Another condition is to love God. Mark 12:30 says, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength.” According to the original language, the word “mind” should be translated as “understanding” (dianoia). The verse shows that we have to use our whole heart, our whole soul, our whole understanding, and our whole strength to love God. God’s Word shows us that loving God is related to the moving of life. The experience of many saints indicates that God first plants life into us, then touches our emotion with love. In the Gospel of John the emphasis is upon faith and also upon love. This gospel says that he who believes has eternal life (John 3:16). It also says, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word, and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make an abode with him” (John 14:23). Faith means to receive the life into us, while love means to let the life flow out. Only faith can let the life come in, and only love can let the life flow out.
Therefore, we need to allow this love to reach our heart and flow into our emotion, mind, and will. We need to lift up our heads and say: “O my God, I want to love You with all my heart; I want to love You with all my soul; I want to love You with all my understanding; I want to love You with all my strength!” Anyone who truly does this will immediately see his mind change, his words change, and his behavior change. Everything within and without will be totally changed. For in this person a love story has taken place. Brothers and sisters, what God expects of us today is that our heart, our soul, our understanding, and our strength be touched by Him. Second Corinthians 3:16 says, “But whensoever it [the heart] shall turn to the Lord, the veil is taken away.” Whenever the heart turns to the Lord, there will be the enlightenment, His voice, and the sense of life.
So the question is not, What is enlightenment? What is His voice? or What is the sense of life? the question is, Where is your heart? If your heart is glued to some person, matter, or thing; if it is attached to gifts, spiritual experiences, or spiritual work, the spreading of life will be hindered. The life within will be restrained from flowing out, because it cannot pass through the heart. For this reason, the heart must be turned to the Lord and fixed upon God Himself. If our heart is turned to God, we will have enlightenment within us, and we will hear His voice and have the sense of life within. Brothers and sisters, if we want to know God’s will, we should not attempt to understand with our mind; we should first turn our heart to God. We must say: “O God, I desire only You; I want nothing else.” If we do this, we will very easily understand God’s will.
Romans 12:1-2 can prove these things for us. Paul first said, “I beg you therefore, brothers, through the compassions of God...” By these words he first touched their emotion. Then he said, “Present your bodies a living sacrifice.” With these words his intention was to move the will. Then he told them, “Be transformed by the renewing of the mind, that you may prove by testing what the will of God is, that which is good and well-pleasing and perfect.” This is the knowing of God’s will in the mind. This shows us that the life which is in man can spread to his emotion, his will, and his mind. In this way the life permeates the inward parts of our being and flows out through us. When our heart is absolutely turned to God, He will impart feeling within us, and He will guide and uphold us, so that we may have the strength to obey Him. Then inwardly and outwardly we shall be changed. Therefore, if we want the life within us to spread to the outside, if we want the life to grow, we need to love the Lord our God with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our understanding, and with all our strength!
God’s life is continually moving. If we are willing to give Him the way by obeying Him, the life within will naturally grow and develop. If we allow this life to continue to move in us, letting it move into our conscience, our mind, our emotion, and our will, such continual moving will eliminate all the things we should not have and leave within us all the riches of God. In this way there is always something being eliminated and something being added. The more things are eliminated, the more things will be added. What is eliminated is something we should not have; what is added is something we should have. That which is eliminated is something of Adam, while that which is added is something of Christ. That which is eliminated is old, while that which is added is new. That which is eliminated is dead, while that which is added is living. By this process of gradual elimination and gradual addition, the life within us grows.
When God’s life is thus moving within us, there are two functions. The first is death and the second is resurrection. The function of death is to remove the illness, while the function of resurrection is to give us health. The first element of the Lord’s cross is death, while the second element is life. Romans 6 tells us that these two elements are the most powerful and useful elements in the life of Christ. The cross simply means that when our heart is touched by God we offer ourselves to Him so that His life can continue to move within us. When His life is moving, there is an element which puts us to death. This function of death will eliminate the things in us which we should not have. It will eliminate the things which are contrary to God, contrary to life, and contrary to the Holy Spirit. On the other hand, there is an element of life which makes us alive. This function of life causes us to live out all the riches of the Godhead, so that we are full of light, full of joy, and full of peace. The death of Christ and the life of Christ thus cause us to be delivered from sin and from all that God hates and condemns. On the other hand, they cause us to receive something fresh, something illuminating, something of joy and peace. Just as there is the elimination, there is also the addition. We need to allow God’s life to operate, to move in us. Whenever His life is moving, something is being eliminated and something is being added. Every time God’s life moves in us we die a little more, and at the same time we live a little more. The more God’s life moves and eliminates the things which should not be there, the more the things which should be there will be added; the more the death is eliminated, the more the life will be increased. May we go on according to the moving of God’s life so that His life in us can reach all the different parts, moving without hindrance, always eliminating something and always adding something.