God wants not only to be God to man, but even more to be Father to man. He wants not only that man take Him as God, but even more that man have His life. He wants to be Father to man, thereby being God to man in His life. Only when man has His life and becomes His son can man really know that He is God and really allow Him to be God.
In the morning of His resurrection, the Lord Jesus told Mary Magdalene, “I ascend unto my Father and your Father; and my God and your God” (John 20:17). Here the Lord mentioned first the Father and then God. This means that God must be our Father; then He can be our God. And the Lord Jesus in His prayer on His last night also clearly stated that only when we have the eternal life of God can we know Him, the only true God (John 17:3). Therefore, we must experience God as Father in life; then we can know God as God. The more we allow the life of the Father to work in us, the more we worship and serve this glorious God! God is Father to us because He wants to be our God in this life of the Father. This also means that He wants to be our God in the working of His life.
God is our Father because we have His life. Since His life has entered into us, it also brings the law of this life into us. When the law is working, it regulates God Himself out from us. Thus, God intends to be our God in this law of life.
The Mohammedans indeed worship the God in heaven, and even more those in Judaism worship the God in heaven. But they only worship an objective God, a God who is high above all; they have not allowed God to be their God within them. Today, even among Christians, many worship an objective and far-above-all God. They only worship a God outside of them, according to certain outward teachings or rules of letter. They have not allowed God to be a living God to them in the life which is within them. But we must be clear that when we worship God and allow God to be our God, we should not follow the doctrines or laws of letter; rather we should do it in the life of God or in the law of the life of God. This law is the function manifested by the life of God. When this law of the life of God regulates within us, or when God works within us, God is being our God in this law, that is, in His working.
Today when we serve God, we must serve Him in the law of this life, in His working. Whenever we allow His life to work within us and the law of His life to regulate within us, our service is the service of life, spiritual service, or living service. When we thus allow God to be our God in the law of His life, then the God we worship is not a God in doctrine or imagination, but a living God, a practical God, a God who can be touched. In our experiences of life, in our daily living, and in the activities of our work, our God is indeed a living God, a God whom we can touch and whom we can meet. He is not our God in belief; neither is He our God in rules; but He is our God in a living law of life, in a living function of life.
But sometimes, due to some problem in our heart, we do not love Him nor allow the law of His life to regulate us. Then, though we have God, yet God becomes a God in doctrine or in belief. When we recover our former love toward Him and again allow Him to regulate within us by the revolving wheel of His life, then the function of the wheel of His life is again manifested, and the law of His life again does its work of continually moving and regulating within us. At this time, He again becomes our God in a practical sense; He is no longer a name nor a doctrine, but a living God.
Hence we must put ourselves in the hand of God, letting the law of the life of God regulate us; then we can actually have God as our God. Whenever we do not allow this law of life to regulate us, God cannot be our God, and we cannot be His people. For Him to be our God and for us to be His people in a very practical way, we must allow the law of His life to regulate us and allow Him to be our God in the law of His life.
God must be our God in the law of His life, and we must be His people in the law of His life, because our relationship with God must be living. When His life moves and regulates within us, His law of life brings Him to us and brings us to Him. It is in the working of His law of life that we can obtain Him and He can obtain us. Whenever His law of life within us ceases to regulate, this living relationship of Him as our God and us as His people also ceases. Therefore, we must allow the law of the life of God to regulate us; only then can we have God as our God and we be His people in a manifestly living way.
Thus, we can see clearly that God being God to man in the Old Testament and in the New Testament differ very greatly. In the Old Testament, God was God to the people of Israel high above all on His throne, and according to the regulations of law. He also wanted the people of Israel to be His people according to these regulations. Therefore, if they only followed these regulations, they had no problem before God. But in the New Testament, God enters into us to be our life, and it is in the law of this life that He is our God and we are His people. Therefore, it is necessary that we live by the law of this life.
By seeing the main points of every aspect of the law of life, we know how important this law of life is to our experience of spiritual life. Therefore, we must see clearly and understand thoroughly every main point concerning this subject; then we can have real experience in life. Hence, without fear of repetition, we shall again summarize these main points so that we may have a deep impression of them.
When we become regenerated, we receive the life of God. At this time, though we have the life of God in us, this life is only complete organically; it does not have the completion of growth and maturity. For this we must allow the power of this life to work within us continually and unceasingly in order to reach His perfect goal of growth and maturity. The working of this life comes from the natural function and characteristic of this life; in other words, it comes from the law of this life.
If this law of life is to regulate its contents out of us, it must pass through our heart; therefore, the working of this law of life within us requires the cooperation of our heart. As soon as our heart cooperates, this law of life has an opportunity to regulate within us freely. The result is that it causes us to have a certain consciousness within. When we have this consciousness, we must obey it by the power of this life. Whenever we obey, we let this law have another opportunity to regulate us, thus giving us another consciousness and causing us to proceed further in obedience. The more we obey, the more we afford Him the opportunity to work. Such continued interaction of cause and effect working within us results in the unceasing manifestation of the functions of the two elements, death and resurrection, contained in life. The function of death takes away all that we should not have within us. The function of resurrection adds in all that is of the life of God. Furthermore, the working of this law and these two functions of death and resurrection are also full of power to enable us to answer the unlimited demand of God and live out all that is in the life of God. Thus, we allow the life of God to grow up gradually and mature within us.
In the meantime, when this life works within us, constantly regulating us, our inclination toward God, submission to God, and service to God become natural and easy, living and fresh. It is in this living law that God becomes our living God and we become His living people. We may say that our relationship with God is all in this law of life. This really deserves our deep attention!