From the time that I received the Lord, I realized that His life was in me. John 3:16 states clearly, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that every one who believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life.” I knew that by believing in Him I had received eternal life. Yet I wondered how such a life could affect my daily living.
Perhaps some of you have this same concern. You may have a wonderful time in the Word in the morning, yet throughout the day you may often feel condemned because of your loose talking on the phone or your irritability toward your family. In some ways you experience a bird’s life, soaring in the open heavens, but in other ways you lead a dog’s life, barking at your mother or at your children. One moment you are praying to the Lord, and the next moment you are venting your wrath on your family. Which are you, a bird or a dog?
For many years I longed to know how my living could correspond with the life I had received. I was saved in China, a land of idols and Confucius’ philosophy. Many young college students, including Watchman Nee, were saved around that same time, in the 1920s. I do believe that the Lord granted us His gracious visitation as a result of the prayers of many saints, mostly in England. In 1900 the Boxer Rebellion had caused the martyrdom of many missionaries, mostly English; this episode constrained many to pray for China. Our salvation, no doubt, was one result of those prayers.
From our study of the Bible and our seeking of the Lord, we came to realize that our living should be different. We gathered scores of Christian books, seeking to find the way to live such a life. Not one book helped us. In fact, a number of years went by before we found the secret.
We noticed from the Gospel of John that our relationship with the Lord begins by believing in Him. “As many as received Him, to them He gave authority to become the children of God, to those who believe in His name” (1:12). This first chapter shows that to believe in Him is to receive Him.
The last chapter, however, indicates that our relationship to Him is a matter of love. “Simon, son of John, do you love Me more than these?” (21:15). But loving Him is not the way by which we live this life we have received.
The key is found in chapters five, six, and seven. It is that the life we have received is Another’s, yet it is not lived by Him, but by us. The Lord Jesus demonstrated this way of living by taking the life of the Father. In 6:57 the Lord said, “As the living Father sent Me, and I live because of the Father, so he who eats Me shall also live because of Me.” By comparing this verse with 5:26, “For even as the Father has life in Himself, so He gave to the Son also to have life in Himself,” we can see that though the life was the Father’s, the Father was not the one who lived it. His desire was that His life be lived out by the Son. This life involved two Persons: it was the life of the first Person, but it had to be lived by the second Person. The Father was the Giver of this life and the Son the Receiver. There were two Persons but one life to be lived.
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