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Scripture Reading: Col. 2:2, 9; 3:4; Phil. 1:19-21a
Prayer: Lord, we thank You. You are our God and our Lord, and yet You became the life-giving Spirit to dwell in us as our life and everything. Lord, we are a group of people who can testify that we receive Your grace daily and enjoy Your presence. You speak to us every day from within, and You live in us as the strength of our practical living. Lord, we thank You all the more that You lead us in our daily living to take the pathway ahead. We beseech You to draw more people to hear Your gospel and receive You as life. We truly long for more people to be saved and to know You as the true and living God as well as the Lord who gives life that they may receive You as life.
Lord, we also ask that You cleanse us with Your precious blood that we may be well pleasing to You, have the anointing and the light of life, and be full of the comfort and encouragement of life within. Lord, we look to You to give us grace that we may live You and experience You daily to become one spirit with You so that whenever we come together, we will be full of the experiences of You to be Your living testimony. May You receive our worship and exaltation. We give You all the glory and adoration. Amen.
In Colossians 2:2b we see that the mystery of God is Christ. Because Christ is the explanation, manifestation, and expression of God, Christ is God’s mystery. We also see in verse 9 that all the fullness of the Godhead dwells in Christ bodily. The Godhead is just God Himself, the very Creator whom we worship. The Godhead of this One dwells in Christ bodily. Therefore, Christ is the embodiment of God.
God is mysterious, but He is also very real. We can prove His existence from the principles of science, physics, physiology, and all things in the universe. Tens of thousands of Christians can also prove the existence of God from the experiences they have in their daily living. Although God is mysterious and invisible, man cannot say that there is no God just because he does not see Him. This is because invisible things are not necessarily nonexistent. Take electricity as an example. No one has seen electricity, and even those who specialize in electricity cannot pinpoint exactly where electricity is. What is seen are simply some manifestations of electricity. However, the existence of electricity is undeniable because everyone has used electricity. The specialists also tell us that there are electrical waves in the air. The term electrical waves indicates that there is energy in the air that is transmitted by the phenomenon of waves. Although electrical experts know that it is so, they do not know why it is so. Even though we do not understand it, if we tune a radio to the right frequency, the waves in the air will transmit the music to us.
Another example is our physical life, which is also abstract. Even the best biologists and the most brilliant doctors today have no way of showing us life. Although man’s physical life is invisible, it truly exists. Furthermore, we may say that a certain person has an evil heart. This heart is not the biological heart referred to in medicine but the psychological heart referred to in psychology. The Bible also says that the heart of men is deceitful above all things, wicked to the uttermost, and even incurable (Jer. 17:9). The heart here also refers to the psychological heart. We all know that the physical, biological heart in man is our human heart, but no one knows where the psychological heart is located. These examples prove that we cannot say that something does not exist just because we do not see it. As a mystery, God is invisible to our physical eyes; however, through all things in the universe and our experience, we know that God exists.
The Bible tells us that man is composed of three parts. Apart from the body, man also has a soul; moreover, there is a spirit within the soul. Man’s soul and spirit are both mysteries. It is interesting how the ancient Chinese formed the Chinese characters for soul and spirit. Soul belongs to the group of characters with demon as a radical, while spirit belongs to the group of characters with rain as a radical, which is also where the character electricity belongs. This is a hint that the spirit is as wonderful as electricity, which is invisible yet very real. If a man would carefully recall his past with all his experiences in a quiet and humble way, he will surely discover that there is a spirit within him.
We also know that when a person satisfies his physical needs for food, clothing, shelter, and transportation, he still does not feel satisfied within. Thus, he looks for various kinds of entertainment and amusement to satisfy his need. For example, admiring artistic works, listening to music, reading books, watching television and movies, and other matters are all for the entertainment of the soul. In Greek the words for soul and psychology come from the same root word psuche. Therefore, the soul is the psychological part referred to in psychology, which is also what we often refer to as the metaphysical things, things that are invisible and without bodily form.
However, a person may have no lack in food, clothing, shelter, and transportation; he may have enjoyed every possible kind of entertainment and amusement. He may have achieved success and acquired fame, and he may have many children and grandchildren. Yet when he lies down to rest in the silence of the night, his deepest part often has a kind of bored and empty feeling. He still feels that human life is tasteless. Deep within him there is still a big void that cannot be filled, so he still has no satisfaction. This is the real condition of many people in the world. This empty part in the depths of man is what the Bible calls the human spirit. The hole, the void, in the deepest part of men is something that cannot be filled by any person, thing, or matter in the world. This is a sign of the hunger and thirst of the human spirit. In the deepest part of man, in man’s spirit, there is truly a need that cannot be satisfied by any physical or psychological thing in the world.
Throughout the ages, due to the fact that the need within man’s spirit cannot be satisfied by anything in the world, religion was invented. We all know that today there are five great religions in the world: Confucianism, Buddhism, Taoism, Mohammedanism, and the Judeo-Christian religion. Confucianism, which is composed of the teachings of Confucius, teaches people about ethics and morality but not the worship of God. Therefore, strictly speaking, it cannot be considered a religion. Buddhism, which was founded by Sakyamuni, does not even speak of the true God. It talks only about the wheel of reincarnation and meditation to become Buddha, and it also teaches people to practice abstinence, to do good, and to worship the clay statues of Buddha. Therefore, strictly speaking, it cannot be considered a religion either. Taoism teaches profound and mysterious thoughts, transcendence from worldliness, and self-cultivation to obtain immortality. It is merely an empty philosophy, so it cannot be considered a religion either. Mohammedanism, which is also called Islam, teaches people to worship the God who created the universe and not to worship idols; hence, it can be considered a religion. However, the Koran, the sacred book of the Muslims, was written by copying from and making changes to the Holy Scriptures of Judaism and Christianity; it is altogether a deviation from the biblical truths. Hence, Mohammedanism cannot be considered an orthodox religion.
The Judeo-Christian religion is composed of Judaism and Christianity. The Holy Bible of this religion teaches men to worship the unique true God, Jehovah, and declares Jesus Christ as King of kings and Lord of lords. None of the founders of religions or the great philosophers dared to proclaim himself as the Lord. Only the Bible tells us that there is a true God in the universe and that He is the Lord, the Creator, and the sovereign One in the universe. The Old Testament says that Jehovah God is the Creator of all things; moreover, the New Testament says that Jesus Christ is the Lord of all (Acts 10:36). We all know that this year is A.D. 1983, which is counting from the year that Jesus Christ was born. Today all the countries in this world, including the atheistic Communist countries, use a calendar based on the year of the birth of Jesus Christ. Logically speaking, the calendar that a country uses indicates the one to whom that country belongs. Today all the countries of the world use the calendar of Jesus Christ as their calendar. This tells us that all the countries of the world belong to Jesus Christ. All men under heaven use the calendar of Jesus Christ as their calendar, so Jesus Christ is the Lord of all men of the world.
The need within the spirit of man cannot be satisfied by wealth and fame, by entertainment and amusement, or by the religions invented by men. Man is a vessel created by God with the purpose of containing God Himself. Hence, man can have the real satisfaction within only by receiving his Creator as his life and content. You can sincerely cry out from deep within, saying, “O God, if You are real, I pray that You would cause me to know You and receive You. I need You. Although I have tasted the things of this world, I am still not satisfied within. I want to gain You as my satisfaction.” When you call in this way, you will experience an indescribable joy within, and sometimes you will even be so joyful that you shed tears. Then the sense of emptiness deep within you will vanish. Nothing else can satisfy the need in our spirit, nor can anything else quench the thirst in our spirit; only God can. This is like a man walking in the wilderness or desert. When he is thirsty, you cannot quench his thirst by giving him gold coins or diamonds; only a cup of water can satisfy his need. Our God, our Lord, is the cup of water that man needs for his inner thirst. Only God, who is the living water, can quench the thirst in man’s spirit (John 4:10, 14; 7:37-38).
If man wants to verify the existence of God in the universe, he can do that simply by touching the need in his spirit. In this universe, only this God can truly satisfy man’s inner need. When a person calls on God, the need in his spirit is satisfied. This is neither an imaginary perception nor a superstitious belief. A person may call on Confucius again and again, yet he will not have any feeling within him. However, at any time and in any place, if a man sincerely cries out from the depths of his heart, “O Lord Jesus, I believe in You,” he will have a sense within, and he will obtain the reality. This reality within him will not only make him joyful and satisfied, but it will also change his behavior and his life. This kind of change is not out of man’s exhortation and teachings; it is produced spontaneously from within.
We cannot contact God with our body or by our mental consideration, because God is Spirit. If we want to contact God, we must use our spirit (4:24) because the human spirit is the organ for man to contact God. This may be compared to the receiver in a radio, which is the part that receives the radio waves in the air. Our God is the Lord who created all things in the universe. One day He became flesh to be a man whose name was Jesus, and He lived on the earth for thirty-three and a half years. Then He was crucified on the cross, and by the shedding of His precious blood He accomplished redemption for our sins and became our Redeemer. Moreover, He resurrected from the dead and became a life-giving Spirit. This life-giving Spirit is omnipresent. Although He is invisible and intangible, we can touch Him by calling on the name of the Lord (Rom. 10:8-9). When we call on the name of the Lord Jesus, we receive the Lord Jesus because the Lord’s name is just the Lord Himself. Furthermore, after the Lord Jesus resurrected from the dead, He became the life-giving Spirit, so when we call on the Lord’s name, this Spirit enters into our spirit to regenerate and save us. Then the Lord Jesus becomes our life and everything to us in our spirit and thus becomes the real satisfaction within us.
A Christian is one who has Christ in him as life. When a person believes in Christ and Christ enters into the spirit of this one to be his life and his Savior, he becomes a Christian. The suffix -ian does not refer to a “disciple” but to a “man.” Hence, a “Christian” is a “Christ-man.” A “Christ-man” refers to a person who has Christ in him as his life and everything. This is not an empty noun or a doctrine but a real experience. This Christ who lives inside us, the Christ-men, is the life-giving Spirit. He is the Lord as a person who lives in our spirit as our life to make us Christ-men.
Therefore, a Christ-man is not so simple, because within the Christ-man there is Christ, and there is also the natural self. There are two persons living together inside every Christ-man: one is the natural self, and the other is Christ. Unlike a male and a female who are married to become a couple living together outwardly, these two persons live together within us. We all can testify that within us there are really two persons living together. In our daily living, almost every day we have this story: When we want to do something, often this person who is in us, the Lord Jesus, does not agree. Hence, these two persons within us are in conflict. This kind of conflict was not there before we became Christ-men. For example, before the sisters believed in the Lord, when they saw the advertisement of a big sale in the newspaper, they immediately went to buy some items without any struggle. However, after you have been saved and have become a Christ-man, when you see an advertisement of a big sale and want to go and buy a dress that is on sale, there is Someone in you who says no. While you are on your way, He keeps saying no. When you enter into the main entrance of the department store, He still says no; but you still do not pay attention to His disagreement, and so when you are about to buy the dress, He still says no and keeps saying no to the end. This “no” bothers you until you can no longer tolerate it, and you say, “If You say no, then let it be no. I will not shop anymore.” When you say this, He immediately calms down, and you also feel comfortable. As you are in your car going home, you will be able to rejoice and say, “Amen, Hallelujah! Lord Jesus, You are so lovely. I really love You.”
However, sometimes because you like that dress so much and you also have a strong character, even though there is Someone in you who says no, you still bargain with Him, saying, “Lord, please allow me this time. I will not do it again.” Then the Lord becomes quiet and remains silent, and you think that you can now buy the dress. However, after you have bought it, you are not able to pray and you have no joy; rather, you feel very bad. Originally, the dress was very lovely, but now you do not even dare look at it, because when you see it, you feel bad within. You feel bad when you put it aside, and you feel worse when you put it on. Then one day you give it to someone who is in need, and you immediately become joyful within. What is this story? This is a story of two persons living together. All these experiences tell us that the Christ within us is a living person.
Right now while I am here speaking to you, my whole being is very released because my outer man is not in conflict with the Lord within. The two persons are one, so my words have much light and much anointing. On the contrary, if my outer man has a problem with the Lord who is within me, and if I do not care for Him or love Him, yet I tell you that He is lovely and that we should love Him and obey Him, then this becomes acting. A false tone cannot fool people. If we truly live with Christ as two persons living together in oneness, we will have the anointing. When we pray, we can touch heaven, and we can also touch the spirit of others, ministering life and the life supply to them.
The Bible explicitly says that the Lord Jesus, the God-man, has become the life-giving Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45b) to dwell in our spirit. Now He is the Spirit, the all-inclusive Spirit. Because the Lord Jesus is God, the Spirit has the element of God, and because He is also a man, the Spirit also has the element of man. He was on earth for thirty-three and a half years and lived the life of an ordinary man. Therefore, the Spirit also has the element of the experiences of human life. He died on the cross and shed His blood for us to redeem us from our sins and terminate our old creation, flesh, lusts, natural being, and self, and then He also resurrected and ascended for us. Therefore, in the Spirit there are the elements of the effectiveness of His death, the power of His resurrection, and the glorification in His ascension. When we live together with Him, that is, when we live and move by the Spirit, unconsciously this Spirit annihilates, one by one, our flesh, natural man, disposition, and self, while at the same time He supplies us all our needs. This Spirit is like a tablet of medicine that contains various ingredients, including some that kill germs and others that supply nutrients. If a person would take this tablet regularly, it will kill the germs that should not be in the body, while at the same time it will supply the various nutrients that the human body lacks and thus cause the body to become stronger.
The Lord Jesus has already become the all-inclusive Spirit to dwell in our spirit. Hence, as long as we live by this spirit, our peculiarities, natural man, self, selfishness, and pride will be unknowingly annihilated and destroyed. This is not the work of self-cultivation but the result produced out of our growth in life through the daily transformation and renewing work carried out in us by the living Christ as the all-inclusive Spirit living in our spirit.
The Bible tells us that the purpose of God in creating man is for man to contain Him and to express Him by living Him out. Hence, God does not want us to live by ourselves; rather, He wants us to live by Him. However, we have been accustomed to living by ourselves since our birth. Therefore, after we have been saved, although we have Christ as life within, we are still accustomed to living by ourselves. Formerly, we lied and did evil things. Now after we have believed in the Lord, we know that we should be careful not to lie and do evil things, but our not lying or doing evil things by ourselves is still by ourselves and not by the Christ who lives in us.
When listening to the word, many Christians exercise their eyes and ears instead of their spirit, and their mind is full of criticism. Because they are so active in their soul, Christ is securely imprisoned in them and is unable to come out. When do people live by Christ? For some it is when they face great trouble and become completely helpless; for some it is when they are extremely sick and have nothing to rely on; and for some it is when they lose their job and cannot make a living anymore. Many of us have to wait until such a situation arises before we turn to our spirit and cry, “O Lord, have mercy on me.” However, living Christ in this way is not normal. We are Christ-men, not religious men. We should not wait until we pray in the meetings to live Christ, nor should we wait until we have a big problem before we call on the Lord and live Christ. To do that is too religious. We need to live together with Christ in our daily living, in whatever we do and in whatever place we may be. If we can live a spiritual life in this way every day, we will be those who live Christ. This is the thing that pleases Him most.
Christ-men not only have the God-created conscience, but all the more they have the Lord of life within them as life. Therefore, we should not be like the Chinese philosophers who practiced self-cultivation to develop the highest virtue. Rather, we need to let Christ live Himself out through us. To develop the highest virtue is like lighting the kerosene lamp as men did in the old days; however, since you are a man in the modern days who has electric lights installed in your house, you do not need the kerosene lamps anymore. We all have the Spirit within, and we all have had the spiritual “electric lights” installed within us; hence, we no longer need to light the kerosene lamps. We only need to turn on the switch within to live by the Spirit. Furthermore, we should never turn it off after it has been turned on. In this way we will then be able to shine forth day and night and live Christ joyfully. In our daily living, in whatever circumstance, whether through life or through death, as always, even now Christ will be magnified in our body (Phil. 1:20). This is not to develop the highest virtue but to let Christ be lived out and magnified always.
Philippians 1:21a says, “To me, to live is Christ.” To us, to live is not morality or immorality but Christ. It is not a question of being moral or immoral, nor a question of having the highest virtue or not having the highest virtue, but a question of living Christ. How can it be that to us “to live is Christ”? It is by living and walking according to the Spirit within us. If the Spirit within us says no, we also say no; if the Spirit within us says yes, we then say Amen. This is what is meant by “to live is Christ.”
First Corinthians 6:17 says, “He who is joined to the Lord is one spirit.” Today we have already become one spirit with the Lord. Hence, in our dealings with our children, relatives, intimate friends, brothers and sisters, parents, neighbors, colleagues, or classmates, we need to walk according to the mingled spirit within us. We have already become one spirit with the Lord. Hence, wherever we may be, the Spirit will always be in us as our life. We need to live together with Christ in this spirit to express Him. This is our spiritual living. Only in this way can we have peace and joy and the growth in life as well. This is to experience Christ as life.
