SATURATED WITH GOD
Thy Spirit will me saturate,
Every part will God permeate….
Hymns, #501
Our relationship with God should reach to this extent. Our whole being must be saturated with Him. We should not be content with outwardly worshipping Him, loving Him, fearing Him, and doing things to please Him. This mysterious God has passed through a process: creation, incarnation, human living, death, resurrection, and ascension. Now He has returned as the Spirit to enter all who believe in Him. Such is our God and our Savior.
He does not want us to worship Him from afar. He does not want us to stand in awe of Him. Nor does He want us to perform certain duties to please Him. What He wants is that we open the deepest part of our being to Him and call on His name. Then His Spirit comes into us, making our deadened spirit life. From there He spreads out. As we set our mind on the spirit, the soul too is saturated with Him. It also becomes life. From the soul, life spreads also to our mortal body. The resurrection life saturates it. When every part of us is saturated with this all-inclusive life-giving Spirit, we are in the union that God wants.
God has no use for the religious forms of worship. He does not want us to bow, kneel, or prostrate ourselves before Him. What He wants are those who have a contrite heart and will open themselves to Him, receiving Him as their life, light, power, and even their living. The worship He wants is this union. If we give Him the opportunity to be in union with us, this is worship. To allow Him to be joined with us is what pleases Him most.
This is the true nature of the Christian life. For most Christians, however, Christianity has become a religion. The talk about bearing the cross, for example, is similar to what Buddhism and Hinduism teach. The talk about living uprightly sounds like the ethics of Confucius, entirely apart from God. The way God wants us to live exceeds human ethics or morality, because it is Christ Himself lived out from us.
THE SHORTCOMING OF NATURAL VIRTUES
Let us take the example of marriage. At the wedding ceremony, the groom promises to love his wife, and the bride vows to submit to her husband. Not too many days after the wedding, however, trouble arises between this new couple. Their personalities are not compatible. The groom may be an even-tempered person, but the slowness of his wife nonetheless provokes him beyond measure. The bride, on her part, cannot stand this speedy man she has married. It seems she has no way to keep up with him. Whatever they vowed at their wedding ceremony is gone. Loving and submitting—those promises have to be thrown away.
In time there is some easing of the problem. Perhaps a talk with someone helps. Perhaps they hear a message which inspires them. They resolve to work out their problems. Yes, the groom thinks, I am too fast; I should be more sympathetic toward my wife. The bride too resolves she will try harder to catch up with her husband; after all, he is her head. These renewed efforts on the part of the groom to be loving and the wife to be submissive cause a great deal of suffering.
Suppose they succeed. The husband does find enough love for his wife, and the wife manages to submit to her husband. God does not want that. He does not want a love nor a submission which is apart from Christ.
(Life Messages, Vol. 2 (#42-75), Chapter 19, by Witness Lee)
