When we love the Lord with our heart, something happens in our spirit. We may pray to the Lord, “Lord, by Your grace I am constrained by Your love to love You. Lord, I would like to learn to love You. I offer You my love, my heart, and my whole being.” When we pray in such a way, we have the sense that something wonderful is happening in our innermost being. This is the experience of being filled with the wisdom of God. Simply by loving the Lord with our heart, we are filled in our spirit with the wisdom of God. Once we have such an experience, we must look to the Lord to receive not only the wisdom but also the spiritual understanding concerning what we have experienced (Col. 1:9). We need spiritual understanding in order to understand and experience further what has happened in our spirit. This is a spiritual principle—in order to have the real experience of Christ being our life and everything, we must have the true and complete knowledge of God’s eternal plan. If we do not have the full knowledge and revelation of Christ in God’s plan, we will never be able to have the real experience of Christ being our life in our daily living.
This is why we must spend time with the Lord in prayer. We need to spend much time in the presence of the Lord to pray in a particular way concerning this very matter. We should pray, “Lord, reveal Your eternal purpose to me. Reveal to me Your plan concerning Christ. Reveal to me everything that this Christ, whom I have experienced, is. Lord, open my eyes. Give me the full understanding of Your eternal plan.” We should practice to pray in this way every day. In fact, it would be good if we would pray this kind of prayer every day for six months. For half a year, whenever we come to the Lord, we should pray, “Lord, open my eyes. Give me the understanding that I might see, realize, and apprehend what it means for Christ to be my life. Show me Your eternal plan regarding Christ as the mystery of God.” We should pray and pray day after day for revelation.
The Bible does not record very many of the prayers of the apostles, but it does record some of the prayers of the apostle Paul. If we read these prayers, we will be able to see that they have a common nature and content. Paul prayed very much that we might have the opening of our eyes, the revelation, concerning God’s eternal plan (Eph. 1:16-19; 3:14-19). Thus, we should also ask for this. We must ask the Lord for revelation; otherwise, we will never be able to experience Christ as our life to the fullest extent.
More than anything else, we need spiritual light and the knowledge of revelation. We do not need the knowledge of doctrine. Our need is the knowledge of spiritual revelation with spiritual understanding. When this knowledge of revelation is impressed into our spirit, heart, mind, and entire being, it will become a controlling factor within us. It will control our whole being and direct our walk. The revelation we receive always rules us. If we have no revelation, then we are not under any control or rule (cf. Prov. 29:18). The knowledge of doctrine or teaching is nothing, but the knowledge of heavenly revelation impressed into our spirit by the Holy Spirit will be a controlling and ruling factor within us. It will even rule us day by day, causing us to be under the control of revelation.
The revelation that we must see is of two aspects. The first and central aspect of this revelation is that God’s eternal plan is that Christ would enter into us to be our life (Col. 3:4). This is what God will stress to our spirit in His revelation. God strongly desires that we would realize that Christ is life to us in our spirit. This is not merely some sort of saying or doctrine; it is a spiritual fact. Christ today is in the Spirit and is the Spirit Himself (1 Cor. 15:45b). Second Corinthians 3:17 says, “The Lord is the Spirit” and 3:18 refers to “the Lord Spirit.” Because Christ is the Spirit, we can receive Him into our spirit (2 Tim. 4:22a). This is very real. The Lord is the Spirit, we have a spirit, and we can receive the Lord Spirit into our spirit and be mingled together with Him (1 Cor. 6:17). This is the stress of the revelation of God—that Christ is life to us as the Spirit in our spirit. This is a reality, but we can realize it only by revelation. If we do not see this, we can never realize it.
Merely to receive some teaching or to hear about something will not cause us to have the reality of what we have been taught or have heard. Suppose for example that someone tells you that something you own is full of germs. If you cannot see the germs, you may feel that the item is quite clean, and what they have told you will not mean anything to you. But if you are actually able to see the germs, then you will have some realization. If we have the seeing, then the facts will mean something to us. Otherwise, all we have is theory.
We may have heard the saying Christ is our life many times. In response, we may have said, “This is wonderful; Christ is our life.” We have heard the saying, and we have even repeated it, but does it mean anything to us? If we have not seen the reality, then it does not. Thus, we must pray, “Lord, open my eyes. Reveal to me that Christ is my life.” Only when we see this, will we be able to realize and experience to the full the fact that Christ is life to us.