FOLLOWING THE SENSE OF LIFE
Fifth, when we love the Lord and put aside our opinions, we will be full of the Lord’s feeling. Then we will have to follow the Lord and walk according to the sense of life in our spirit. When love comes in and our opinions go out, the sense of life will be activated. Then we can live and walk according to such a sense. Many times within us we do not have much spiritual sensation because we have too many opinions and not very much love. The secret of receiving the sense of life is to love much and not have any opinions. When we love the Lord absolutely and do not have any opinions, surely we will have more of the sense of life.
Throughout the entire Scriptures we see that Mary expressed her opinion only once, while Peter expressed his opinion on many different occasions. Although this always got Peter into trouble, he still had opinions. In Matthew 16 the Lord told His disciples that He had to go to Jerusalem, suffer many things, and be killed. After hearing this Peter quickly said, “This shall by no means happen to You!” (v. 22). The Lord then immediately turned and said to him, “Get behind Me, Satan!” (v. 23). This shows us that Peter’s opinion was Satan himself; Satan was hiding in Peter’s opinion. Then the Lord continued, “You are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of men.…If anyone wants to come after Me, let him deny himself” (vv. 23-24). The Lord first spoke of Satan, then of the mind set on the things of men, and then of denying the self. This indicates that Satan is expressed through the human mind with its opinions and that our opinions should be rejected.
Later the Lord Jesus brought Peter, James, and John up to a high mountain and was transfigured before them. Suddenly, Moses and Elijah appeared to them. When Peter saw this, he immediately expressed his opinion again. God eventually had to interrupt him (17:1-5). Later, when they came to Capernaum, those who collected the temple tax came to Peter and said, “Does not your Teacher pay the temple tax?” Peter expressed his opinion right away and said, “Yes.” After this, when Peter came into the house and before he opened his mouth, the Lord asked him, “What do you think, Simon? From whom do the kings of the earth receive custom or poll tax, from their sons or from strangers?” (vv. 24-25). What the Lord meant when He asked this was, Why did you say that I have to pay the poll tax for making repairs in the temple of God when you just heard on the mountain that I am the Son of God? In the end the Lord told Peter to go fishing and to take the stater from the mouth of the first fish that he would catch and use that to pay the tax (v. 27). I believe that Peter must have learned a big lesson while he was fishing. The Lord had told him to cast a hook, but he must have wondered where he could find a fish in such a boundless sea? Even if the fish came, would it actually have a stater in its mouth? In this difficult situation Peter learned a big lesson.
Now we come to Mary. She expressed her opinion only one time. By the time she anointed the Lord, she did not have any more words or opinions. The voices, opinions, and judgments of the disciples are evident in their following of the Lord, but we cannot hear the voice or opinion of Mary. She did not have any opinion, and thus she was full of feeling within. Although others did not sense that the Lord was going to die, she sensed it. When others did not know that they needed to anoint the Lord, she sensed that she had to anoint the Lord. Have you seen this? When we love much and have little opinion, we will be rich in our inner feeling. Many times we have little feeling because we have a lot of opinion and not much love. When we have much opinion, we will not have much feeling. Then once we do have some inner feeling, we should live according to it.
(The Path of Our Growth in Life, Chapter 1, by Witness Lee)
