God takes our spirit as the base and spreads outward from our spirit through the law of life to reach every part of our soul. This is the relationship between the law of life and our spirit and soul. Moreover, there is also a relationship between the law of life and our heart. The spirit is the base and the location of the law of life, the soul is the location of the activities of the law of life, and the heart is the gateway, the switch, of the law. We can open our heart and let the law of life operate, and we can also close our heart and frustrate the law of life. In itself the law of life is unable to move; however, when our heart is open to God, the law is able to operate in us. In order for the law to move outward from our spirit, our heart must be open. The heart is a gateway. It is similar to a door. Once a door is closed, there is no way to enter or exit.
As those who are saved, we have opened our heart at least once. At that time the Spirit, the life of God, entered into our spirit. After coming into our spirit, however, He is often “imprisoned” by us and cannot spread out. When the Spirit is locked in our spirit, there is absolutely no way for Him to regulate the various parts of our soul. He can neither affect our mind nor regulate our emotion and will. We have the life of God in our spirit, but it seems that we do not have the life of God in our soul because our heart has locked the Spirit, the life of God, in our spirit. Therefore, we must continually open our heart and allow the Spirit, the life of God, to spread to our soul; this is to be revived. To be revived is simply to open our heart once again.
The heart is the gateway and switch to the life within us. At the same time, the heart can hinder the operation of the law of the Spirit of life. Since our heart is a switch, it can either release or hinder the Spirit. If our heart is unhappy and upset, it is impossible for the Spirit to move and be released. Therefore, we must exercise to open up our heart when we speak, fellowship, sing, and testify in the meetings, for only then can the Spirit be released. All the spiritual work of God requires man’s cooperation. It is as if God and we are tied together in a three-legged race. We often think that God has chosen us to cooperate with Him, but regrettably, we are sluggish. It seems that He is so fast and that we have no way to catch up with Him, because we often stumble and fall. However, we fail to realize that the totality of man, the representative of man, is our heart. Even though we may say that we desire to cooperate with God, how do we cooperate with Him? We should cooperate with Him from our heart; our cooperation with God must begin with our heart. If our heart is not open, neither our fastness nor our slowness will be useful. If our heart is open, it does not matter to God whether we are fast or slow.
A man’s activities are altogether a story of the heart. The expression absent-minded means that the heart is inactive: a person eats without tasting, hears without understanding, and looks without seeing. God is Spirit, and He desires to enter into our spirit and spread out from our spirit. However, if our heart remains closed and does not cooperate with Him, God will have no way in us. Therefore, we need to learn to deal with our heart—our mind, emotion, will, and conscience. Our mind needs to be sober and not confused, our emotion needs to be loving and not distracted, our will needs to be soft and submissive to God, and our conscience needs to be at peace without any feeling of condemnation. We need to learn to deal with our soul until our mind is sober and no longer wanders, until our emotion loves God and inclines toward God, until our will is soft and able to submit to God, and until our conscience is at peace without any feeling of condemnation. If we can deal with our heart in these four aspects until it is sober, loving, soft, and at peace, we will have a proper heart before God and be able to cooperate with God in the best way.
If we have no desire or willingness to take this way, all the preceding fellowship will mean nothing. But if we have a desire to take this way and are truly willing to fellowship with God, touch God, know God in life, and give ourselves for this way, we must believe that this fellowship will guide us step by step. When we decide to take this way and have this kind of living, it is very crucial that we continually exercise to turn to our spirit.
For example, we may have a thought to go to a certain place to preach the gospel, to visit a particular saint, or to do some other things. At this time, we must turn our mind to our spirit to touch the sense of the spirit. We should not let our mind make suggestions; rather, we should let the spirit make suggestions. We need to turn to the spirit and touch the inner sense. If we feel at ease in our spirit and sense the peace within, we can proceed.
When we love someone or something, our emotion is moved and our affection is stirred. However, we must still turn our love, our affection, and our being from our emotion to our spirit to touch the sense of the spirit. If our spirit agrees and is at peace, we should express this love, but if our spirit disagrees, we need to stop ourselves. There can be thousands of reasons that justify a decision to love, but if our inner sense does not feel comfortable and disagrees, we must stop ourselves. We should never allow outward reasons to defeat the inner sense. The same applies to the will. When we are making a decision about a certain matter, we first should turn to the spirit, put aside our decision, and touch the inner sense. If the inner sense is at ease, we can accept it, but if the inner sense is not at peace, then we should let it go.
This lesson is basic, and it requires learning and exercise. We should have this kind of exercise in the great and small matters in our daily living. When we are about to speak, we should turn within and touch the sense in our spirit. When we are making a decision, we should turn within and touch the sense in our spirit. When we are interacting with other people, we should turn within and touch the sense in our spirit. Even when we are reading the Bible, we need to turn within and touch the sense in our spirit and exercise to not merely use our mind while we are reading. When we are praying with the saints in the meetings or by ourselves at home, we also need to touch the sense in our spirit and not pray endlessly. We must put aside and forsake many things and turn to the inner sense. If we are those who always stay in an outward realm, most of our feelings will be outward when we get down on our knees to pray. We will pray for the trainings, for people, and for the work. When we get down on our knees, however, we must learn to draw ourselves back to our spirit and pray when there is a move within. If there is no move within, then we should not pray. Only prayer that comes out of the inner sense is what God desires. We need to labor on this and learn this serious lesson.
We need to stop all our activities and allow the Spirit the opportunity to move within us. If we are willing to learn this lesson, we will gradually discover that we need to die in many things. Death stops all our activities. We need to die in our dealings with the saints, we need to die to our preferences, and we need to die even in our Bible-reading and prayer. God will also raise up the environment to match our inner learning so that we will have the discipline of the Holy Spirit in us. He works in us from within and without, killing and terminating us again and again.
If we are willing to go on in this way, there will be more spiritual constitution within us as time passes. In our practical experience, we will be able to touch the work of the law of life in every part of our being. Only then will we know what is of the soul and what is of the spirit, only then will we discern the spirit from the soul, and only then will we live in the spirit, not in the soul, that is, not by ourselves but by God. Then we will be on the right track with regard to spiritual matters. In a strict sense, only then will our spiritual living truly begin.
If we think that someone is spiritual because he is zealous for the Lord, well-behaved, godly, and restrained and that he is one who endeavors to improve himself, to live a religious life, and to do good things, we are too shallow. We must realize that this kind of zealous, godly, religious life of self-improvement is merely soulish and man-made. It merely has the appearance of the living of a Christian. If our living is according to such zealousness and religion, focused not only on self-improvement but also on being godly and good, it can be said that we are living a religious life, not a spiritual life. Such a living comes out of knowledge and natural concepts, not from the life of God being lived out of us.
Through the constant exercise of turning to our spirit, we can gradually discern what is a good living of self-improvement, and we will see that this kind of living is altogether different from the living that comes from life. May the Lord bless us.