III. THE WAY TO RECEIVE AND ENJOY
SUCH A FULL SALVATION OF GOD
The way to receive and enjoy such a full salvation of God, constituted of Christ, the Servant of Jehovah, as the covenant and the light to us, God’s elect, is to exercise our spirit, to live according to our spirit, and to remain in our spirit, with which is the very Christ, by calling on Christ our Lord’s name (Isa. 42:5; Zech. 12:1; Rom. 8:4b; Rev. 1:10a; 2 Tim. 4:22; Isa. 12:3-4). Isaiah 42:5-6 says, "Thus says God Jehovah, / Who created the heavens and stretched them out, / Who spread forth the earth and what springs up from it, / Who gives breath to the people upon it / And spirit to those who walk on it. / I am Jehovah; I have called You in righteousness; / I have held You by the hand; / I have kept You and I have given You / As a covenant for the people, as a light for the nations." Before God spoke in verse 6 of giving Christ as a covenant for the people and as a light for the nations, He declared that He gave us a spirit (v. 5). First, He told us that He had prepared a "stomach" (a spirit) within us; then He told us what the "foodstuffs" (Christ as the covenant and the light) are. Our spiritual stomach is our spirit, and Christ is the food that we are to receive into our spiritual stomach. Thus, the way to receive and enjoy Christ is to exercise our spirit, to live according to our spirit, and to remain in our spirit, with which is the very Christ. Second Timothy 4:22 says, "The Lord be with your spirit." Since Christ is with our spirit, we must exercise our spirit, live according to our spirit, and remain in our spirit in order to receive and enjoy Him.
Every day I practice this. First, I exercise my spirit by calling, "O Lord Jesus." If we merely shut our eyes and meditate, we may "wander" all over the world. But if we call, "O Lord Jesus," for ten minutes, we will be in the third heavens; that is, we will be in our spirit. Today our spirit is our third heavens, the Holy of Holies, the place where we meet the Lord.
We should walk, live, and have our being according to this spirit. Sometimes as I am about to speak to certain people, I am checked: "Will you say this from yourself or from Him who is with you in your spirit. Who is your person, Witness Lee or Jesus Christ?" We may say the right thing, but we may say it by the wrong person, that is, by our self. We must say the right thing by the right person, and we must also do the right thing by the right person. Quite often we speak of loving the saints. However, we must be careful by what person we love others—by our self or by Christ. We should not forget that as believers in Christ, we have two persons: we have our self, the old person, and we have the Lord Jesus, the new person. We surely need to do the right thing, the good thing, the excellent thing, but we must go further to check by what person we do things—by our self as our person, or by our dear Savior, Jesus Christ, as our person. We should not live in our own person; rather, we need to live according to the spirit and remain in our spirit.
At times we may laugh, but if we laugh too much, we get out of our spirit. Then, after laughing for quite a time, we may silence ourself and go to our bedroom to pray, "Lord, forgive me; I have laughed too much. I want to come back to my spirit to be with You." We need to remain in the spirit continuously. First, we need to call on Him, to exercise our spirit; then we need to live according to our spirit, and then remain in our spirit. In Revelation 1:10 the apostle John said that he was in spirit on the Lord’s Day; that is, he was remaining in his spirit. Isaiah 12:3-4a says, "Therefore you will draw water with rejoicing / From the springs of salvation, / And you will say in that day, / Praise Jehovah; call upon His name!" These verses in Isaiah tell us that there is a salvation that is full of springs and that we need to draw water from this salvation by praising Jehovah and calling upon His name. This is not my teaching but the divine revelation. God’s full salvation is constituted of Christ as the covenant and as the light, and this full salvation is full of springs. We need to learn to come to draw water out of these springs by calling on His name. This corresponds exactly with the New Testament teaching (Acts 2:21; Rom. 10:12-13). All Jesus’ followers should be His callers. This is the way to enjoy Him as our covenant and as our light that we may enjoy God’s full salvation.
(Life-Study of Isaiah, Chapter 47, by Witness Lee)
