Chapter 17
Having the shining of God in our hearts is something very practical. God shines in us so that we will turn our hearts to behold Christ’s face. By doing this we will manifest the living knowledge we have of Christ as well as have spiritual discernment in all situations. When we are under Christ’s light, the darkness cannot deceive or blind us.
Understanding God’s will for us is something that is very basic. Many times, because we are not “tuned-in” to Christ, we are very indecisive, even in common and ordinary matters. It does not matter what we do. The most important thing is to contact the Lord in our spirit without any barrier between us. If we are living in the spirit all the time through what we call the five tools (calling on the name of the Lord, speaking and singing the hymns, pray-reading the word, ruminating the word and prophesying), we will not give opportunity for the flesh or the soul-life to be manifested. We need to have our face turned to Christ all the time.
We need to have a genuine spiritual life that is not based on formulas or religious concepts, but on the life of God. Some think that because they are Christians they should never get angry. In principle this is true, but there are moments when we have a holy anger. The Bible records a situation in which Jesus was filled with anger when He cast out the vendors from the temple and overturned the tables of the moneychangers. No doubt, He acted in dependence on the divine life within Him and did not fail to do the Father’s will. This indicates clearly that we cannot live the Christian life as we think it should be. Watchman Nee once said, “There is only one Christian life: the life of Christ.” Therefore, what we must do all the time is turn to the Lord and behold His face in our spirit.
If we are not organically joined to the Lord, whatever we do, whether serving Him in the church or preaching the gospel, will be of no use, of no value to Him. Without Christ everything is vain. Christ has called us to continue His ministry of presenting God’s kingdom to men. In order to do this, however, we cannot use our natural abilities or our eloquence. Rather, we need to be turned to Him and depend on His life.
When we are in our spirit, our heart is turned to the Lord. But outside of our spirit, it is impossible to be tuned in to Him. This is why we have spiritual failures and begin to live according to our flesh and soul-life. When we become aware of this, we must repent quickly and turn again to the Lord. We must have our heart turned to behold Christ’s face in our living. This is the normal living of a minister of the new covenant.
Second Corinthians 4:7 says, “But we have this treasure in earthen vessels that the excellency of the power may be of God and not out of us.” The Bible reveals that we human beings are only earthen vessels. However, the human beings who have been regenerated with the divine life, the Christians, are earthen vessels that contain a treasure. On one hand, the treasure is Christ, but speaking more accurately, the treasure in this vessel refers to the ministry of the new covenant with which the Lord has commissioned us.
When we received Christ as our Savior, we also received the ministry. When Paul realized the greatness of this he could say, “You must count everything as loss on account of the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus our Lord” (Phil. 3:8). How glorious this treasure is! We are becoming vessels filled with the savor of the knowledge of Christ, thus manifesting the excellency of His power. Before we were regenerated we were earthen vessels without any function or power, destined for the lake of fire. However, when this treasure was put into us, we received the power of His life.
We can illustrate this by the president of a country choosing a minister. Before the minister is chosen, he is common, the same as others. However, when he takes his office as a minister, he receives a certain authority and power that he did not have before. Nevertheless, if this person is no longer a minister, he again becomes an ordinary citizen because the power that he had was not in his person, but in the post he occupied. The same thing happens with the ministers of the new covenant. The earthen vessel has no value, but when the treasure is put into it, it has the power of God’s life.
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