The Gospel of John, in chapter one, has the Word, and it has God. From chapter one to chapter twenty are many other things. There is the Word becoming flesh as the tabernacle of God (1:14); there is the Lamb of God (1:29); there is the brass serpent (3:14); there is the living water (4:14); there is the bread of life (6:35, 51); there is the door (10:9); and there is the pasture (10:9). There are so many items. But the last item in this book is in chapter twenty—the pneuma, the breath. This Holy Spirit, this Holy breath, includes all the other items. The other items are all concentrated in the Holy Pneuma, the Holy Spirit.
This Spirit today is in our spirit (2 Tim. 4:22; 1 Cor. 6:17)! How good it is that we have a spirit! As the Spirit He is so available like the air, and He is in our spirit. The tabernacle and all the offerings are in the Spirit. But how can you use Him? How can you apply Him? You have to exercise your spirit. You may know this, but to know it is one thing and to live it and practice it is another thing.
Let me illustrate once more. I have a lot of experiences of being defeated. I have known for years that such a wonderful Spirit is in my spirit, but even yesterday I had a lot of failure in this matter. Why? We have a spirit, and this wonderful life-giving Spirit is living in our spirit. This is a wonderful fact! With the fact there is no problem. Yet in nearly everything of our daily life we don’t care for this fact. We do things, we say things, we act, we move, we walk, we do everything mainly in ourselves, by ourselves, and with ourselves.
For instance my wife asked me, “Will you speak forty minutes or an hour this morning? Don’t speak over forty minutes.” Right away I was unhappy. I didn’t say anything aloud, but within I said, “You are too much!” She didn’t hear because I didn’t utter it, but surely the life-giving Spirit in my spirit heard. Then I did say something: “Maybe an hour.” After I said this to her, I said, “Lord, forgive me. I need You as my trespass offering.” Why should I confess? Because, first of all, when my wife said something to me I shouldn’t initiate the feeling. I should right away turn to the spirit: “Lord, You answer. Lord, You face the situation. This is Your problem. This is Your business. It is not mine. Lord Jesus, You take care of this.” This is the right way. But this is not easy.
When you hear a knock at the door, you need to say, “Lord Jesus, You go to open the door. Spirit, You open the door.” Most of the time we do not do this. When the knock comes, we go to the door by ourselves. Whatever comes to us, we go ahead right away like Peter did many times. In the four Gospels Peter was such a person, going ahead and leaving Christ behind (Matt. 17:24-27). We are the same. In our daily life we are nearly always ahead of the Lord Jesus. We don’t use our spirit.
This is the secret: whenever anything comes to you, don’t go ahead. Say, “Lord Jesus, You go and I will follow. Lord, You take the lead, and I will follow.” This is not so easy, but if you would practice this, you will touch the reality of the fulfillment of the tabernacle and the offerings. I can testify if you would practice this, you are right away in the tabernacle, because you are in the Spirit. Not only so, if you are in the Spirit, Christ is all the offerings to you. He is your trespass offering, your sin offering, your peace offering, your meal offering, and your burnt offering. If you have the Spirit, you have the reality of all these things. We must see the matter of the Spirit! This is the ultimate point we should reach—the Spirit in our spirit.
This is very practical. For example I have to be careful about my eating. I like to eat more, but my wife knows how to restrict me. Sometimes when she asked me how much I would eat, I didn’t feel happy. When she told me I should only eat so much I talked to her, making a bargain. Every time I bargained with her I regretted it. Why? Because I went ahead of the Lord Jesus. I went ahead of the Spirit. For many years I have been learning this one lesson. Now at least a number of times when my wife asks me how much I am going to eat, I don’t have any feeling. I don’t like to say anything. Rather I say, “Spirit, this is Your job. You tell her. This is Your business.” I am not joking. This shows you the secret of how to live Christ. This is how to be one spirit with the Lord.
If you would practice this daily you would experience the reality of the fulfillment of the tabernacle and all the offerings. I do hope that the Lord would grace you to put all that you have heard concerning the matter of the meetings into daily practice, that you would take the Lord as all the offerings—the sin offering, the trespass offering, the burnt offering, the meal offering, and eventually the peace offering. Through all the offerings you may enter into the Triune God as the tabernacle and dwell in Him to enjoy the life supply from the showbread table and the enlightenment from the lampstand and to have a strong testimony by the ark. Eventually you will be one with Christ at the incense altar to pray the prayer which He offered to the Father in John 17.
We all have to realize that the divine goal of the Triune God in the Gospel of John is to bring us all into Himself, that we may dwell in Him to enjoy all the riches in Christ, that we may take Him as our dwelling place and let Him take us as His dwelling place. By doing so, we can be one with Him to realize the eternal life with the holy name of the Father, and to experience the sanctification of the Word of God, and also to participate in the Father’s glory that we will express only Him and nothing else—so that we all could be perfectly one in the Triune God, that the Son may be glorified in the church and that the Father may be glorified in the Son. This is the eternal goal of the Triune God.
Then we have the surplus of the experiences of Christ for us to come together to exhibit Christ, to offer Christ to God, and to enjoy Him with God one with another, that Christ may be fully expressed even in this age as a testimony, not only among the human beings, but also a testimony to the principalities, the powers, the authorities in the air, and all the angels. This will fulfill God’s eternal purpose and satisfy Him and us for eternity.