We have already seen that God is Spirit and therefore He created man with a spirit that man may serve Him in spirit. Moreover, in His salvation He comes to contact man as the Spirit. Therefore, when we serve Him, we must contact the Spirit in our spirit. Unless a person’s spirit is touched by the Spirit of God, he cannot know God, serve God, or contact God. The service that God wants from man is a service that is in the spirit of man. And the contact that God wants to have with man is a contact that is in the Spirit of God and in the spirit of man. Therefore, if someone wants to serve God, he must touch the Spirit of God in his spirit, he must be contacted by the Spirit of God in his spirit, and the two spirits—his spirit and God’s Spirit—must have mutual fellowship and be mutually joined. Only then will he be able to contact God and serve God. Only such a one is able to know God and understand the things of God. No one can understand the things of God unless he touches the Spirit of God in his spirit. This may be compared to someone trying to touch colors without using his eyes or catch a sound without using his ears, which is impossible. Unless a person’s spirit is touched by the Holy Spirit, he has no way to understand the things of God and thus he cannot serve God.
Therefore, we must see clearly which part of our being we should use to serve God. We can contact God only by the spirit and not by the body. Our spirit can feel God, but our body cannot. None of the parts and organs of our physical body is able to feel or sense God. Many new ones expect to see God with their eyes, to touch God with their hands, or to sense God with a certain part of their body; this is impossible because God cannot be contacted by us in our body.
Before they begin praying to God, some have the concept that God will come upon their body while they are praying and that their body will be feverish and trembling. Before they pray, they are prepared for their body to be feverish and trembling, and after they have prayed, if they are neither feverish nor trembling, they think that God is not real. It is wrong for them to have the concept that God will come upon their body and to prepare themselves to touch God with their body. Man cannot touch God with his body because this is not what God wants. If someone always expects to feel God with his body, the result will be that the demons, not God, will come upon his body. The demons, the evil spirits of Satan, cling to the human body. However, the Holy Spirit of God is not like that. The Holy Spirit comes into the spirit of man, but the unclean spirits cling to man’s physical body. This is a great difference. If a man tries to use the body to contact God, he may end up contacting the evil spirits. This is neither proper nor permissible.
Man cannot use his body to contact God; likewise, he cannot use his soul to contact God. Like the human body, the human soul cannot be connected with God. None of the parts of the soul, whether the mind, the emotion, or the will, can reach God, know God, or contact God. Yet today man always tries to use the mind to consider God, understand God, and comprehend God. When he hears about God, he considers that perhaps God is like this or like that. Man’s knowledge of God is mostly the imaginations of his intellect, the mind in man’s soul. As a result, man’s knowledge of God consists mostly of illusions and vain things. This is because the human intellect (mind) cannot contact or touch God, nor can the human thought know and comprehend God. Man’s intellect, the mind in man’s soul, is not the faculty for contacting and receiving God.
Some have believed in the Lord by believing the doctrines of the Bible with their mind instead of receiving the Lord with their spirit. I have met many people like this. If you ask them whether they have believed in the Lord, they answer firmly that they have. If you ask them further whether they are saved, they will recite to you Ephesians 2:8: “For by grace you have been saved through faith.” If you ask them whether they have eternal life, they will recite John 3:16: “Every one who believes into Him would not perish, but would have eternal life.” However, if you question them as to whether they are truly saved and have eternal life, they do not have the assurance and they dare not say so. This is because they do not have the experience of salvation. Although they have the scriptural doctrines in their mind, they still do not have the Lord in their spirit. They have only received the scriptural doctrines in their mind; they have not yet experienced the Lord’s salvation in their spirit.
When listening to a message, many people use only their mind and not their spirit. As a result, while their mind touches the message, their spirit fails to touch God. Their spirit is neither moved nor dealt with by the Spirit of God, in spite of the fact that their mind is affected and taught by the message. It is even possible for one’s mind to very clearly know and thoroughly understand the message and yet his spirit does not touch God even a little. His mind is filled with the message, but his spirit is still void of God. God’s word may enter into man’s mind through man’s understanding, but God Himself can enter into man’s spirit only through the Spirit.
Many brothers and sisters also use only their mind and not their spirit in reading the Bible. Hence, they cannot receive inspiration from the Bible nor can they touch God in their spirit through the reading of the Scriptures. Their mind can clearly study many doctrines, and their thoughts can figure out many truths. Nevertheless, their spirit has not been touched by God in His word, and therefore they have not received the supply of God’s life. They have not been moved, strengthened, enlightened, or cleansed in their spirit by God as the Spirit through His word.
Many brothers and sisters also use only their mind and not their spirit when they pray. In their regular morning and evening prayers, they recite the same things from their mind as if they were reciting from a book. They recite something first concerning themselves and then concerning their family, the church, the nation, and the world. Their recitation starts from themselves and covers the whole world. Every day when they pray, they recite once in this manner, and if they cannot finish it in the morning, they make it up in the evening. For a few days in the beginning, this kind of recitation has a good taste to them, but after a longer period of time, it begins to feel burdensome. Yet at the same time it has become a habit, so they have no peace if they do not recite. This kind of praying with the mind according to a set form cannot enable a person to contact God in the spirit, nor can it enable him to touch the presence of God and receive the supply of God. It only causes his heart to feel burdened and his spirit to be dry and empty, without being watered or satisfied.
Very often when the brothers call a hymn or offer a prayer in the meeting, they do it with their mind and not with their spirit. The hymns they select come from the considerations in their mind based on certain needs and not from being moved in their spirit. Moreover, the prayers they offer are prayers composed with their mind according to the existing situation and are not prayers released from their spirit. Therefore, the hymns they call and the prayers they offer cannot touch God, nor can they touch the spirit of others to make them sense God in their spirit and to uplift their spirit.
Many even preach the word with their mind instead of their spirit. Prior to their preaching, they first consider and select a topic, and then they use their mind to arrange the sections, prepare some stories, and add some illustrations. Then at the time of preaching, they speak the preconceived message in a very good order from their mind according to their memory. This kind of preaching is altogether done by using the human mind and depending on human thoughts. It is no wonder that it cannot bring the audience into contact with God, nor can it cause them to be moved by God. Furthermore, even the speaker himself is unable to touch God or be moved by God.
Even in visitation and in contacting people in spiritual matters, many brothers and sisters also merely use their mind and not their spirit. When they talk to people about the gospel or about spiritual matters, they do it according to the truth which they have comprehended in their understanding and the doctrine which they have remembered in their mind, instead of doing it according to the inspiration and revelation which they have received in their spirit. Therefore, their word can neither release forth God nor move the spirit within the listener. Likewise, their visitation cannot impart God and God’s supply to others to solve their spiritual problems.
Concerning all these spiritual matters, matters that pertain to the service of God, if a person touches any of these things merely with his mind and not with his spirit, he will not be able to touch or gain God, nor will he be able to touch God’s life or God’s supply.
Just as the mind in man’s soul cannot contact God, so the emotion and will in man’s soul also cannot contact God. A person’s emotion might be moved and his will might be changed, yet it is possible that he still has not contacted God. Very often, when someone listens to messages, reads the Scriptures, prays, attends meetings, or receives exhortation and instruction, his emotions may be greatly moved and because of this his will may also have a great change so that he strongly decides to turn to God and to live for God. Yet he may not have touched or contacted God at all. This is due to the fact that although his emotion and his will have been moved by the spiritual things, his spirit has not been moved by God. Spiritual matters may move his emotion and his will, but God wants to move and touch his spirit. His emotion and his will can contact the spiritual things but they cannot contact God.