We can live by Christ day by day and experience Christ as everything to us because Christ is our real life. The life that we received from our parents is not our real life; it is only a figure and a shadow, pointing us to Christ who is our real life. If we do not have Christ, we do not have life. We need to take Christ as our life and live by Him. We should no longer live by the natural life that we received from our parents but by the life that we received through regeneration, the life that is Christ Himself.
What then is the practical way for us to experience Christ as our life and everything? We surely need to receive the Lord’s word, but in addition to receiving His word, we need to experience Christ Himself. In order to do this, we need to see that today Christ is the Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45b; 2 Cor. 3:17). John 6:63 tells us that it is the Spirit who gives life. Christ is our life, the Spirit gives life, and Christ today is the Spirit. Thus, the way for us to experience Christ as life is to experience the Spirit. Moreover, we need to realize that the Spirit is within us and that He is within us as life (Rom. 8:11, 2). If we want to enjoy Him as our life supply day by day, we need to remember that the Lord is already within us (v. 10; 2 Cor. 13:5). The Lord is in the heavens, but He is not only in the heavens; He is also within us. This is truly wonderful. Today Christ is the Spirit dwelling within us as our life.
The fact that Christ is dwelling within us as our life is wonderful. The problem, however, is that we have our own natural life within us as well. We have two lives within us, and the question is, By which life will we live? Will we live by our natural life or by the spiritual life that we have received, which is Christ Himself? If we desire to live by Christ, every morning we should rise up and pray, “Lord, this is a new day. Today grant me the mercy and the grace to live by You and not by myself. I realize that I have You in my spirit as my life, so I ask You to enable me to live You and to not live myself.” We all must endeavor to experience Christ as our life.
To be a real and normal Christian, we must not merely learn doctrines and teachings about Christ. This is not good enough. Instead, we must realize that Christ is a living person who is now living within us. He is not a doctrine but a living person who is living in us to be our life. We need to realize this and then learn to take, apply, and appropriate Him as our life in our daily living. When we deal with our spouse, we need to take Christ as our life. When we are about to speak with others, we need to take Christ as our life. We need to realize that Christ is our life and then apply Him in all the things that happen to us in our daily living. By doing this, we will enjoy Christ as the portion of the saints.
In Philippians 3 Paul says that he counted everything other than Christ to be loss, dross, and even refuse, dung. He tells us that he suffered the loss of all things in order to gain Christ and win Christ (vv. 7-8). We all need the same realization and experience. Everything in this universe is nothing; only Christ is reality. Even if we had the whole universe, we would have nothing, because Christ is everything. At most, everything in this universe is a shadow, pointing to our need for Christ to be everything to us. Christ is our life, our all in all, and the unique portion given to us by God. Thus, we need to experience Him in a practical way.
To experience Christ as everything to us in a practical way requires that we make a decision. Each of us needs to make a decision that from this moment on, we will learn to be a normal Christian, one who experiences Christ in a practical way. We need to make a decision that we will not simply come to the meetings, pray occasionally, read the Word from time to time, and learn some of the teachings of Christianity. We must decide that moment by moment and day by day we will endeavor to exercise to experience Christ as our life and everything in a very practical way. Even right now we need to make up our mind to be a Christian in a practical sense, not merely a Christian who learns doctrines and teachings about Christ. The normal Christian life, the real Christian life, is a life full of Christ as our life and life supply. A normal Christian is one who is always taking Christ as his life in an ordinary and practical way in his daily living. This is very simple yet very real.
Young believers often come to me and ask me why they should not do certain things. I answer them by telling them that if they can engage in a particular activity and say that Christ is the One doing it in them, it is all right for them to do it. Once a college student came to me and asked, “Brother Lee, today we are in the twentieth century. What is wrong with young people going to the movies? Why shouldn’t they go?” I answered this young brother, “Brother, check with the Lord, and if you can say that you are going to the movies by Christ and not by yourself, it is okay for you to go. Can you tell the Lord, ‘Lord, I am going to the movies not by myself but by You’?” A sister once came to me and said, “I know that as a wife and a mother I should never lose my temper but should be very gentle. The problem is that I easily lose my temper. What shall I do? I have prayed about this many times, asking the Lord to help me not to lose my temper, but the more I pray, the more I lose my temper.” I answered this sister, saying, “Sister, there is a very practical way to deal with this situation. When you are going to lose your temper, you should tell the Lord, ‘Lord, I am about to lose my temper, so I will try to lose my temper not by myself but by You. Lord, I am about to say something bad to my husband, so I will try to do so not by myself but by You.’ This is very simple. If you try to do this, you will find that although it is very easy to lose your temper by yourself, once you try to lose your temper by Christ, your temper will be gone.”
We should never do anything by ourselves, because we are not good enough to do anything. On the other hand, Christ is good enough to do everything. We should not think that speaking with our children is an easy matter and that we do not need Christ in this matter. This is not correct. We need Christ even in such a small matter. When we are speaking with our children, we should tell the Lord, “Lord, I am here speaking to this child not by myself but by You.” If we practice to speak to the Lord in this way, we will receive much blessing.
The urgent need among God’s children today is the practical experience of Christ. Many believers know doctrines and teachings concerning Christ, but very few of them experience Christ in a practical way in their daily living. Thus, whenever we are going to do anything, we should exercise to say to the Lord, “Lord, I am going to do this particular thing not by myself but by You. You are my life, my life supply, and my everything.” As believers, we are not dealing with a set of teachings or doctrines; we are dealing with a living person—the living Son of the living God. We are dealing with this person, and He is our life, life supply, and everything. If we exercise in this way, it will change our life. We will experience a great transformation, and we will be delivered from our self and filled with Christ. As a result, we will become the expression of Christ. God has qualified us for a share of the allotted portion of the saints in the light, and this portion is simply Christ Himself being our life and everything that we may express Him for His glory.