Religion is to do anything apart from the indwelling Spirit. To love others apart from the Spirit is religion, and not to love others apart from the Spirit is also religion. Thus, it is not easy to fully come out of religion. After hearing a message, we often make up our mind that we will change. Husbands make up their minds to be nicer to their wives; saints make up their minds to function in every meeting. All this is religion. However, to make up our mind not to do anything after hearing a message is also religion. To make up our mind apart from the Spirit is religion. Whatever we do apart from the Spirit is religion. Only what we do by the indwelling Spirit is not religion.
The secret to be saved from religion is to unceasingly pray (1 Thes. 5:17). The Bible likens our prayer to breathing (Lam. 3:55-56), which never ceases. Whatever we are doing, we are still breathing. Likewise, we all must learn how to unceasingly pray. Unceasing prayer cannot be by our mind; we must learn to pray by and in our spirit. Ephesians 6:18 says, “Praying at every time in spirit.” When we learn to pray in our spirit, we will be able to pray without ceasing. We should not care primarily for our mind, emotion, or will. Instead, we need to always exercise our spirit, turn to our spirit, and return to our spirit. Setting aside specific times to pray will help us to exercise our spirit. When we begin to pray, we may not be in the spirit, but if we keep praying, after a short while we will be in our spirit. The more we pray, the more we will be in spirit. Eventually, we will become a person who is in spirit all the time.
We may be stirred up, burdened, and ready to go for the Lord’s move to Europe or to a college campus in the United States. However, before we go, we have to learn to pray to stir up our spirit, turn our being to our spirit, and call our being back into our spirit. We have to become a person who is strong not primarily in our mind, emotion, or will but in our spirit. Eventually, we will become those who live, walk, and do everything in spirit.
It is good to be stirred up, but we must learn to be stirred up in our spirit, not in our emotion. If we do not exercise our spirit to control our excitement, we will act foolishly. We should not go to our college campus and shout what we have seen, nor should we meet with the pastor of a denomination to tell him that whatever he does is religion. This kind of excitement is also in religion. We need to be stirred up in the spirit and allow the spirit to control our excitement. Nothing controls us as much as our spirit. To be wise, proper, bold, or frank, we need to be in the spirit. When we are in the spirit, we will know the right time to shout and the right time to be quiet. When we are in the spirit, we will know the right time to speak at length and the right time not to say a word. The spirit tells us when to speak and when to be silent. We only need to follow the spirit.
Galatians 6:18, the last verse of the book, says, “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit, brothers. Amen.” Galatians opens with our being delivered from the present evil age, and it closes with the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ being with our spirit. We all need to be delivered from the evil religious age, and we all need to enjoy the grace of the Lord Jesus in our spirit. We should not care for any kind of religion or even for spirituality or overcoming sins but only for the enjoyment of the Lord Jesus in our spirit. In our spirit, instead of regulation, ritual, doctrine, or knowledge, there is grace. Grace is the Lord Jesus as our enjoyment. Christ, the Spirit, and grace all denote one person—our wonderful Savior. As Christ, He is in the heavens; as the Spirit, He is within us; as grace, He is our enjoyment.