God created us in His image of love, light, holiness, and righteousness. After the fall He also ordained that the Lord Jesus would become a man and pass through death and resurrection to become the Spirit to enter into us who believe in Him to be our life and content. The intrinsic nature of this life fully corresponds to the image of God—love, light, holiness, and righteousness. Today the Lord Jesus, who became flesh, died, and resurrected, is the living Spirit, and as such, He enters into all those who believe into Him, just like air entering into us.
In the Bible God uses air to illustrate that the Lord is the breath of life to us (John 20:22). The breath of life cannot be seen or touched but is very real to our human life. If we do not breathe for five minutes, we will die. Just as our physical life needs air, the life in our spirit, which is higher than our physical life, is a matter of Jesus as the breath of life, the Spirit of life, coming into us to be our life. The constituents of Him as life are love, light, holiness, and righteousness. He is the embodiment of love, light, holiness, and righteousness.
We human beings were created with a predisposition toward love, light, holiness, and righteousness, yet we do not have the real elements of love, light, holiness, and righteousness. This may be likened to the fact that the photograph of a person has the person’s outward form and posture but not his inward reality of life. Man has an inner desire to do good, but when he is actually going to do good, it is an entirely different story. Therefore, Romans 7:18b says, “For to will is present with me, but to work out the good is not.” We have only the form of goodness. We have the shell of love, light, holiness, and righteousness, but not the intrinsic substance of love, light, holiness, and righteousness. When we receive the Lord Jesus as life, He as the embodiment of love, light, holiness, and righteousness enters into us to be our life elements. Therefore, God’s way is not to improve our behavior outwardly. God’s salvation is that Christ enters into us to be our life that we may have Him as life and live by Him. It is the Lord Jesus who brings us the reality of life.
We all have the experience that before we were saved, even though we wanted to listen to our parents and honor them, we could not do so. Now whenever we call on the Lord Jesus, He enters into us so that we can spontaneously honor our parents and obey them. Many young people were previously not allowed by their parents to believe in Jesus. Now, however, because these young people have a real change in their life, the parents no longer oppose them after seeing in them the living testimony of believing in Jesus.
In addition, many times, no matter how parents try to discipline, restrain, admonish, or show their love to their children, it is hard for the children to change. Then one day the children hear the gospel, believe, receive the Lord Jesus, and call, “O Lord Jesus, I love You. I receive You as my Savior and my life.” From that time, not only are they full of joy within, but they are also full of the power to do good.
Luke 19 records the story of the salvation of the sinner Zaccheus. He was a tax collector collecting taxes from the Jews for the Roman Empire. He often used the authority of the Roman Empire to extort money from his own fellow countrymen. One day Jesus Himself came to the city where he lived. Since he was small in stature and could not see Jesus in the crowd, he climbed up in a sycamore tree in order to see Him. Looking up, Jesus saw this lost one and said to him, “Zaccheus, hurry and come down, for today I must stay in your house” (v. 5). Zaccheus received Jesus on that day and had a revolutionary change. He said, “The half of my possessions, Lord, I give to the poor, and if I have taken anything from anyone by false accusation, I restore four times as much” (v. 8). Apparently, the Lord Jesus was standing outside of Zaccheus, but in reality He could be the dynamic salvation to him. In the same way today, if a person calls, “Lord,” the Spirit of the Lord enters into him with an inconceivable power which causes him to have a radical change in his inner nature which is expressed in his outward action.
Therefore, the life of a Christian is not a life of correcting the outward conduct but a life of allowing Christ to enter in to be the motivating power. Take the example of a car. If instead of filling up the gas tank and charging the battery, someone tries to use his own strength to make a car run by pushing or pulling it, that will be a very difficult task. If we want a car to run, first we need to completely fill the gas tank and fully charge the battery. In this way the car will be able to run. Today, because people do not have a full understanding of God’s salvation, in their lives they are like cars without gas and electricity. They depend either on others to pull them from ahead or on their relatives and friends to push them from behind. However, all the pushing results in no movement. Not only so, the car is overturned. This way is altogether wrong. We need the Lord Jesus just as a car needs gas and electricity. The Lord Jesus as the Spirit of life is the “gas and electricity.” If we have the Lord Jesus, we are like cars filled up with gas and fully charged with electricity. By calling “O Lord Jesus,” we can run.
Before a person believes in the Lord he is like a car without gas and electricity. After he believes in the Lord, there is no need for others to pull and drag him. Just by calling “O Lord Jesus,” he can experience the bountiful supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ. The drastic changes in the saved ones often cause their relatives, friends, and neighbors to be astonished. The marvelous thing is that if we call on other names such as Confucius, there is no response. However, once we call “O Lord Jesus,” we have a feeling within. This is the living Spirit of the Lord Jesus in us. Even though we cannot fully comprehend what this is, once the Lord as the “fresh air” comes into us, our whole being is made comfortable and happy. This is truly our experience. Once we call “O Lord Jesus,” we receive Him as the embodiment of love, light, holiness, and righteousness. Such a One matches our God-created image of love, light, holiness, and righteousness. As a result, what we are within exactly matches what we are without. In this way, what we do will be true, dignified, righteous, pure, lovely, and well spoken of.