This is the principle of God becoming flesh. When the Lord Jesus was on the earth, outwardly His appearance was that of a man, but inwardly He was nothing less than the glorious and great God. If He had come only with majesty and had suddenly appeared among men, it would have been a tremendous matter, and many people would have been so frightened that they would have prostrated themselves on the ground. They would have had the sense that He was majestic and great and that they were poor and low. However, the Lord Jesus did not come in that way. When the Lord Jesus was on the earth, the little children were not afraid of Him, the lepers were not afraid of Him, and even the corrupted people were not afraid of Him (Matt. 19:13-15; 8:2-3; Luke 15:1). Crowds were able to press upon Him, and a woman was able to touch the fringe of His garment (Matt. 9:20-22). Another woman was able to wipe His feet, and another was able to pour ointment upon His head (Luke 7:38; Matt. 26:7). People did not have the sense that He was someone great and exalted. He was more ordinary than any normal person.
Many people considered the Lord to be merely the son of a carpenter, with nothing extraordinary about Him (13:55; Luke 3:23). Although He was the son of an ordinary carpenter outwardly, in reality He was much more than this. As a man who had a poor and low origin, He had no attracting form nor majesty (Isa. 53:2-3). He had no air of self-importance about Him. Outwardly, He was ordinary, and thus, everyone could come close to Him and contact Him. Inwardly, however, He had God within Him. He was the embodiment of God (Col. 2:9). The Lord Jesus was God manifested in the flesh. Today this principle of God becoming man to contact man remains the same.
In any philosophy or religion, such as Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism, and Islam, none of the followers have the sense that the leader of their philosophy or religion is close to them or related to them. When a person does not believe in the Lord Jesus, He seems very far from him, but immediately after he believes in the Lord, he has the sense that the Lord has come into him. When a believer prays to the Lord, he senses that the Lord Jesus is dwelling in him. Many Buddhists often burn incense and chant Buddhist scriptures, but in their chanting, none of them feel that Buddha has come into them. Their sense is that Buddha is still outside of them. However, all the believers in Jesus can testify that when they believed in Jesus, mysteriously they sensed that Jesus came into them, and when they pray to Him, this sense within them becomes stronger.
Many people can testify to the reality of Jesus dwelling in them, and anyone can pray to Him. When a person first begins to pray, he may feel that the Lord is still in heaven, and he is on earth. However, after praying for only five minutes, he will feel that Jesus is very near. If he prays for another five minutes, he will sense that Jesus has come into him. If he prays for an additional ten or twenty minutes, he will have many “stories” of Jesus being in him. If he continues to pray, after five additional minutes he will sense Jesus speaking within him; after ten minutes he will feel that Jesus is supplying him with power; and after fifteen minutes he will sense that he and Jesus have been mingled together to become one. This is a wonderful and inexplicable feeling. Every believer in Jesus should have this kind of experience in prayer.
A new believer shared his experience after believing in the Lord, saying, “I not only believed but also prayed. After I prayed, I had some experiences of the Lord.” The longer we believe in the Lord and the more we pray, the more we will be filled with many experiences of the Lord. Our only regret will be that we did not pray enough.
Recently, a certain hostel hired a new manager. One night, while the manager’s wife was ironing her clothes with an electric iron, she had to take care of her child. Thus, she ironed for a little while and went to check on her child. However, after checking on her child, she fell asleep and left the electric iron plugged in. The iron continued to heat up, and after some time the iron overheated and was set on fire. The flames from the burning iron set the table on fire, and because the table was close to the wall, the wall also was set on fire. Since the hostel was a wooden building and the fire occurred between three and four o’clock in the morning, it was probable that the hostel would burn down. However, a brother who usually did not wake up at night was staying in the hostel. That night this brother suddenly woke up because he had to use the restroom. When he opened the door, he saw the fire burning and rushed to put the fire out. His action saved the hostel from burning down.
Although many people may consider this brother’s timely awakening to be coincidental, if we asked other Christians, they would testify of many similar experiences. If such experiences occurred only once or twice, they could be considered coincidence. However, if these experiences occur often, we must admit that they are stories of Jesus in us.