ENJOYING THE BOUNTIFUL SUPPLY
OF THE SPIRIT IN OUR SPIRIT
The all-inclusive, compound, processed, sevenfold intensified, life-giving Spirit dwells in our spirit, so now we have a strong spirit, a spirit of power (2 Tim. 1:7). Because the all-inclusive Spirit is in our spirit, our spirit is a strong spirit. Second Timothy 4:22 says, "The Lord be with your spirit," and Galatians 6:18 says, "The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit, brothers. Amen." The Lord is with our spirit, and the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ is with our spirit. What can be greater than the Lord and the grace of the Lord? Both the Lord and His grace are in our spirit, not in our mind.
Some Bible teachers maintain that the soul and the spirit are synonyms. The biblical teaching is that man is of three parts—spirit and soul and body (1 Thes. 5:23). But some teachers say that man is only of two parts—soul and body. In 1954 a certain missionary came to Hong Kong to attend a conference at which I was sharing. He told me that he appreciated the conference, but one thing he could not agree with was that man had three parts. He believed that man’s spirit and man’s soul refer to the same thing. When I referred him to the clear word in 1 Thessalonians 5:23—"spirit and soul and body," he had no argument, but he still continued to believe that the spirit is the same as the soul. If you have a strong mind full of doctrines and do not enjoy the Lord in your spirit, you will end up in division. You will debate and even fight over the doctrines you have instead of keeping Paul’s charge to keep the oneness of the Spirit (Eph. 4:3), who is in our spirit (Rom. 8:16).
You cannot enjoy the Lord by merely thinking about the Lord. A feast may be set in front of you on a table, but you may come just to exercise your mind to learn about all the different dishes. After two hours of investigation, you remain hungry. If you keep investigating and do not eat, you will die in front of a rich feast. Many Christians "die" in front of the Bible. The Bible is not for your mind alone. The Bible is food for your spirit. Jesus is not merely for us to study or to investigate, but for us to eat, to enjoy (John 6:57). None of us understands the food that we eat in a thorough and absolute way. Although we may not understand what is in a banana, we can enjoy bananas every morning. The breakfast that you eat in the morning energizes you during the day. You may have forgotten what you ate in the morning, but you are still enjoying its benefits. The Lord is not for us to study according to the letter. The Lord is for us to enjoy.
The Son came with the Father by the Spirit as the very embodiment of the Triune God. He passed through incarnation, lived on this earth for thirty-three and a half years, and went to the cross to clear up all the negative things in the universe and to release the divine life as the flowing water that we may drink of Him. Then He resurrected, and in resurrection He became the life-giving Spirit. Now the life-giving Spirit has come as the Son with the Father. The Triune God—the Father, the Son, and the Spirit—is realized as the all-inclusive Spirit, so this all-inclusive Spirit is the ultimate consummation of the processed Triune God with all His attributes, all His virtues, and all the processes He has gone through. This Spirit is the totality, the aggregate, the very consummation of the Triune God with all His accomplishments to be our portion for us to enjoy.
This Spirit is in our spirit full of grace, so the Lord and His grace are in our spirit. Day by day we have to turn to our spirit. Do not turn to your mind, and do not exercise your mind apart from your spirit. The old serpent, Satan, the Devil, came to Eve with a question—"Hath God said...?" (Gen. 3:1). Such a question surely stirred up Eve’s mind. The serpent comes to us in the form of a question mark. The Devil, Satan, would always come to stir up our mind, but we have to turn to our spirit all the time. The Lord is not in our mind, but He is in our spirit. This is why we have to call upon Him all day long.
We need to be those calling, "O Lord Jesus!" Jesus is His name, but the Spirit is His person. When I call "Lord Jesus," the Spirit comes. If your wife bothers you, religion would teach you to be patient. But to keep this religious teaching does not work. What does work is to call upon the name of the Lord—"O Lord Jesus!" When a husband’s wife bothers him, he should not try to be patient. She may never stop bothering him until he loses his temper. The only way to overcome is to call, "O Lord Jesus." To call upon the name of the Lord is to forget about the ethical teachings, to forget about our mind, emotion, and will, and to turn to the spirit. Whenever you say, "O Lord Jesus," you touch the Spirit (1 Cor. 12:3). When you touch the Spirit, you touch the all-inclusive Spirit, you touch the rich grace, and you enjoy the Lord. This is what it means to open up yourself directly to the Lord with an unveiled face. As you behold and reflect Him, you will be transformed metabolically to become more and more like Him in His glorious image.
(The Divine Economy, Chapter 11, by Witness Lee)
