THE WAY PREPARED
God did many things to make it possible for us to live Christ. He had to create the heavens, the earth, and man. Then He Himself had to become incarnate. The infinite God lived in humanity for thirty-three and a half years! Then one day He went to the cross. God in the flesh entered into death by crucifixion. After death, He entered into resurrection, ascension, enthronement, and glorification. Now our God has become the life-giving Spirit. He is ready to enter into all those who open up to believe in Him. “O God, I am a sinner. O Lord Jesus, You are My Savior. You died on the cross for me.” Whoever opens himself to this extent will have this life-giving One enter into the inmost part of him, his spirit. He comes into us with all His involvements and all His virtues.
His involvements include eternity, creation, incarnation, human living, crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension, with the enthronement and the crowning. He is our God, our Redeemer, our Savior, our Lord, our Master, and our Father. He is the all-inclusive life-giving Spirit. His virtues include life, light, love, grace, truth, holiness, righteousness, victory, and humility.
This life-giving Spirit is in our spirit. The two spirits are mingled, making us one spirit with the Lord (1 Cor. 6:17). In ourselves we are sinful and insignificant. We are nobodies in a vast universe. Yet we are one spirit with the Lord. This profound fact should be a factor affecting our living. Christ today is both in the heavens and in us, just as electricity is in the power plant and also in the building. He is prevailing in us because He is in the power plant of the heavens.
This is the message you need to tell people! You are the Lord’s spokesman to tell others that He is living, real, available, and within us. Have you ever told your parents this? You are silent and passive because you do not pray. Christ is living! Pray to Him! If you pray even for a half hour, you will see what happens. The motor within will start up!
“The Spirit Himself witnesses with our spirit that we are the children of God” (Rom. 8:16). What a wonder that the divine Spirit is one with our human spirit!
WALKING ACCORDING TO SPIRIT
How can we live by Christ? It is simply by walking according to this mingled spirit which is within us (Rom. 8:4).
In Our Relationships with Others
Let me illustrate. Suppose two brothers come to me after they have had a disagreement. They tell me their story and want me to settle the problem. I can handle them in two ways. I can listen to them, trying to discern which one is right. I watch their eyes and their facial expressions to be sure they are not lying. If this is my way of dealing with people, I am living by myself; this is a human way. The other way is to listen while inwardly I am praying. “Lord, I would live by You. I have been crucified with You. Now You live in me. What would You say to these brothers? What do You realize concerning them? What would You do with them?” This constant, inward turning to the Lord is what is meant by praying unceasingly. Not only so. I have my natural discernment, by which I could read their hearts. But I further say to the Lord, “Lord, I do not want to live by myself. I want to go by what You feel, what You discern, what You see. I want to say what You would say to them.”
Suppose, further, that while the brothers are talking to me, my temper is aroused by what they say. I am about to rebuke them, but I sense that I am not abiding in Christ. In this situation I do not do or say anything. Rather, within I pray, “Lord, forgive me. My natural man has come to the surface. Lord, cover me. Be my person. Be my life.”
After I have been listening to these two brothers in an attitude of prayer and oneness with the Lord, He will lead me to say a word to them. What it would be, I do not know. The Lord is living and flexible. Whatever He would say through me will be either light shining over them or life supplied to them within. The result will be that both of them are enlightened, nourished, and supplied with life.
(Life Messages, Vol. 2 (#42-75), Chapter 12, by Witness Lee)
