EVERYTHING CONCERNING GOD BEING IN THE SPIRIT

Those who came to the Lord Jesus when He was on earth thought that He was a Teacher, a Rabbi, and that He came to teach men how to behave. However, the Lord Jesus showed them again and again that He did not come to teach men. He was not a Teacher or a Rabbi. He is life; He is the bread of life. He came to be eaten by men as food, not to teach men. Hence, He often spoke of being eaten by men. Sometimes He used parables, and other times He spoke in plain words. The clearest passage is in John 6 where the Lord said to the crowd around Him that His flesh is true food and His blood is true drink, that those who eat His flesh and drink His blood have eternal life, and that those who eat Him will live by Him.

When the people heard this word, they did not understand it. They thought, “How can this man be eaten? How can we eat His flesh and drink His blood?” The Lord went on to explain that it is the Spirit who enlivens, gives life, and that the flesh profits nothing. When He said to eat His flesh and drink His blood, He was not referring to His visible flesh, because His visible flesh cannot give life. It is the Spirit who gives life. The Lord Jesus clearly explained that we can eat Him by turning to our spirit, because He is the Spirit. In order to eat the Lord, drink Him, and enjoy Him, we must turn to the Spirit in our spirit.

The Lord said that He is the Spirit in John 6, and when speaking to the people concerning drinking Him in chapter 7, He again spoke of being the Spirit. To eat Him is to eat Him as the Spirit, and also to drink Him is to drink Him as the Spirit. Both eating and drinking are matters in the Spirit.

We need to know that God is Spirit in His essence. When the Lord Jesus spoke to the Samaritan woman, He said that the proper worship is neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem, but that God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship Him in spirit. Fundamentally, God is Spirit. It is difficult to eat and drink God if we consider Him to be something visible or physical. We need to see that God is Spirit. If we understand this, it will not be difficult for us to receive God and assimilate Him.

Today our God is not merely the Holy Spirit. Much more can be said about Him. One day the God who is Spirit entered into humanity. God was born of woman and became a man. This is Jesus, the incarnated Word. At this point God the Spirit entered into humanity and was mingled with man. He put on human flesh and took the form of man. He lived a human life for thirty-three and a half years. It was a perfect human living. This was the first step.

In His second step He died on the cross. In His death on the cross He bore our sins. He shed His blood to deal with our sins before God. While He was being judged and crucified on the cross, sin itself was being judged and crucified. On the one hand, He dealt with the problem of our sins before God. On the other hand, the sin that dwells in us was judged as well. On the cross He also crucified our flesh, the old creation, and He judged Satan and the world. He tasted death for us and destroyed the power of death. His death on the cross dealt with these six things: sins, sin, our flesh, which is the old creation, Satan, the world, and death. These six things were dealt with on the cross through the death of the Lord Jesus.

In His third step He came out of death in resurrection, fully overcoming and transcending the realm of death to enter into God. When He entered into God, He entered into God with His humanity. When He ascended to the heavens, His humanity was also raised to the heavens.

Finally, in His last step, in His resurrection and ascension, the Lord became the Spirit. God who is Spirit was incarnated to be a man on earth. He was fully mingled with man. He passed through human living and was crucified on the cross, settling the problem of man’s sins and solving the problems related to sin, the flesh, Satan, the world, and even death. In other words, He dealt with everything that stood in the way of God. Then He walked out of the realm of death and entered the realm of resurrection and ascension, bringing His humanity with Him into God. Our God has now become this Spirit. All the processes, the steps, and the elements in God are now all-inclusively in the Spirit. The Holy Spirit is no longer so simple. Within Him are many things. Within the Spirit is the Father, the Son, incarnation, union with man, human living, crucifixion, and the termination of sins and sin itself. Within this One there is the solution to the problems of the flesh, Satan, the world, and death. There is victory over death in resurrection. Within this One is also our entrance into God through the bringing of humanity into God through ascension. Today all these items are included in the Spirit.

We should remember that the God we touch today is this Spirit. The God whom we breathe in and whom we take in by eating and drinking is this Spirit. The Father is in Him, and the Son is in Him. Incarnation, union with man, human living, and crucifixion are all in Him. The termination of sins, the solution to sin and the problems of the flesh, Satan, the world, and death are also in Him. Resurrection is in Him. Man’s being in God and man’s being brought into the heavens are all contained in Him. All these processes and all these elements are now included in Him.

As an example, we may add grape juice and sugar to a glass of water. Then when we drink, we receive grape juice, sugar, and water. All these ingredients are contained in this drink. Now the Father is in the Son, and the Son is in the Spirit. Hence, everything of the Father is included in this Spirit, and all the experiences and attainments of the Son are also included in this Spirit. We can say that everything that the Triune God is and has done is included in this Spirit. Hence, it is convenient and expedient for us to eat and drink God, because He is now the Spirit. As long as we breathe in the Spirit, we can eat and drink God.

We need to see that God is Spirit. He has passed through incarnation, human living, death, resurrection, ascension, and glorification. All these items are now in the Spirit. The Lord said that it is the Spirit who gives life. He also said that to receive the Spirit is to drink Him. Hence, eating and drinking depend on the Spirit. The Lord also said that God is Spirit, and those who worship Him and contact Him must do so in spirit. God has given Himself to us as our food. He desires to enter into us to be our everything. He desires that we eat Him and drink Him. But how do we eat Him and drink Him? His words make it clear that eating and drinking are in the spiritual realm, not the physical realm. The physical flesh profits nothing. It is the Spirit who gives life. All we need to do is learn to exercise our spirit to contact God.

In order to receive anything, we need the proper organ. We receive sound with our ears, colors with our eyes, food with our mouth, and air with our lungs. It is clear that we need to use the proper organ to receive anything. Because God is not an object, there is no way for us to receive Him with our physical senses. We cannot touch God, smell God, taste God, see God, or hear God. It is useless for us to try to contact God with our five senses. As I have said repeatedly, there is another organ within us—our spirit. Within every one of us there is a spirit. We must contact God and receive Him with this spirit.

Some people exercise their mind rather than their spirit when they pray. When a sentence comes to their mind, they utter it, and they also utter the next sentence that comes to their mind. They pray according to the thoughts in their mind. When their minds are distracted by other things, they even spontaneously pray concerning these distracting matters. Once a pastor in a denomination asked an elder to pray after his sermon. Because the elder had been preoccupied with his business while the sermon was being given, he found himself muttering something concerning his business a few sentences into his prayer. The whole congregation burst into laughter. This may sound like a joke, but we also have prayed in this way. We have prayed prayers that were not prayers. Mental prayers from the mind are frustrations. They frustrate us from eating and drinking God, and we are held back from receiving God. No matter how many mental prayers we utter, they will never touch God.

God is Spirit. Hence, receiving God and assimilating Him are altogether a matter in the spirit. We need to restrain our mind when we pray. We must exercise to pray with our spirit. Instead of spending the time to consider what to pray, we should take care of our inward feeling. As we kneel before the Lord, we may not have any words to utter. However, because of a heavy burden, a pressure within our spirit, we can still groan and sigh before the Lord. This is a very genuine prayer. Have we had this kind of experience? We generally utter groaning prayers when we are in a difficult situation, because the situation exhausts our mental capacity. When the suffering is intense, our mind is unable to control the situation, and the spirit is released through groaning before the Lord. This is the best kind of prayer. It is the most precious kind of breathing.

We must learn to stop our thoughts and contact God in spirit not only when we pray but while we are walking on the street, sitting in a bus, or working. The more we are in the spirit, the more we will touch God, and the more we will absorb Him, eat Him, and drink of Him. It is not a matter of what we pray. We will assimilate God as long as we turn to our spirit.