Philippians 4:13 says, “I am able to do all things in Him who empowers me.” This word was spoken by the apostle Paul. He said this to show us that in his living and in his work he did not do anything in himself, by his own strength, or by his own life. He did everything in Christ who empowered him. This word shows us that he took Christ as life.
John 14:19 says, “Because I live, you also shall live.” In saying “I live,” the Lord referred to His living after His resurrection. The Lord was put to death, yet He was resurrected, so He still lives. After His resurrection, He does not live in Himself alone, but He causes all who belong to Him to live also. Hence, the Lord said, “Because I live, you also shall live.” This word of the Lord implies also that the reason we live is because He not only lives, but because He lives in us. Because the Lord lives in us, we also shall live.
John 6:57 says, “As the living Father has sent Me and I live because of the Father, so He who eats Me, he also shall live because of Me.” This word means that just as the Lord did not live by Himself but by the Father because the Father lived in Him, so we who eat the Lord, who receive Him into us as food, also live because of Him.
Verse 63 continues, “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing; the words which I have spoken to you are spirit and are life.”
These three verses in John—14:19, 6:57, and 6:63—mention live and life. Galatians 2:20 also mentions live and lives. This verse says, “I am crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me.” I like to read these four passages together. The first passage says, “Because I live, you also shall live.” The second passage says, “He who eats Me, he also shall live because of Me.” The third passage says, “It is the Spirit who gives life;...the words which I have spoken to you are spirit and are life.” And the last passage says, “It is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me.” These verses show how Christ is life to us.
In the previous message we said that a person who serves the Lord must see the central vision of God in the universe—Christ and the church. This central vision in the universe is the great mystery of God. If we have truly seen this central vision—Christ and the church—our entire being will be under its direction and control. This vision must not be just a doctrine to us; it must be a reality in our living. If we have such a vision, it will not be possible for us to live by ourselves apart from Christ, and it will also not be possible for us to live independently apart from the church. The result of seeing this vision is that Christ becomes our life and the church becomes our living.
To take Christ as our life is to live by Christ. The verses listed above show us how we can live by Christ. In John 14 the Lord said that because He lives, we also will live. This word of the Lord indicates that after His resurrection, we would be able to take Him as our life and thereby live by Him and because of Him. How can this be? In John 6 the Lord pointed out that he who eats Him shall live because of Him. This means that if we want to live because of Him, we need to receive Him into us by eating Him. How can we receive Him into us? When the Jews heard the Lord’s word at that time, they also asked the same question. They asked, “How can this man give us His flesh to eat?” (v. 52). What the Lord said in verse 63 was the answer. He said, “It is the Spirit who gives life;...the words which I have spoken to you are spirit and are life.” We all know that the Lord is the Spirit. Therefore, it is the Lord Himself who gives us life and causes us to live. Today the Lord is living in us as the Spirit. Hence, if we want to the eat the Lord, we must learn to turn to our spirit to eat Him. This is because the Lord is the Spirit, the Spirit gives us life and enables us to live, and the Spirit is in our spirit. Therefore, in everything we need to learn to turn to our spirit to touch and contact the Spirit of the Lord. In this way we will receive the supply from the Lord and thus live by Him.
The Lord also said that His words are spirit. We know the Lord Himself is the living Word. Hence, to eat the Lord, there is not only the matter of the Spirit but also the matter of the word. In other words, the Lord is the Spirit, and He is also the word. The Lord is in the Spirit and in the word. Thus, in order to receive, to obtain, the Lord, we have to contact His Spirit and His word. It is for this reason that we have to pray and also to read the Scriptures. To pray is to contact the Spirit, and to read the Scriptures is to touch the word. We pray so that we can touch the Spirit in our spirit and thereby receive the Lord Himself. We read the Scriptures so that we can touch the Lord’s word and thereby receive the Lord Himself. Today our Lord is in the Spirit and in the word as well. Therefore, our contacting Him, touching Him, obtaining Him, and eating Him all depend on these two aspects. On the one hand, we need to turn to our spirit to touch the Spirit; on the other hand, we need to come to the Scriptures to touch the word. If we learn to constantly touch the Spirit in our spirit and touch the word in the Scriptures, we will constantly eat and drink the Lord and thereby receive and gain the Lord so that we can live by Him and because of Him.
If we want to take Christ as our life and live by Him, we also need to see that “I am crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me,” as the apostle said in Galatians 2. Whereas the three verses we quoted from the Gospel of John all focus on how we can eat and drink the Lord to receive His supply, this verse in Galatians shows that we also need to go on to experience the co-death of the cross and to reject our own life. In order to experience Christ as our life, on the positive side, we need to absorb and enjoy the Lord and thereby live by Him; on the negative side, we need to see that we have to be put to death on the cross so that we will continually reject ourselves, deny ourselves, and not live by ourselves. Both sides are necessary.
Our emotions, preferences, opinions, ideas, insight, intelligence, ability, and capability are all our self, our natural life. To not live by ourselves is to not live by all these things of our natural life. Hence, in everything that we do in our daily life, we must deny all these natural things and not live by them. This is a serious lesson for every one of us.
We should learn this lesson not only in our daily life but even more in our work for the Lord and in our service in the church. Whether in ministering the word from the podium or in visiting people, we must learn the lesson according to this principle. For example, when you are going to give a message from the podium, you must immediately and seriously say to yourself, “I must not speak according to my preference, thoughts, opinions, insight, ideas, knowledge, eloquence, or boldness. I must speak only according to the Lord whom I have touched in spirit and in the word.” After you have such a strict dealing, when you stand on the platform, you will be able to completely reject all that is natural. You will also be able to turn to your spirit to touch the Lord as the Spirit and to turn to the Scriptures to touch the Lord as the word. In this way while you are standing on the platform to release a message, you will not be doing so by yourself but by the Lord, that is, by taking the Lord as life. The principle is the same when you go to visit people. Whenever you go to visit people, you should always come back to your spirit and to the word to touch, to contact, the Lord. This is a serious lesson. Only those who have learned this lesson can have the experience of taking the Lord as life and living by Him.