OUR NATURAL THOUGHT
When we study the Bible, however, instead of seeing this plain word, we see only verses like this: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might” (Deut. 6:5). We see that God is to be worshipped and feared. We see that we must labor for Him and that we must pay the price to live for Him. Words like these stand out to us when we find them in the Scripture, because we already have such concepts within us naturally. We take from the Bible what is already in our thought, rather than open to take the Word itself into us.
When a wife reads Ephesians, for example, she does not learn much about the church, or Christ, or the Spirit, or life. The only verse she takes note of is Ephesians 5:25. Because she is already preoccupied with the thought that her husband has to love her, she thinks the Bible is a wonderful book because of this one verse it contains! The husband, on his part, finds Ephesians 5:22, “Wives, be subject to your own husbands as to the Lord.” This is the only verse that stands out to him!
The important things in the Bible pass us by, because they are not in our natural thought. “To me to live is Christ” does not attract much attention. Matters concerning the spirit, though we may have heard many messages on the topic, simply go in one ear and out the other. They mean very little to us. We go on in our natural way, trying to behave properly and please God, figuring that this was what the message was about anyway.
MAN’S SPIRIT
I beg you to notice how important the human spirit is! The eternal God one day created man. Zechariah 12:1 says of Him that He “stretcheth forth the heavens, and layeth the foundation of the earth, and formeth the spirit of man within him.” The spirit within man is small, but the Bible ranks it with the heavens and the earth. The three most significant things in God’s creation are the heavens, the earth, and the human spirit. The heavens are for the earth, and the earth is for man. This man has a spirit in order that he may receive God. Without the spirit, the heavens and the earth are meaningless. Have you ever praised God that you have a spirit, a spirit which is as significant as the heavens and the earth?
TWO SPIRITS JOINED
At the time of the creation, however, God could not enter into man’s spirit. God first had to become flesh, live as a man on this earth, and then go to the cross. In His death He redeemed us from our sins and terminated the old creation. He died, was buried, and arose from the dead. In incarnation He had become flesh; now in resurrection He, the last Adam, became a life-giving Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45). As such, He can be joined with our spirit (1 Cor. 6:17). When we turned to Him in repentance, sought His forgiveness, and opened to receive Him, He came into our spirit. We were regenerated. “That which is born of the Spirit is spirit” (John 3:6). We have a spirit which has been born of this Spirit, who is also called “the Spirit of life” (Rom. 8:2).
When He enters into us, He imparts life. This life is God’s own life, eternal and uncreated, a life of death and resurrection. Let us focus all our attention on this life. We must turn away from the fringes and come back to the center, to this all-inclusive Spirit, who supplies life to us. We are off center when our concern is how to worship God, how to love or submit to our spouse, how to be an overcomer, or how to live a spiritual life.
(Life Messages, Vol. 2 (#42-75), Chapter 26, by Witness Lee)
