The ultimate purpose of God’s salvation in us is for us to have God Himself as the goal, not goodness. His desire is not for us to stay away from evil and be good; instead, His desire is that we would stay away from both good and evil and live out God Himself. He does not desire for us to merely reject a heart of hatred and live out a heart of love; rather, He desires for us to reject both a hating heart and a loving heart and live out God Himself. When God is lived out, spontaneously there will be a heart of love. Not every heart of love is God Himself, but when God is lived out, love is definitely lived out, because God is love. Gold is yellow, but not everything yellow is gold. Likewise, God is love, but not every kind of love is God. People in the world express love, but their love is not God. The love that Christians live out from their spirit is God. If God desired for us merely to be delivered from evil and be good, we would not need to reject ourselves, nor would we need to die to ourselves. However, God’s desire is that we would be delivered not only from Satan’s evil but also from our own goodness. We must therefore reject ourselves. We must reject not only the evil life of Satan but also our good life in order to live in the divine life of God.
Christians should not live by their good life just as they should not live by Satan’s evil life. Christians should live only by God’s divine life. Hence, God demands that we reject and deny ourselves (Matt. 16:24-25) just as we reject and deny Satan. We need to learn to deny ourselves in the same way that we deny Satan. We also need to learn to reject our life of doing good in the same way that we reject Satan’s life of doing evil. We need to reject our good thoughts as well as our evil thoughts. Both must be rejected because God does not desire for us to live by our good thoughts, just as He does not want us to live by our evil thoughts. Instead, He desires for us to live by His divine life. If an unsaved person tried to deny himself and to reject Satan, he would have nothing to live by and thus could not live. However, if a believer rejects Satan and denies himself, God will still have ground in him, and God will be lived out from within him.
To reject Satan and to deny our self is the experience of the cross. To put our self to death in order to allow God the opportunity to live out of us is resurrection. Death and resurrection are the basic experiences of a Christian. The death of the cross is related to losing the life of man. When we lose our human life, the evil life of Satan with which we have been involved will be lost automatically. Once we die, we are delivered from our own life as well as from Satan’s life. We are delivered from both lives. At such a moment, God’s life in us will have the opportunity to be lived out of us; this is resurrection. The life that is lost is our human life together with the satanic life. The life that is resurrected is God’s life, the life of God lived out of us.
Hatred toward the brothers is the manifestation of Satan’s life, but our intention to love the brothers is a manifestation of our own life. Just as we need to reject our hatred of the brothers, we also need to deny our intention to love the brothers. Some may say that this is very dangerous. If we reject both our hatred and our love, will anything be left? In fact, it is only at this juncture that God’s life has the opportunity to be lived out of us. When we reject Satan’s life and its thoughts of hatred and when we also deny our own life and its thoughts that originate from our own love, we will practically experience the death of the cross; that is, we will be standing in the place of death to allow God’s life to be lived out of us. When we reject Satan’s life and also our own life, we are standing in the place of death, putting ourselves to death by the Holy Spirit. We do not want evil, nor do we want good; rather, we have come to the place of death. A dead person neither hates others nor loves others, nor can a dead person commit sins or do good. It is at this point that God can be lived out of us.
Christians need to arrive at a point where they have been put to death, being able to neither commit sins nor do good. At this time, there will be resurrection. Death brings in resurrection. Where there is death, there is resurrection. Death involves the loss of man’s life, but resurrection involves the living out of God’s life. When we come to the place of death, God is resurrected. When we depart, God comes in, and when we are terminated, God is germinated. When we do not know love or hatred and cannot do good or do evil, God is lived out, and God’s life will come out from within us. When God’s life comes out from within us, there will be a gushing forth of a great measure of love, a great measure of goodness, a great measure of humility, and a great measure of meekness. What gushes forth will be a fountain of living water. This is not something we work out; instead, it is God Himself being lived out of us.
The inner being of a believer is quite complicated. In order to have a living that is up to standard, Christians need two levels of rejection. We need to reject Satan’s life, and we also need to reject man’s life. We need to reject evil and also to reject good. Unbelievers need only one level of rejection. By rejecting the life of the devil and living by their own life, they can be decent and proper persons. But Christians not only need to reject the satanic life; they also need to reject their own life. We not only need to reject evil but also to reject good; we need to reject both good and evil. We must have these two levels of rejection so that God’s life, the life on the third level, can be lived out of us. The goal of a Christian is not to be a good man but to be a God-man. Goodness is not the goal of Christians; God is the goal of Christians. People in the world take goodness as their goal, but Christians should take God and Christ as their goal.
Learning the fellowship of life is not about living a life of goodness but living the life of God, the life of Christ. When we touch the fellowship of life, we are not in the realm of evil or in the realm of good; we are in Christ. We need to see that good and evil stand together and are on the same tree. Both good and evil are versus life. When we learn to fellowship in life, we do not reject evil and follow good; instead, we reject both good and evil to follow the inner life and live the divine life in us.
As soon as a person is saved, it is easy to have a concept about rejecting evil and pursuing good. They naturally think of rejecting evil and living out good. However, we must remember that whenever we pay attention to goodness, we are not in God but in ourselves; whenever we pay attention to goodness, we fall into ourselves. When we pay attention to love, to virtues, or to goodness, we fall into ourselves. Once we fall into ourselves, the fellowship of life ceases. In order to learn to fellowship and to deny ourselves, we must deny ourselves in relation to not only evil things but also good things. It is only at this point that we can practically stand in death, having the experience of death, so that God can come in and be lived out of us. It is at this moment that we can touch God in our fellowship. Then what we live out will be a living in fellowship, a mingled living of God and us. In the flow of God’s life, we have a life of fellowship that is based on neither the evil of Satan nor the good of man but rather on the life of God being lived out of us; this is the fellowship of life.
May God open our eyes so that we can truly know that His life in us is the treasure we have received. We need to learn to know God’s life and to live in this life. May the Lord have mercy on us so that we may touch His way and know the way of life. We need to ponder all these matters point by point and calmly remain in a spirit of prayer to touch the proper way of life.