First and 2 Timothy speak about the training a person must receive in order to serve God. Although these two books are short, the points that they cover encompass the entire content of God’s economy. What Paul said here is entirely not doctrinal but experiential. He used his experience to train his young co-worker.
Based on this, we have extracted twelve items for our exercise, although these books speak of closer to twenty items, including the way to help the older men, perfect the young men, care for the sisters, and treat the elders. All these are also items for our exercise. Among all these items, however, we will list the more important and fundamental matters, such as those concerning the Spirit, life, Christ, and the Bible. Exercise is a matter of the spirit, soul, and body. First Timothy 4:8 tells us that “bodily exercise is profitable for a little, but godliness is profitable for all things, having promise of the present life and of that which is to come.” Paul does not say that exercising the body is not profitable and that we should not care for it. Rather, he says that there is a difference in the profit of the different kinds of exercise. It is necessary to exercise the body, but it is not as profitable as exercising unto godliness. To exercise unto godliness is to exercise to experience God, enjoy God, and live out God. In other words, it is to exercise to be with God.
Paul did not speak of God merely in a doctrinal way. Rather, he wanted us to enjoy God, experience God, and live out God in order to be with God. This is entirely not for doctrine but for experience and enjoyment. For this reason, the first item is the exercise of our spirit. Second Timothy 1:7 says, “For God has not given us a spirit of cowardice, but of power and of love and of sobermindedness.” Power refers to our will, love to our emotion, and sobermindedness to our mind. This indicates that having a strong will, a loving emotion, and a sober mind has very much to do with having a strong spirit.
Man has three parts—a spirit, a soul, and a body. In our soul is our personality, our person, which also has three parts—the mind, the emotion, and the will. This is very wonderful. God is the Triune God—the Father, the Son, and the Spirit—and man is a tripartite being of spirit, soul, and body. Then in man’s soul, his personality, there are also three parts, which should not be divorced from his spirit. The soul, made up of mind, emotion, and will, surrounds the spirit. When the spirit wants to come out, the will of the soul must be strong, and the emotion of the soul must be filled with love. In the same way, for the spirit to pass through the mind of the soul, the mind must be sober.
The word sober has a profound meaning in Greek. It means that the mind has to be not only clear and understanding but also balanced and unbiased, not emphasizing one aspect while neglecting another. Today people in this world are all sick in this way. We may say that almost everyone has a problem with his mental condition. This is because every person’s mind is unbalanced. Many people sleep too much, while others work too much to make money. Both are unbalanced. Whether in making money or in sleeping, if a person has no control, there is something wrong with his mental condition. Those who overcare for nice shoes, pay too much attention to fashionable hairstyles, or love ease while hating work are all unbalanced in their mind. If the mind is balanced, everything will be balanced and regulated. We all need to be balanced.
To be sober means not only to be balanced but also to have self-control, being able to control oneself. A balanced person is one who has full control over himself, one who can restrain himself. Today people in the world are all sick. They cannot control themselves. They have gotten off track because their mind is unbalanced, and their spirit is not strong enough to rule and reign over their mind. This is the condition of the present age. The purpose of our training is to bring us back to the right track, the exercise of our spirit, so that our spirit will be strong to rule and reign over our mind. If we want our mind to be balanced, we need to have a strong spirit.
On the one hand, our spirit needs to be strong, and on the other hand, it also needs to have love. Some people love without a standard. They love good things, bad things, right things, and wrong things. They love recklessly without balance. This is because their spirit is not strong enough. If their spirit were strong, it would balance their love. Some people are so strong that they do not have much love. Being strong without having love is not balanced. A Chinese saying tells us, “Be both strong and gentle in dealing with others.” Gentleness is a matter of love. We must be strong but gentle and loving; then we will be balanced. This balance is in our spirit.
We need to exercise our spirit to let our spirit come out. The way to exercise our spirit is to call, “Lord Jesus! O Lord Jesus!” When we do this, we are balanced. Those who like to joke will stop joking, those who talk nonstop will shut their mouths, and those who are not joyful will begin to smile. To call “O Lord Jesus! O Lord Jesus!” is to exercise our spirit. This causes our mind to be balanced.
We often speak of the Lord’s presence, but almost the whole of Christianity has neglected the key to the Lord’s presence. They have not seen how the Lord can be with us practically. Second Timothy 4:22 tells us where the Lord’s presence is. This verse says, “The Lord be with your spirit.” By this we can see that the Lord’s presence is in our spirit.
Many theologians and Bible scholars rightly unfold the truth, but they have never seen that the Bible, especially the New Testament, tells us that man has a spirit and that today the Lord is the Spirit in our spirit. Three verses in the New Testament place God’s Spirit together with the human spirit. The first is John 3:6, which says, “That which is born of the Spirit is spirit.” Here there are two spirits: the first is God’s Spirit, and the second is our spirit. Then 4:24 of the same book says, “God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truthfulness.” Fearing that people would not understand this word, the translators of the Chinese Bible added heart before spirit: “worship in heart-spirit.” This addition makes the word even more difficult to understand. Is this the heart, or is it the spirit? In the same way, earlier translators of the Chinese Bible added soul before spirit. This also caused much confusion. Is it the spirit, or is it the soul? In order for people to have the proper understanding, we must have the proper translation of this verse. The third verse is Romans 8:16, which says, “The Spirit Himself witnesses with our spirit that we are children of God.” All these verses show us that God is in our spirit.
Someone may ask why man needs a spirit; is it not enough for him to have a heart? This question has a simple answer. We may use the example of eating a treat. It is the heart that desires to eat something special. However, we cannot see or locate our heart. We cannot receive the treat and eat it with our heart. The heart can only desire; it cannot receive. Our heart desires the snack, but our hand must reach out to receive it, and our mouth must eat it. We must use all three—the heart, the hand, and the mouth—in order for the snack to get into us. In the same way, man’s heart can only desire and love the Lord, but it cannot receive the Lord. It is man’s spirit that receives the Lord. Our heart is a loving organ, while our spirit is a receiving organ.
In Ezekiel 36:26 the Lord said that He would give the children of Israel a new heart and a new spirit. If the heart and the spirit were the same thing, the Lord’s word here would not make sense. This passage clearly tells us that God gives us two things: a heart and a spirit. Eventually, the Spirit of God must also enter into us. When the Spirit of God enters into us, He enters into our spirit, not our heart.
We all know that the Lord is with us, but in what way is He with us? I am afraid that many people do not know the answer. Paul told Timothy, “The Lord be with your spirit” (2 Tim. 4:22). This clearly points out that the Lord is with us, not in our mind or our heart but in our spirit. Again, we may take eating as an example. When food enters into us, it enters not into our mind but into our stomach. Our stomach is the organ that receives food. We all know that the Lord is the bread of life, but many people do not know how to eat this bread and into which part of us this bread enters. The Lord is the bread of life, and the Lord is the Spirit. If the Lord were not the Spirit, how could He enter into us as the bread of life? If He were not the Spirit, He could not abide in our spirit.
The first thing we who serve the Lord need to do is exercise our spirit. Doctrines do not avail; only experience can help people. Therefore, it is very important to have experience in exercising our spirit. Because of the large number of people in the church life, it is difficult to avoid friction, so we may spontaneously give people a long face. Likewise, there are often things that make us happy in the church life, so we may burst into laughter in an unruly manner. Neither of these reactions is from the spirit, and we ourselves are not in the spirit when we do these things. Our outburst of laughter when we are happy is in the soul, and our giving people a long face when we are unhappy is also in the soul. We do not have two souls; we simply have one soul with several faces. When the soul is smiling, do not think that it is the spirit. It is still only the soul. A long, frowning face is one of the appearances of the soul, and a smiling, laughing face is another appearance of the soul. To genuinely exercise the spirit is to neither laugh nor weep if the spirit is not laughing or weeping. In other words, all of our walk and behavior are under the control of the spirit. To exercise the spirit is to let the spirit take control.
By nature, sisters easily shed tears. If you want something from the sisters, the most effective way is not to say much but to shed tears in front of them. Then they will immediately offer their help. The brothers, however, are complicated in their minds, like Judas was. When Mary anointed the Lord Jesus, Judas calculated in his mind, and asked, “Why was this ointment not sold for three hundred denarii and given to the poor?” (John 12:5). This is a picture of the brothers, who have calculating minds. Therefore, when you go to see the brothers, you need to be rational and be able to give a clear account.
The sisters, though, do not care much about accurate accounts. In the family life there are often quarrels because the husband keeps too clear of an account, while the wife’s thinking is muddled. The two sides of the account cannot be balanced. However, if the husbands are clever, they will shed a few tears in front of their wives. On the other hand, the wives should exercise their mind to clearly settle their accounts. In this way the husbands and wives will get along better. This is the secret to maintaining a good relationship between husband and wife and having a peaceful life. However, we are now the saved ones. Whether we are husbands or wives, we must exercise our spirit. If the spirit wants to laugh, we laugh, if the spirit wants to weep, we weep, and if the spirit is silent, we do nothing. The key to our daily walk is the spirit. Without the spirit nothing avails, but with the spirit everything works. Therefore, we all must exercise our spirit.