Just as our human life is sustained by eating food and drinking water, so the divine life is received by the way of eating and drinking. For this purpose God has created for man a receiving organ. The organ for us to receive physical food is our stomach. The organ by which we can receive spiritual food and drink is our spirit. God has created a spirit for man, which is designed particularly so that man can receive God. Man's spirit is different from man's body, and it is also different from man's soul. It is a part that is deeper than man's soul and lies hidden within man's soul. The Bible calls this part the spirit of man.
Christ as Spirit and life is real today, but He cannot be realized by means of our soul, that is, our mind, emotion, and will. If you try to understand Him with your mind or feel Him with your emotion, you will not be able to experience Him. The proper organ to receive Christ is our spirit. Our spirit is our spiritual digesting organ. With our spirit we can eat and drink Christ as life to us.
Two very important things related to life are eating and drinking. Without eating and drinking, man cannot survive physically. Every day we must eat and drink. The same is true with our spiritual life. In the Bible there are the river of life and the tree of life. The river of life is for our drinking, and the tree of life is for our eating. The river of life is a picture of Christ as the Spirit of life, and the tree of life is a picture of Christ as the supply of life to man in the form of food. God has no intention for us to worship Him in a religious way. His intention is that we would take in Christ as food and drink. By enjoying our God as food and drink, Christ as the Spirit and life comes into us.
The best way to eat and drink of Christ is to pray by calling on His name and to read the Bible by praying with the words of the Bible. This is not a religious exercise or a legal duty, but a way to enjoy Christ as our life.
When the divine life comes into us, we are regenerated; we have God's life, and we become God's sons. To be a Christian is not a matter of fulfilling certain religious obligations or reforming our behavior. One does not become an American by reforming himself, but by being born with a life from American parents. In the same way, we do not become sons of God by doing anything, but by receiving God's life into us.
In our human life, after we are born we continue to grow by eating and drinking. In the same way, by eating Christ as the spiritual food and drinking the Spirit as the water of life, our spiritual life will grow. Day by day as we eat and drink of Christ, we will grow in the divine life. In this way we will be a people who are filled with God and will eventually express God in our living. This is the meaning of the Christian life.