In John 3 the Lord met with a man named Nicodemus (vv. 1-13). Nicodemus, an elderly man, was an officer of the Jews. He was a teacher and was well educated, and he came to the Lord Jesus with the intention of obtaining some teachings. He considered the Lord to be one of the greatest teachers of all time, so he desired to obtain the best teachings and the best religion from the Lord. However, the Lord did not grant Nicodemus his desire. Instead, He revealed to Nicodemus that his need was not for teachings or even for the best religion but for life. The Lord said to Nicodemus, “That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit” (v. 6). The Lord’s answer indicates that apart from regeneration, flesh can never be changed into something other than flesh. Only by being born of the Spirit could Nicodemus be changed into something other than flesh, that is, into spirit. This points to our real need today. Our present need is not to receive some form of religion, knowledge, or teaching but to be regenerated by the Spirit of God. We need to be regenerated by God, with God, and through God to receive God Himself into us as life.
In John 6 the Lord performed a miracle by feeding more than five thousand people with only five barley loaves and two fish (vv. 1-13). As a result of this miracle the people who had been fed considered the Lord to be a great man and a great leader and wanted to make Him their king (vv. 14-15). However, when these people came to the Lord the next day, the Lord, rather than considering Himself a king or a great man, likened Himself to a small piece of bread. He told them that He was the bread of life that had come down out of heaven (vv. 33, 35). This indicates that the Lord came not to be a great leader but to be the life supply to His people. We do not need a great leader. Rather, we need the life supply; we need food. According to our concept, God is such a great God that when He became a man, He came as a great man. However, this was not the way the Lord came. He came down from heaven as the bread of life to be received by man and to be man’s life supply.
In addition to telling His followers that He was the bread of life, the Lord said, “He who eats Me, he also shall live because of Me” (v. 57b). This indicates that the Lord is edible and that in order to live because of Him, we must eat Him. Every day we eat three meals, and it is these three meals that enable us to live. In other words, we live by what we eat. Thus, we need to consider what we eat and what the source of our living is. Do we live by the self? Do we live by knowledge, religion, teachings, or doctrine? We should not live by these things. We must live by taking Jesus as our living food.
In Christianity there are many teachings. We must realize, however, that without the Lord Himself as the living One, neither Christianity nor its teachings profit us. Thus, our focus should not be Christianity or its teachings. Instead, our focus should be Christ Himself, the living One, as our food. Colossians 2:16-17 reveals that Christ is the body of all shadows. Food, drink, the Sabbath and the holy days, and the new moon are all shadows, the reality of which is Christ. Since Christ is the reality, He Himself must be our focus. Day by day and moment by moment we must eat of Him as our real food and daily supply.
In John 13:33 the Lord told His disciples that He was going to leave them. When the disciples heard this, they were very disappointed. They had been with the Lord for approximately three and a half years, and they treasured Him. They did not want to lose Him. Then the Lord told them that although He would leave them, He would return (14:3). He said that although He was going to leave them physically, He would return to be with them spiritually, that is, as the Spirit (vv. 16-18). Although the Lord was going to die, He would rise from the dead, and in His resurrection His body would be transfigured from a physical body into a spiritual body (1 Cor. 15:44). Furthermore, He would become the life-giving Spirit (v. 45). As the Spirit He would not only return to be with His disciples; He would also enter into them to dwell in them and to be one with them (John 14:20). After telling the disciples that He would return and enter into them as the Spirit, the Lord said to His disciples, “I am the vine; you are the branches” (15:5a). He told them that they would abide in Him and He would abide in them (v. 4). In saying this, the Lord assured them that He would never leave them, because He would be in them, and they would be able to live with Him, in Him, and through Him. He also told them that by abiding in Him, they would express Him (vv. 5, 8).
From these three portions of the Gospel of John—chapters 3, 6, and 14 and 15—we see that our first need is to be regenerated by the Holy Spirit with Christ as life. We received our human life from our parents, but through regeneration we have received another life—the divine life. Because we have been regenerated, we must ask ourselves by which life we will live. Will we live by our natural life or by the divine life? Will we live by the self or by Christ? In Galatians 2:20 Paul tells us by which life he lived. He declares, “I am crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me.” We must realize the spiritual fact that Christ is within us as our life and then learn how to deny our self, give up our natural life, and take Christ as our life (Matt. 16:24; Col. 3:4).
After receiving Christ as our life, our second need is to learn to feed on Christ day by day by contacting Him as the Spirit in our spirit. Just as a baby needs milk to feed on after it is born, we need to feed on Christ after we have been born of God with the life of God. Christ is not merely our life; He is everything to us. He is our life supply, our living food, and our living water. We need to feed on Him every day. It is not enough to go to the meetings of the church, to listen to messages, and to read the Word with our mind. We must learn to contact the Lord as the Spirit with our spirit. Whether we are reading, meditating, praying, or singing, we must exercise our spirit to contact the Lord as the Spirit. If we do this, we will be refreshed and satisfied.
About ten years ago I went to Manila. While I was there, I saw for the first time the drink called “7 Up.” When I saw this name on the bottle, I wondered what it meant. After considering for a little while, I realized that the name “7 Up” probably means that if you drink this beverage, you will be uplifted and refreshed seven times. Then I thought to myself, “I do not need such a drink; I simply need more of Christ. Christ is ‘700 Up.’” When you contact Christ even a little, you are refreshed and uplifted. When you are sitting in your office and are tired, you simply need to contact the Lord. Exercise your spirit and contact the Lord, telling Him, “Lord, I am tired.” If you contact the Lord as the Spirit by exercising your spirit, you will be refreshed, satisfied, and strengthened by the Lord. Moreover, if you do this every day, day by day and moment by moment the Holy Spirit will gradually saturate you with all the riches of Christ until your whole being is filled with Christ. Your whole inner being—spirit, mind, emotion, will, conscience, and heart—will be saturated with Christ, making you a Christ-man. You will be full of Christ and will express Christ Himself.
In addition to receiving Christ as our life and learning to feed on Him as our daily food, our life supply, and our everything, we need to abide in Him. He is the vine, and we are the branches. As branches, we absorb all the goodness and riches of the vine. We absorb Him, live by Him, and are one with Him. First Corinthians 6:17 says, “He who is joined to the Lord is one spirit.” We are one with Christ. He is living within us, and we are in Him. Our need today is to learn to abide in Him. We should never allow anything to separate us from the Lord. We must always remain in contact with Him. In this way He will be everything to us.
Being a Christian is not merely a matter of learning teachings or trying to do good deeds. Being a Christian is a matter of being regenerated with Christ as life, feeding on Christ by contacting Him as the Spirit in our spirit, and abiding in Christ. If we do this, we will spontaneously bear fruit. Bearing fruit is not the result of human effort; it is the overflow of the life within, which is Christ Himself. As we abide in Him and allow Him to abide in us, He will fill us with Himself as life and will flow out of us as living water. As a result, we will bear much fruit. This is the real Christian life.