CONTENTS

• The First Stage-In Christ
  1. Regeneration
  2. Clearance of the Past
• The Second Stage-Abiding in Christ
  3. Consecration
  4. Dealing with Sins
  5. Dealing with the World
  6. Dealing with the Conscience
  7. Obeying the Teaching of the Anointing
  8. Knowing the Will of God
• The Third Stage-Christ Living in Me
  9. Dealing with the Flesh
  10. Dealing with Self
  11. Dealing with the Natural Constitution
  12. Accepting the Discipline of the Holy Spirit
  13. Dealing with the Spirit
  14. Being Filled with the Holy Spirit
• The Fourth Stage-Christ's Full Growth in Us
  15. Knowing the Body
  16. Knowing the Ascension
  17. Reigning
  18. Spiritual Warfare
  19. Full of the Stature of Christ

All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise noted, are from the American Standard Version (1901).

The content of The Experience of Life is compiled from messages given during the Life Training given by Brother Witness Lee in Taipei, Taiwan in 1953 and 1954.

PREFACE

We know that it is the desire and purpose of God’s heart to secure a corporate man, having His image, manifesting His glory, and exercising His authority to deal with His enemy-all in order that He Himself may obtain eternal rest. Very few people, however, know that this great heart’s desire and purpose can only be attained by God’s own life. Even fewer understand how one can experience this life and thus fulfill the desire of God’s heart. The saints are very weak and childish. Although many pursue yet few find the path of life. There are yet many who confuse enthusiasm, knowledge, ability, and gifts with life.

Thank God that in these last days, days of such spiritual need, He has revealed through our brother His marvelous and mysterious way of life in such a way that every believer may comprehend and make it his own. We may say that these messages contain the essence of the saints’ understanding and experience of life during two thousand years, plus the thirty years of personal testing and experience which enabled our brother to compile these precious writings. It is indeed magnificent. The contents discuss the experience of life in nineteen items, explaining the experience of the various stages of spiritual life and the way of pursuing the Lord. If the experience of each subject is sought after and exercised, one can go on in a straight course and rise to the stage of the maturity of life very quickly.

These messages make real that science of life which is not easily seen or grasped. Any saint who loves the Lord and seeks to grow in life must not fail to read them.

Dr. Y. L. Chang
Taipei, Taiwan November, 1956

INTRODUCTION

From the experiences of the saints throughout the ages, and in the light that we have seen in these recent years before the Lord, we may say that the experience of life can be divided into four stages with a total of nineteen points.

According to our experience, the first four stages may be designated as follows: the first stage may be called the salvation stage; the second, the revival stage; the third, the stage of the cross; and the fourth, the stage of spiritual warfare. But according to our relationship with Christ, these four stages should be designated in this way: the first stage; in Christ; the second, abiding in Christ; the third, Christ abiding in us; and the fourth, Christ fully grown in us. The experiences of these four stages are based on our relationship with Christ.

Life is God Himself, yet in order that God may be our life, this life must necessarily be in Christ. Therefore, the Scripture says, “Christ is our life” (Col. 3:4). Since life is Christ, when we experience life, we experience Christ. The experience of life may be expressed, therefore, as our relationship with Christ.