In order for the law of life to operate in us, we need to fulfill two requirements: loving God and obeying the initial sense of life.
Loving God is the first requirement in order for the law of life to operate in us. God’s salvation is by His life, that is, by God Himself as power. God Himself is our saving power. His life is the power of our salvation. Amazingly, however, He desires to have the enjoyment of love with us. Therefore, it is not right if we only sense His power but not His love. Electricity is transmitted through power to light a lamp, but there are no emotions in the transmission of electrical power. In contrast, the life of God in us is full of emotion; thus, we enjoy not only power but also the love of God. It is wrong to enjoy only power but not love. The life of God comes with love, and the experience of His life depends on how much we love Him. This is a wonderful matter.
It is difficult for those who do not love God to enjoy the power of His life. The more a person loves God, the more he enjoys the power of His life. This is a wonderful two-way cycle. The more feeling we have toward God and the more we love God, the more His power can be expressed through us. In response to a deeper, higher, and greater experience of His powerful life, we love Him more and we have more feelings toward Him. This is because the life of God is not only a matter of power but also a matter of love.
Ephesians 3:17 says, “That Christ may make His home in your hearts through faith, that you, being rooted and grounded in love.” Christ dwells in us; He dwells in our hearts, and this dwelling is a dwelling of love in us. This enables us to apprehend, to experience, and to taste the knowledge-surpassing love of Christ with all the saints (vv. 18-19). The meaning of knowledge-surpassing in Greek is “beyond intellectual capacity.” This love is beyond man’s intellectual capacity. Our intellect cannot comprehend this love, but our emotion can touch this love. In other words, the Christ who indwells us is the very embodiment of love. His indwelling us is love; therefore, that Christ may make His home in your hearts equals that love may make His home in your hearts. Christ, who is love, not only dwells in us, but even more He dwells in our hearts and can touch our feelings.
On one hand, Ephesians 3:20 says that there is a power operating in us that can do superabundantly above all that we ask or think; this power is the resurrection life of Christ. On the other hand, it shows that the indwelling of this resurrection life, which is Christ Himself, is a matter of love. It speaks of Christ dwelling in our hearts so that we may be filled unto all the fullness of God (v. 19). Then it says that His dwelling in our hearts is a matter of love, enabling us to enjoy the power of the life of God, which can do superabundantly above all that we ask or think. Therefore, the Bible speaks of Christ’s indwelling us as a matter altogether of love.
We should never consider that the God who dwells in us has no feeling or love. The God who dwells in us is the embodiment of love and is even love itself. The more He operates in us, the more He causes us to love Him and attracts us to love Him. He moves in our heart and touches our heart so that we may experience the power of His resurrection. Therefore, the end of Ephesians 3 says that the power of the law of life that operates in us is according to God’s love within us. If there were no history of love, no traffic of love, and no fellowship of love between us and God, we would not have much knowledge of the life of God or much experience of the power of God.
Obeying the initial sense of life is the second requirement for the law of life to operate in us. As soon as we are regenerated and have the life of God, the law of this life causes us to have a certain sense. In the beginning, the sense of this law of life may be comparatively weak, but it will become stronger. We must obey the initial sense of life, even though it may be very weak, rather than a “second” sense of life. We should obey the initial sense every time. Strictly speaking, there is not a second sense, because God’s leading is always in His initial sense, which is His only sense. This is similar to the fact that every day in our experience is a today; no one can live tomorrow’s life today. Every tomorrow will become a today. Therefore, in our living, there really is no such thing as “tomorrow.” We would never say that we did something tomorrow; we can only say that we did something yesterday. Tomorrow is only a word; it is an expectation. For us, every tomorrow is actually a today. Thus, strictly speaking, we do not have a tomorrow.
God’s leading, the sense that God gives us, is always present in His initial sense. God never gives man a second leading. If God’s leading was theoretical, there could be a first, a second, a third, and even a fourth leading. But His genuine leading is in our initial sense, and it is the one we need to obey. There is an initial sense but not a second one. We should obey God’s initial leading and sense. This is the same as the days that we live. Every day is unique; we cannot live the same day twice. We must learn to be simple and faithful to the sense God gives us. When God gives us a sense, we simply need to obey it; we need to be faithful without any twisting, arguing, or reasoning.
We should obey the sense God gives us in simplicity. We should never think of our own benefits, wondering, for example, whether we will suffer loss if we obey by mistake. If we have this kind of thinking, we will not be able to obey. Obeying is not a matter of caring for consequences, but only of caring for the sense within. We should obey the sense we have within. We need to learn to be simple and faithful.