OUR NEED OF A CLEAR VISION OF LIFE IN ROMANS 8
If you receive a clear vision of life from Romans 8, you are in the experience and growth in life. When I was a young Christian, I read the Bible many times, and I tried to discover how to grow in life. Eventually, I realized that the answer is implied in all the different items of the divine theology in the New Testament. This is the reason I have presented the experience of life and the growth in life as I have done in these messages. Our need is to see a vision of the experience of Christ. As you read these items of the divine theology again and again, one day you will be enlightened to see clearly how to experience Christ. We may have learned the theology of the recovery, but our need is for this theology to become our vision. When you have a vision, there is no need to merely recite these things; rather, you can just point out to people what you see of the divine scenery according to the divine view.
To give a message on the matter of life is very, very hard because life is a spontaneous thing. Suppose there is a little tree growing in front of me. If I do not touch it, it really grows, but when I touch it, the growth is bothered. It may be better not to touch it. It is the same when I fellowship with you concerning the experience of life. When I encourage you to experience life, you may not experience life. To experience life is like switching on electricity which has been installed in a building. When you need electricity to go to a lamp, you simply go to the switch, turn it on, and the light comes on. When you turn the switch off, the electricity stops, and the lamp no longer has any light. Your experience of life is the same. When you sense that the light has been turned off, you need to pray, but your prayer may also be a problem. If you pray, “Lord, set my mind on the spirit,” this prayer may not work. You should pray by allowing the interceding Spirit within you to pray by groaning (Rom. 8:26). By this kind of prayer, the switch is turned on again.
Before we came into the Lord’s recovery, we might not have had any knowledge concerning the switch of the mingled spirit. Sometimes we accidently turned the switch on and just as quickly turned it off again. Today, however, in the Lord’s recovery, we are not in that much darkness. We have realized that Christ is the Spirit in our spirit and that this Christ is the consummated Spirit. When He is here, life is here. Now, we have to live according to this life. Just to know this much will turn the switch on. Our problem is that we do not remain here. We need to come back and pray. In our prayer, it is better not to say too much. We should simply groan. Soon the switch is turned on again, and we are also happy again.
Romans 8 shows us a heavenly vision with view after view. Nearly every verse is a view. Verse 2 is a view to show you how the consummated Triune God today is life to you, and this life is a law. Verse 10 shows you another view of the consummated Triune God as Christ in your spirit. Now, your spirit is life. Verse 6 presents another view concerning the mind on the spirit. Then verse 11 presents the view that the Spirit of life as the processed Triune God indwells you to give life to your body. You then become a person of life. You are life in your spirit, you are life in your mind, your soul, and you are life in your body. Once you see all these views, you then need to apply them. Whether you are about to die or live depends upon whether you live according to the flesh or according to the spirit. We must learn not to live according to the old man, the flesh, but to live according to the spirit, the new man.
(The Experience and Growth in Life, Chapter 9, by Witness Lee)
