I have a very heavy burden that you who love the Lord would realize the proper way to experience Christ as the inner life. It is not easy to have this realization. You may know that Christ is life to you, and you may know that Christ lives within you. Moreover, you may love the Lord and know that you have to pray to Him and contact Him. You may know all these things, but the truth of the matter is that it is rather difficult for me to help you realize the proper way to experience Christ as the inner life in a very real and practical way. It is possible for people to be helped to know that Christ is life to them yet not be helped to know the proper way to experience this life. It is not easy for me to help you in this matter. It is very difficult for physicians to give a clear and understandable explanation of the life in the human body; it is more difficult still to help you have a clear realization concerning Christ as life and help you experience Him in a practical way. For this reason, I have looked to the Lord much, seeking Him that He would grant me a simple way or a clear word whereby I could present this matter to you. What is this simple way? If you are going to experience the inner life, Christ Himself as the divine life, you have to know what the fellowship of this life is. In his Gospel, John stresses mainly that we can have this eternal life but spends little time telling us exactly how we can experience it. It is in his first Epistle that he tells us the right and proper way to experience the eternal life. The way to experience the divine life is simply to know the fellowship of the divine life.
The apostle John declared this life to us so that we may have the fellowship of life. It is rather difficult to arrive at a proper definition of this term, the fellowship of life. One day, after I had spent much time seeking the Lord and referring to books concerning this matter, the Lord pointed something out to me. There are at least two physical things that we can use to illustrate the fellowship of life. The first is an electrical current. Let us say that we are in a room that has been installed with electricity and electric lights. In such a room, we have not only electricity but the current of electricity. This electrical current illustrates the fellowship of life. An electrical current is simply electricity flowing. When the lights are turned on, we have the flow of electricity, the electrical current. However, if the lights are not on, although we still have electricity, we do not have the current, the operation, of electricity. We can also illustrate the fellowship of life with the circulation of blood in our body. The circulation of blood is actually the blood itself circulating. These two illustrations help define the fellowship of life. The fellowship of life is simply the flow of the divine life.
We can bear witness to this in our experience as believers. When we were regenerated, something began to flow within us. This is because as regenerated persons, we have a flow, a current, within us. This flow is the flow of life. The more we love the Lord, spend time with Him, and contact Him, the more this current courses through us. If we check with our experience, we will realize that before we were saved, we did not have this kind of flow within. It was only from the time that we opened ourselves to the Lord and received Him as our Savior and life that this flow began within us. I can still recall the day this flow began in me. One day I went to a gospel meeting. Before the meeting I was not saved, but during the meeting I was regenerated. When I left the meeting, there was something within me that made me want to sing and praise the Lord. I realize now that that “something” within me was actually the fellowship of the divine life. It was the current, the flowing, of the spiritual “electricity.” We have this experience repeatedly as Christians. Suppose we spend some time with the Lord and enjoy Him. During that time, do we not feel something flowing within us, burning within us, and even energizing us? This is the fellowship of the divine life. We as believers have the “current” of the divine life within us.
The proper way to experience Christ as life is to have this flow within us. If we do not have this current flowing within us, something is wrong. Just as a room may be installed with electricity but may not have the electrical current in operation, we may have Christ as the divine life but lose the fellowship of the divine life. If we check with our experience, we will realize that this is truly the case. Having the flow is just like breathing: the air is all around us, but unless we breathe, there is no way to take it in. The way to know whether we are in the fellowship, living by Christ, and experiencing Christ is simply to check whether there is a flow within. Do we have the current within us? If we do not have the flow or if the flow is ebbing, we must cry out to the Lord and open to Him.