ENJOYING SALVATION BY BEING IN CHRIST
I appreciate the fact that Christ lives in us. There is even a hymn in our hymnal with this chorus:
Christ liveth in me,
Christ liveth in me;
Oh! what a salvation this,
That Christ liveth in me.
However, simply to say that Christ lives in us is to be too objective. We also need to experience living in Christ and doing all things in Him. What a salvation it is to live in Him! If we live in Him, we shall enjoy His salvation day by day. This salvation can be compared to riding in a car. As long as we remain in the car, we enjoy salvation. When I ride in a car, I am not worried about what direction I am going or anything else. I may rest, pray, or enjoy sight-seeing. I simply rest and enjoy myself. In like manner, when we are in Christ, we should simply rest and enjoy ourselves. We should enjoy the life in Christ.
My burden in this message is that we would all learn the secret of being in Him. We can do all things in Him. This may seem to be a small secret, but actually it has great significance. This secret is the way for us to experience Christ and to enjoy Christ. It is also the secret of having more of Christ accumulated within us.
PRACTICING THE SECRET
Such a secret needs to be put into practice. In order to practice this secret, we firstly need to realize that Christ lives in us. Secondly, we must deny the flesh and the natural man. We should count all things loss and not treasure or appreciate anything of our natural man, such as our humility or other virtues. All of our good points, attributes, and virtues need to be counted loss. We should not have any confidence in anything other than Christ. Thirdly, we should not do anything by ourselves, for we are not alone. Another person lives in us.
Marriage is an illustration of this. Before we were married, we were alone. If we wanted to open the window, we simply opened it. But when we were married, we became bound and limited. All the wives are tied to their husbands, and all the husbands are tied to their wives. In my married life I certainly have learned to live by another person, by my wife. With Christ, we have another person, not married to us, but living in us. However, many of us do not care for Christ’s living in us. On the contrary, it seems that we ourselves are everything. But we should be nothing, and let Him be everything. We all need to realize that we are no longer persons alone, but that we have another One living in us. Christ, our Savior and Redeemer, is living in us right now. We do not merely have His life; we have Him. Therefore, we are no longer alone. Now that He lives in us, we need to learn to live by Him and not by ourselves.
Day after day may go by without our doing anything by Christ. This indicates that we do not practice living by Christ. This is a serious matter. In our daily living we need to practice living by Christ. If we are about to visit the saints or show love, we need to check who is doing it, we or Christ. Before we act, we should wait a while to see whether it is we or Christ who is acting. By doing this we allow the Christ who dwells in us to live for us. This is the practice of the secret.
Paul had been instructed in this secret so that he knew both how to abound and how to be in want. He could do all things in Him. It is sufficient simply to be in Him, for He is all-inclusive and all-sufficient. For example, as we ride in the car, we have complete trust in the car. Christ is more sufficient and more inclusive than any car. Therefore, we should put our full trust in Him. Whatever we do we should do in Him, not in ourselves. We should do everything in Him and by Him. This is the secret Paul learned and the secret we need to learn today. We do not need more teaching, but more practice of this secret. We need to practice doing everything in Him.
(The Experience of Christ, Chapter 10, by Witness Lee)
