When a person believes in the Lord Jesus, the Spirit comes into this person and lives within him. Second Timothy 4:22 says that the Lord Jesus Christ is with our spirit. We do not need to go to heaven to find God, and we do not need to make any pilgrimage on earth to touch Him. The most holy place is now in our spirit. When electricity is installed in a house, all that a person has to do is to turn on the switch. Today, the Spirit is "installed" in this universe—Christ has accomplished all the work, and as the life-giving Spirit, He is now everywhere. Whenever we call on the Lord's name, our spirits are "switched on," and we can experience all that God is.

We can explain the mystery of the Spirit by yet another illustration. One day in the summer I bought a watermelon from the market. The melon was large, and I perspired a lot in bringing it home. My intention was to eat and digest that melon. In order to do this, first I had to cut the melon into slices. To make it even easier to receive the melon, I then squeezed the melon slices into melon juice. That big melon became so enjoyable to me through the melon juice. Originally, God was in heaven. He can be illustrated by the big, uncut melon. One day He became a man and was crucified on the cross. Through His crucifixion He was "cut into slices." But the process did not stop there; after His death He resurrected and was transformed into the form of the Spirit. This is like squeezing the melon slices into melon juice. The Spirit is like the juice of the melon. Through this process God became accessible to us. Today, the God whom we worship is not the "uncut" God. He is a "processed" God. In other words, He has passed through a process to become the life-giving Spirit. Now we do not need to sweat and struggle to reach Him; He has become so enjoyable and accessible to us.

In the Gospel of John, at the end of the greatest religious festival of that day, Christ stood up and said that if any man was thirsty, he could come to Him and drink. Then Christ said, "He who believes into Me, as the Scripture said, out of his innermost being shall flow rivers of living water" (John 7:37-38). In saying this, Christ was speaking about the Spirit. It is strange that the people could still be thirsty at the end of a great religious festival. But the truth is that no outward religious observances can satisfy a man's inner thirst. The more we observe religious practices, the more we will be thirsty. What we need is a drink of the living water. Here the Spirit is likened to "rivers of living water." This living water was not there at the time Christ spoke these words, because He had not been processed through His death and resurrection. But after His death and resurrection, the process was completed, and today the Spirit as the living water is here. Now we can freely drink of the Spirit. This living water fully quenches our inner thirst.

At the time of Jesus the Jews were a religious people. They were very concerned about correct outward practices. But after practicing their religion for so many years, they were still empty and void of life. When Christ came, He told them that "it is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing" (John 6:63). The flesh here refers to the flesh of the Son of God. In this universe there is no physical thing more sacred than the flesh of the Lord Jesus. It is more sacred than all icons and frescoes and relics and crucifixes in the whole world added together. Yet the Son of God said that even this sinless flesh "profits nothing." What gives life is not these physical things, but the Spirit. The Lord was turning the religious Jews from the outward physical things to the Spirit.