Now I would like to add a further word: this One who lives within us is not our roommate. This One is to replace us. He has come to live within us, not to be our roommate but to replace us. From now on it is no more I, but Christ (Gal. 2:20). Yet He wants to live Himself out of me and through me with my living coordination. So we two become one living person. We become one person with two different lives, one person with two different natures. Even we become one person with two classifications of characteristics. This is hard for us to see. This is not a small thing. When we heard that the Lord Jesus lives within us or that the Spirit of Christ dwells in us, we may have considered that we would now have a roommate, a companion. We did not realize that this One is within us to replace us. From now on it will be no more I but He who lives within me. The Triune God is now living in us, not to be our roommate, but to be our life, our nature, our everything, even eventually to replace us. We have to realize the indwelling of the Triune God to such an extent.
Then we must live by this kind of realization. We must behave ourselves according to this kind of realization. We must live a life all the time taking this One as our living. The indwelling One is within us to be our life, our nature, our everything, and even to replace us. We just need to coordinate with Him.
Let me illustrate further. Suppose you are such a person: you have this One living within you to be your life, to be your nature, to be your everything, to replace you. Now you need to cooperate and to coordinate with this One. If a brother comes to fellowship with you asking for some help, what would you do? You shouldn’t say anything without looking to Him. If you say anything or do anything by yourself, without looking to Him, that is your self. That is not to be led by the Spirit. That is something by your self. When a brother comes and asks you to render some help to him, you must look to Him. You shouldn’t even say “Praise the Lord” to the brother without looking to Him. To look to Him means to take Him as your life. It means to take Him as your practical life, as your practical nature, as your everything. You have to build up such a spontaneous habit of asking, “Lord, what would You say?”
Sometimes we may speak spiritual words such as “Praise the Lord!” or “Hallelujah!” or “Amen,” but these are a natural speaking. They are not a speaking by being led by the Spirit. We have to build up a habit to speak every word by looking at Him. I believe by such an illustration we are all exposed. Even in saying “Praise the Lord!” we may be living in ourselves. When we say this, we are not led by the Spirit. We are simply led by certain spiritual sayings. If this is the case, when you say “Praise the Lord!” spontaneously you leave the Lord aside. Right away you become your life, you become your nature, you become your everything. It is not just a matter of taking the Lord as your boss or your manager or your director. It is a matter of taking Him as the One who is your life, your nature, your everything. Then when you say “Praise the Lord!” surely that is His saying. You are led by Him.
In the past two messages we have pointed out that the leading by the Spirit is composed with three things: the Spirit as the Person and His life, the divine life, and the divine life’s function, the law. This indwelling One today is really everything to us. He is our redemption. He is our human living. He is our salvation. He is our objective justification. He is also our subjective justification. He is our sanctification. He is our everything. So He is our life. It doesn’t mean that the three components of the spiritual leading are only three things. The Person is the life, and the life is the law. So when you have this One, you have everything. When you have this Person, you have everything. This Person who indwells you is your life. He is the life, and He is also the law.
Strictly speaking, you don’t need to take care of the life or the law as long as you take care of the Person. If you take care of the Person, you take care of everything. A Person who is all-inclusive is now indwelling you. He is within you all-inclusively. If you have Him, you have life. If you have Him, you have the law of life. If you have Him, you have all the components of the spiritual leading. So what you need to do is just to take care of Him. It is not just to listen to one of His words but to take Himself as your living. When you look at Him, His life right away supplies you the energy. When you look at Him, the law of His life right away works within you and becomes a kind of automatic strength. It is wonderful!