long face to put a thought into her husband’s mind. The husband will then think, “Why does my wife have such a negative expression on her face?” This thought will give him a long face as well. Then when the sister sees her husband’s long face, the expression on her face will grow even worse. In the end, one of the two will throw their chopsticks on the floor, and the two will begin to fight verbally and maybe even physically. This is an example of how Satan uses the minds of a sister and her husband as a battlefield. Please do not think that I am joking. On the contrary, I am telling you real stories.
What does someone who has learned the spiritual lessons do when Satan puts a thought into his mind? At that very moment, he sets his mind on the spirit. We need to learn how to do this. The mind is between the flesh and the spirit. The mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the spirit is life and peace (Rom. 8:6).
There are many people, things, and matters around us that are placed there to tempt us and to stir up our mind. When our mind is stirred up by these temptations, our mind is set on the flesh, and the result is death. If the sisters do not believe me, they should visit a big department store. Then they will see that every display window tempts them. Every pair of shoes in the first window looks good, every hat in the second window looks great, and every skirt in the third window looks even better. Everything is a temptation to us, so what should we do? If we give in to the temptations, the result will be death. What we need to do is to call on the name of the Lord. I know for a fact that if the sisters call, “O Lord!” as they are picking up a pair of shoes, the One within them will tell them to drop the shoes; if they call, “O Lord!” as they are taking a skirt off of a rack of clothes, the One within them will tell them to put the skirt back; if they call, “O Lord!” as they are approaching the next rack, before they can even pick anything up, the One within them will tell them to keep walking; and if they call, “O Lord!” as they are approaching the next rack, the One within them will tell them to go home. If they genuinely obey the Lord and go home, they will be filled with joy and peace within. Then when they come to the meeting that evening, their spirit will be strong, and their speaking will be full of strength.
We must realize that every person, matter, and thing around us can be a tool used by the devil. If we are not watchful, even we can be used by him. This is why we need to set our mind on the spirit continuously. Everything around us tempts us, so our best protection is to turn back to our spirit. How do we do this? We turn back to our spirit by becoming like one who is deaf and blind — unable to hear or see anything — and simply setting our mind on the spirit by calling, “O Lord! O Lord!”
Our mind is neutral, and it straddles between two sides. It can be set on the flesh, or it can be set on the spirit. To set our mind on the flesh is to stand with Satan, and the result is death. To set our mind on the spirit is to stand with the Lord, and the result is life and peace.
We should know that in every situation either God prevails or Satan prevails. Satan and the evil spirits work in every home and in every person. Satan works mostly in the mind. The way that Satan gets to the mind is first through the eyes, then through the ears, and then through the mouth, all of which are connected to the mind. Many times we need to close our eyes and not see anything, cover our ears and not hear anything, shut our mouth and not speak anything, and simply call, “O Lord.” If we do this, we will be delivered. If a wife gives her husband a long face, he should not look at her. He should simply call, “O Lord, Amen.” If his wife is being unreasonable, he should not listen to her. He should just declare, “O Lord! Victory, victory, Hallelujah!” In such a situation he should not use his mouth to talk to his wife; rather, he should use it to open himself to the Lord. If he does this, Satan will not be able to do anything to him.
We must set our mind on the spirit. This is a very effective secret, but we do not use it enough. After reading this, you all should be very clear, but tomorrow morning when your wife gives you a long face, you may forget everything. If you continue to look at her long face with your eyes and listen to her grumbling with your ears, you will fall into Satan’s trap. Do not look or listen. Simply set your mind on the spirit by shouting, “Hallelujah!”
Do we have the Lord? We do. Is He our Lord? He is. Is He within us? He is in our spirit. For this we must praise the Lord. Praise the Lord that He is in our spirit! The Lord in our spirit is the key. We should not listen to the old talk in Christianity which says that we should look to the Lord who is in heaven. If we really experience the Lord, we will realize that even though it is true that He is in the heavens, it is even more true that He is within us. Thus, we do not need to try so hard to look to Him in the heavens; we only need to turn inward to our spirit. How do we do this? To turn to our spirit is very simple. All we need to do is to call, “O Lord.” Do we need patience? If we do, we do not need to wait for the Lord, looking to Him for patience. Do we want to love our wife? If we do, we may look to the Lord to give us love, knowing that we cannot love our wife and that only the Lord can cause us to love her. However, this is too objective. In our practical experience, we do not need to be so complicated. Actually, all that we need to do is to call “O Lord! O Lord!” a few times. We do not need to spend time looking to heaven. The Lord Jesus is like heavenly electricity that has been directly connected to our inner being. The Lord is already in our spirit today. To instantly enjoy Him, we only need to turn to our spirit by setting our mind on the spirit.
If we continually set our mind on the spirit, the spirit will have the opportunity to spread outward into our mind, saturating our mind and becoming the spirit of our mind. Initially, the spirit is limited within the spirit, but by spreading into our mind, the spirit becomes the spirit of our mind. This causes us to be renewed in the spirit of our mind (Eph. 4:23). The old is replaced by the new. When the spirit of our mind saturates our entire being, all our thoughts, feelings, and concepts will be completely changed. The old man will be put off, and the new man will be put on. In addition, we will be fully transformed from glory to glory into the image of the Lord.
May the Lord have mercy on us and grace us so that we will be able to go on in this way. May we all release our spirit and exercise our spirit. May we set our mind on the spirit so that our spirit will be released, freed, and uplifted, and so that our spirit will spread into our entire being, fully transforming us into a man of the new creation who lives in the Body and in the church. The new man is actually the Body of Christ. Thus, to put on the new man is to put on the church, which is just to live the church life.
