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Ephesians 3:17 says that Christ makes His home in our hearts through faith in order that, as verse 19 says, we may be filled unto all the fullness of God. The issue of Christ’s making His home in our hearts is so that we are filled unto all the fullness of God. The unique goal that God desires to accomplish in us who are saved is to work Himself into us and to work us into Him so that He and we, we and He, would be mingled as one.
Spiritual reality is the result of the Spirit of God touching the spirit of man. This means that the proper and genuine Christian living is the living that issues from our spirit touching the Spirit of God. The way we conduct ourselves in our life, our living, our work, and all our actions should be the issue of our spirit touching the Spirit of God and not the issue of our relying on ourselves. If we live by ourselves and rely on ourselves, then strictly speaking, our living is not the living of a Christian but the living of an ordinary person or, at the most, the living of a religious person. People in general regard Christians, or those who believe in Jesus, as religious people. Actually, those who truly know the Lord’s salvation and live in spiritual reality by the grace of God have their living mingled together with God.
God is true and living, and the Spirit is also true and living. Just as God is real, the Spirit is also real and spiritual, not empty or vague. The Spirit of God has come into our spirit, and once our spirit touches the Spirit of God, there is an effect. This effect enables us as saved Christians to have a certain kind of living—the Christian living. This kind of living is in spirit and in resurrection, and this kind of living is spiritual reality.
Generally speaking, there are three kinds of living. First, there is an ethical living; second, there is a religious living; and third, there is a spiritual living. A person should at the very least have an ethical living. As those who live in human society, we should be ethical people. This should be obvious. Second, an upright person should have a religious belief and a religious living. It is generally acknowledged that those who have a religious living are nobler than those who merely have an ethical living. However, the purpose of God’s salvation is not to make us merely ethical or religious people. The purpose of God’s salvation is something higher than this. It is not enough to be either ethical or religious. God’s purpose in His salvation is to work in us to the extent that we would have a kind of living that surpasses the ethical and religious living. This kind of living is a spiritual living.
A spiritual living is a result of our spirit touching the Spirit of God. Often a spiritual living may appear similar to an ethical and religious living, but actually an ethical and religious living is not a spiritual living. For example, outwardly brass looks like gold, but it is not gold. The expression of a spiritual living is similar to that of an ethical and religious living. However, an ethical and religious living is not a spiritual living but a living of the human will. There is no spiritual element or flavor in an ethical and religious living because there is no spiritual reality or weight in it.
What is an ethical and religious living, and how is it different from a spiritual living? For most of us, what we live out every day is either ethical or religious. For example, a husband’s relationship to his wife may be mostly ethical, and a wife’s relationship to her husband may be mostly ethical. A husband may have the concept that as an upright man, and particularly as one who believes in the Lord Jesus, he should love his wife, sympathize with her, be considerate toward her, and take care of her. According to his concept, this is the way to fulfill the requirements of being a husband. The wife may have the concept that she should be submissive to her husband, respect her husband, and not quarrel with him, or else she will not meet the biblical standard of a wife. The children may have the concept that they should honor their parents, obey them, and respect them, and that they should not be careless in their attitude and speaking toward them. This is filial piety, which is one of the most important items in an ethical living. Most of us are just like this. We do not act loosely but are ethical toward our relatives, colleagues, classmates, and the saints in the church. We have the thought that since we are upright people who believe in the Lord, our living should be proper, regulated, careful, and serious.
An ethical living is merely the good that a man does. It is not the result of man’s touching God, nor does it require man to touch God. An atheist can be an upright person and behave uprightly yet be entirely apart from God. This kind of upright behavior is an ethical living. It is a living that is apart from God and that has no need of God. This kind of upright living is the highest kind of living among the unbelievers. The unbelievers focus on ethics, but they do not have God, nor do they worship or serve God.
Then how do we describe our living? We believe in God, pray to God, worship God, and serve God. Many times we also rely on God. We may have the desire to be ethical, but we do not have the ability to be ethical. We may desire to do good, but we are not able to do it. Hence, we are always praying that God would grant us strength in times of temptation and that He would help and support us so that we would be able to stand. From this we see that in our living there is more or less some flavor of God, something that issues from the help of God.
The purpose of God’s salvation in us is to save us to such an extent that we would not only be moral but that the nature of our morality would be the mingling of God with us. In other words, we would no longer be “brass” but “gold.” We would have not only the outward appearance but also the inward substance, and the nature of our morality would not be out of man but of God. It would be the mingling of God and man. Real morality in God’s salvation is produced by our spirit touching the Spirit of God.
Our living may be upright and ethical, but is our walk and upright condition produced by our spirit touching the Spirit of God, or is it unnecessary for us to touch the Spirit of God in order to have such a living? This makes a big difference. In our daily life a spiritual living can be produced only by our spirit touching the Spirit of God. Only when the spirit of man touches the Spirit of God will there be spiritual reality. We should check our experience. How many of the proper, upright, and even ethical things that we do throughout the day are produced by our spirit touching the Spirit of God? We need to ask God to be gracious to us and to enlighten us so that we may see that today as Christians it is a matter of the Spirit of God living in our spirit. We need to interact and mingle with the Spirit of God in our spirit so that we may live in the spirit day by day.
In this way, as soon as we get up in the morning, we will spontaneously be in the spirit. We will come to God and interact with the Spirit of God by the spirit. Then throughout the entire day we must remain in the spirit and walk according to the spirit. We should honor our parents the way our spirit wants us to honor our parents. We should treat our husband the way our spirit wants us to treat our husband. We should love our wife the way our spirit wants us to love our wife. In whatever way our spirit wants us to love, to be sympathetic, and to be meek and humble toward people, we should take that way, and spontaneously we will live according to the feeling of our spirit. Then what will come forth will not be merely an ethical living or a spiritual living but a spiritual living that includes an ethical living. This kind of morality is much higher than morality by itself. Sadly, many Christians do not have much of the spiritual element in their living. Their honor toward their parents comes from them, not from touching the spirit. Their sympathy and love toward others are merely their own sympathy and love and do not come from touching the Spirit of God. Their kind of living does not have God or any spiritual element in it.
In addition to an ethical living and a spiritual living, there is a religious living. If we have a religious living, we will get up in the morning and pray regardless of whether or not we touch the spirit, as if prayer were a regulation, an obligation, or a religious ritual. We pray, but we do not touch the spirit. Instead, we merely recite a prayer from our mind. This kind of prayer is religious prayer, and this kind of living is a religious living. It is the same with praying before meals. We may be bothered if we do not pray, but when we do pray, we do not touch the spirit. We merely put our heads down, close our eyes, and say a few sentences of thanks and praise. This is a religious ritual. This is the prayer of religious people. They feel uneasy when they do not pray, but nothing happens after they pray. Many times our prayers are the same. Our prayers are religious and ritualistic and do not touch the spirit. Of course, if some people touch the spirit when they pray before meals, then their prayer is not ritualistic. But for the majority of Christians, praying before meals is merely part of a religious living, because in their prayers they do not touch God. Anything that we do without being touched in our spirit is part of a religious living.
We may be doing activities that are seemingly spiritual, such as distributing gospel tracts, preaching the gospel, and visiting people, but if we are doing them without touching the spirit, then they do not have any spiritual weight or spiritual element. If we are not moved in the spirit, then our outward gospel preaching is a religious ritual; it is an aspect of the religious living. If our spirit does not touch the Spirit, then even our coming to the meetings may be an aspect of a religious living. While the unbelievers watch television or play mah-jongg after work, we Christians rush to the meeting hall to attend meetings. However, if our spirit is not moved and does not touch God, we are just the same as the unbelievers. This kind of meeting life may actually be part of our religious living.
Any aspect of our living that is not a result of our spirit touching the Spirit of God is part of either an ethical living or a religious living. We can live out these two kinds of living without fellowshipping with God, without the Spirit of God, and without the exercise of our spirit. Our daily living and work must come from our spirit touching the Spirit of God and must come from our spirit. Our humility should be the result of our spirit touching the Spirit of God. Our love should come from our spirit touching the Spirit of God. When our spirit touches the Spirit of God and when we fellowship with the Spirit of God, the Spirit of God will move us and urge us so that we cannot help but love man. This kind of love does not come merely from us but is produced from our fellowship with God, our union with God, and our contact with the Spirit of God.
A normal, genuine, and spiritual Christian living is the issue of the spirit of man touching the Spirit of God. Before we were saved and had God dwelling in us, it seemed sufficient for us merely to do good. We were used to living in the way of doing good. After we are saved and begin to live a spiritual living, we may encounter some problems and may be unaccustomed to a spiritual living. Gradually, however, we will begin to learn not to live by ourselves but to turn to our spirit and to think of God in our living. Eventually, we will reach a point where we may not even deliberately exercise our spirit to touch the Spirit of God; because our heart is proper and because we are always in fellowship with God and because of His moving within us, we will spontaneously touch the Spirit of God. The Bible tells us that this moving is the anointing in us. The anointing touches our spirit, joins to our spirit, and motivates us. When we live a life according to this motivation, we will be living a spiritual living. All our actions and behavior, being the result of our following and obeying the Holy Spirit, will not merely be ethical or religious but spiritual. This kind of living is the Christian living—a living that is spiritual, genuine, and proper. It is also a living that is spiritual reality.
There are two obstacles to living a practical spiritual life. The first obstacle is the unwillingness to stop our self and to deny our soul. Instead of stopping our self, we often may continue to act according to our own will. We may continue to think what we want to think, love what we want to love, and choose what we want to choose. We may completely ignore our spirit. We may have heard the spiritual doctrines many times, but we may remain unchanged, still living by ourselves and being unwilling to stop ourselves. This is a big problem.
We need to be enlightened and saved to see that the most detestable matter concerning us is not the fact that we still sin or love the world. It is the fact that we cannot stop our self. Most of us are still living in ourselves. Our mind, emotion, and will are still ruling us, and we are still living by our soul. Although we have been saved and enlivened and have the Spirit of God in us, we still put the spirit aside and live by our mind, emotion, preferences, and ideas. Thus, our first obstacle is that it is hard for us to stop ourselves and deny our soul.
The second obstacle is that our submission to the feeling of the spirit may be conditional. When we live by the spirit, the Spirit of God is living, strong, and powerful, but we still may not fully submit to Him. The Spirit of God operates in us by inwardly moving in us, forbidding us, directing us, controlling us, dealing with us, and requiring things of us. He may require us to get rid of some things and to deal with other things. He may require us to deny our self, to come out of our flesh, to turn to our spirit, and to submit to the feeling in our spirit. This is the Spirit’s moving, operating, forbidding, directing, controlling, dealing, and requiring in our spirit. When we experience this, we may discover that when the moving and operating match our taste, we submit, but when they do not match our taste, we find it difficult and burdensome to submit. The question that we must ask ourselves is, “Are we willing to submit?” Our unwillingness to submit is the problem. The genuine submission of a Christian is to submit to the spirit and to touch the feeling of the spirit.
For example, there once was a Christian who had a friend that he was very close to. If he had to go for a long time without seeing his friend, it was upsetting to him. This Christian was endeavoring to live in his spirit to contact and fellowship with the Spirit, so at a certain point the Holy Spirit began to move and operate in his spirit. Whenever the Holy Spirit asked him to pray, to praise, to meet, or to do good, he was very happy, but whenever the Holy Spirit moved, operated, and touched him regarding his friend, he found it hard to submit. Whenever he was about to go visit his friend, the Holy Spirit forbade him. Whenever he was about to invite his friend to visit him, his inner being did not allow him. He had the clear feeling that although he had been able to visit his friend as he pleased in the past, now the Holy Spirit within him would not allow him to go to see his friend in the same way. Hence, he was in a dilemma concerning whether to submit or not. The feeling in his spirit was requiring him to put his friend aside, but emotionally he was absolutely unwilling to put him aside. Thus, he disobeyed the inner feeling, discarded the moving of the Holy Spirit, allowed his emotions to rule him, and followed his emotions to go to see his friend. In short, he turned from his spirit to his soul, and immediately he lost his fellowship with God. Outwardly, he had not committed a great sin or an evil act, and even his family had agreed that he should be friends with this upright person, but because he chose to live in his soul and not in his spirit, he lost the presence of the Spirit and the fellowship of the Spirit.
Spiritual matters are like an electric lamp. When we turn the switch on, the lamp shines. It may seem quite complicated to talk about the Spirit of God, about incarnation bringing God into man, about death and resurrection bringing man into God, and about the experience of death and ascension in resurrection. However, these matters are very simple to experience. Normally, we speak, walk, and live in our soul. We love, give opinions, and make decisions entirely in the soul. Whatever our soul decides, we do, and whatever our soul thinks, we think. But now that we see that deep within us we have a spirit and that the Spirit of God is in our spirit, when we fellowship and contact God in our spirit, the Spirit of God will touch our spirit, and eventually we will obey and follow the feeling in our spirit. This is the Christian living. When this happens, the living that we live out will not be merely an ethical or religious living but a spiritual living. When we have this living, we will live in the spirit, have spiritual reality, and live a life of being mingled with God. Then God’s eternal purpose will be accomplished in us.
Our problem is that it is not easy for us to turn from the outward to the inward, that is, from our soul to our spirit. For example, we may be used to lighting kerosene lamps for light. Thus, even though we have electric lights installed in our homes, we still light the kerosene lamps. Spiritual reality depends not on how many messages we listen to, how much we pray, or how much we meet. Rather, it depends on whether or not we are willing to put our soul aside and exercise our spirit. The key is whether or not we are willing to have our being transferred from our soul to our spirit, and whether or not we are willing to turn our being around, turning it from our soul back to our spirit. Our need is to turn from our soul to our spirit. When we turn from our soul to our spirit, we will touch the Spirit of God in our spirit and will have some feeling within. Once we have this feeling, we should submit to it. In whatever way the Spirit moves in us, we should obey. If we do so, we will be the most blessed people.
When we submit in this way, all the riches of God will fill us inwardly day after day. God’s power, God’s life, God’s virtues, God’s love, God’s light, and all the riches of God will be wrought into our being little by little, filling us within. The main reason we do not always have light within and are often confused, unclear, and darkened is that we do not turn to our spirit. If we are willing to turn to our spirit, our inner being will be enlightened, and our understanding will be opened. We will be able to see revelations every day and know what pleases or displeases the Lord. Then we will deal with the matters that need to be dealt with and follow the feelings that we receive. In this way the life in us will grow, and our Bible reading will be full of light and full of taste.
In the past we may have only known to recite the letter of the Bible with our mind, but we may not have seen the light and revelation in the Bible. However, the more we grow in life, are opened in our understanding, and have the presence of the Holy Spirit with the reality of resurrection, the more we will have the light and revelation in our spirit. Furthermore, we will be able to touch God’s feeling regarding our future, our job, our conduct, and our management of the affairs of the church. Many people say that it is difficult to know God’s will. The more they pray, the more confused they are. This is because they are accustomed to living by their soul in their daily living. They do not pray unless something happens to them. The reason why they become more confused the more they pray is because they are so accustomed to living in their soul. Thus, when things happen to them, they are unable to pray in the spirit. If we always exercise in our daily life to deny our soul and live in our spirit to fellowship with God, then when something happens to us, it will be easy for us to touch God’s desire within.
These four matters—spiritual revelation, spiritual shining, spiritual sight, and spiritual vision—are apparently similar but are actually very different. For example, suppose that there is a certain object hidden in a bag and that we can see the bag but cannot see what is inside the bag. Revelation is the opening of the bag, showing what is within. The Greek word for revelation means “to open the veil.” For instance, in a theater there is a veil that covers the scenery on the stage. When the show begins, the veil is lifted up so that we may see the scenery. This is revelation, an unveiling.
However, we may not be able to see even when there is revelation. If there is no light in the theater and everything is dark, although the veil may be lifted, we still will not see the scenery. Moreover, if a person is blind and his eyes cannot be opened, then there may be revelation and shining, but due to his blindness he will not have the vision either. He may have revelation and shining, but he may not have vision, because he has no sight. When there is revelation, shining, and opened eyes, then there will be vision. A vision is an extraordinary scene. Revelation is the unveiling of a certain thing, shining is what enables the eyes to see, and the result of seeing is a vision.
Many people talk about the Bible, but they do not know that there is revelation in the Bible. As a result, they spend much time talking about the Bible without seeing any revelation or vision. These people are mostly in their soul, not in their spirit. They have no experience of life or inward light and are neither enlightened nor opened in their understanding. Even though they read the Bible again and again, they still cannot see the revelation. Revelation is there, but due to the lack of light and vision, they cannot see. Only a certain kind of people—those who turn from their soul to their spirit and who continually learn to walk according to God in their spirit—will have the light and the sight. These people have the riches of God in their spirit, and when they live in their spirit, they have light and life. Every time they come to read the Bible, the Bible is bright and shining to them. In their daily living they find it easy to touch the feeling of the spirit. In this way, day by day they are those who live in the spirit, who live in God, and who are filled unto all the fullness of God. This is the goal that God wants to accomplish in us. May we all press on toward this goal.
