Everything is ordered by our Father’s hand. In doing everything, including the Lord’s work, we expect it to be one way, but it turns out to be another. Many times, we simply cannot tell the reason why it happened that way. We may inquire why, but the answer is always the same. Our Father’s hand ordered it. You need it, and I need it. We all need it.
For example, the Chinese people like to take much time, with the help of their parents, to select their partner in marriage. But the American young people are more simple. After getting to know each other for two months, they marry. But regardless of how selective we are, it does not depend on our selection. It is all under the Father’s hand. You don’t know what kind of wife you need, but the Father knows. And you don’t know what kind of husband you need, the Father knows. No wife is a wrong wife, and no husband is a wrong husband. They were all selected by the Father. What we get is exactly what we need. Our Father’s hand could never be wrong. We may think that we made the wrong choice, but God the Father still is right. If His little finger touched our marriage plans just a little, that marriage could never occur. A number of times I made some mistakes. I regretted much, but then I started to thank God. “Father, I thank Thee that I made a mistake.” I realized that without making such a mistake I would never have such a good opportunity to experience the grace of Christ.
To talk about taking Christ as our person is easy, but to get to the experience requires much pressure. Otherwise, we would not give up our independence. We need to be pressed out of our measure, beyond our strength. We must even despair of life. Paul said, “But we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God which raiseth the dead” (2 Cor. 1:9). To have the sentence of death means that, to Paul’s understanding, he should die. But hallelujah! He was resurrected!
All of us expect to have a good job. And in doing business, everyone likes to make a profit. Eventually, sometimes, the profit is taken to the moon. This is the act of God. Praise the Lord! The Father’s hand ordered it. He ordered it just to press us that we should not trust in ourselves, but in the living God who raises the dead.
Paul’s autobiography opens with tribulation. This man who experienced Christ was a man under pressure beyond his strength. He felt he was dying. He even had the sentence of death. He despaired of life. What was the meaning of all this? It was simply the killing of the fallen man. The putting to death of Jesus was indoctrinated into his life. And that death of Christ was doing the killing work. It was not only by the living Spirit within, but also through all the circumstances without. This is why he said, “For which cause we faint not; but though our outward man is consumed, yet the inward man is renewed day by day” (2 Cor. 4:16). The inward man is our spirit with Jesus living within it. Our regenerated spirit with the indwelling Christ is the inward man.
Christ lives with our inward man, but the problem is this: who is doing the living, He or we? Every day, from morning to night, by whom do we live? Do we live by our self, or by Christ? We have heard many messages telling us to take Jesus as our person. But who is really our person? We really have to pray, “O Lord Jesus, forgive me, I didn’t take You as my person very much today. I just didn’t live by You.”
We must realize that the indwelling of Christ is not a doctrine. It is a daily experience. If we all have a daily experience of the indwelling Christ, it will enrich the church life and strengthen the church’s testimony. But we can never get into this experience by being taught. It has to be accomplished under pressure. We need to be pressed out of measure, beyond our strength, that we may despair even of life. We even need to have the sentence of death in ourselves. This is God’s purpose, because only death brings in resurrection. We all have to be brought to the end. Then we will trust in the living God who raises the dead.