To live, walk, and have our being in Christ is simply to walk according to spirit. How do we know that we are in Christ? According to Romans 8, to be in Christ is to walk according to spirit (v. 4). To walk according to spirit means to have no condemnation in Christ Jesus (v. 1). Although many brothers say that they are in Christ, they also testify that they have a lot of condemnation within. The reason for this condemnation is that they are walking in the soul according to flesh and not walking in the spirit, according to spirit.
When you are walking in the spirit, there is no condemnation. To say that there is no condemnation in Christ Jesus (v. 1) is equal to walking according to spirit (v. 4). When we are walking in spirit in reality, it is at that moment that we experience no condemnation. However, if we are out of the spirit, there is condemnation all of the time.
The Normal Christian Life by Brother Watchman Nee has helped many brothers and sisters by opening up chapters five through eight of the book of Romans. However, my burden is that those who were helped by this book would walk in the spirit. How many brothers and sisters walk in the spirit? Christ is the victory; He is the life through which we are being saved from many negative things (Rom. 5:10). Yet how much do we enjoy Christ day by day? How much did we enjoy such a living salvation from so many negative things today? We have the doctrine and teaching about Romans 5-8, but how much enjoyment of what is taught about Christ in these chapters do we have? We may have the teaching, but we may not have the enjoyment of the teaching. In order to help us enter into the enjoyment of the teaching found in Romans, I will not give any more definitions in this chapter. Rather, I will give some experiences and illustrations.
When I was a young Christian, I was taught by others’ writings and through sermons on Romans 6-8 to overcome sins. Someone would speak about victory over sin or the release from sin. When I heard this, I would pray much saying, “O Lord, I do long to have the victory over all sins. How much I desire to be released from all of the sinful things!” I prayed, but the more I prayed, the more failures I had. The more I prayed for victory over sin, the more I was defeated by sin. For many years I did not know the reason for this experience. Eventually, I began to understand that my shortcoming was that I was asking the Lord to do something for me while I was a person still living in my soul, not in my spirit. I began to realize that there was no need for me to pray for victory over sin or for the release from sin. I simply needed to practice to turn to the spirit, forgetting about victory over sin and the release from sin.
I realized that I must turn to the mingled spirit, staying in the spirit to contact the Lord. I practiced to keep my mind away from sin or the victory over sin, and to set my mind upon Christ in my spirit (Rom. 8:6). In the realm of the mingled spirit, there is no need to strive for victory over sin. We need to learn one thing-not to overcome sin but to walk in the spirit. I found out that whenever I was out of the spirit, immediately I was in another realm. In that realm there was the need to strive for the victory over sin.
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