A normal, genuine, and spiritual Christian living is the issue of the spirit of man touching the Spirit of God. Before we were saved and had God dwelling in us, it seemed sufficient for us merely to do good. We were used to living in the way of doing good. After we are saved and begin to live a spiritual living, we may encounter some problems and may be unaccustomed to a spiritual living. Gradually, however, we will begin to learn not to live by ourselves but to turn to our spirit and to think of God in our living. Eventually we will reach a point where we may not even deliberately exercise our spirit to touch the Spirit of God; because our heart is proper and because we are always in fellowship with God and because of His moving within us, we will spontaneously touch the Spirit of God. The Bible tells us that this moving is the anointing in us. The anointing touches our spirit, joins to our spirit, and motivates us. When we live a life according to this motivation, we will be living a spiritual living. All of our actions and behavior, being the result of our following and obeying the Holy Spirit, will not merely be ethical or religious but spiritual. This kind of living is the Christian living—a living that is spiritual, genuine, and proper. It is also a living that is spiritual reality.
There are two obstacles to living a practical spiritual life. The first obstacle is the unwillingness to stop our self and to deny our soul. Instead of stopping our self, we often may continue to act according to our own will. We may continue to think what we want to think, love what we want to love, and choose what we want to choose. We may completely ignore our spirit. We may have heard the spiritual doctrines many times, but we may remain unchanged, still living by ourselves and being unwilling to stop ourselves. This is a big problem.
We need to be enlightened and saved to see that the most detestable matter concerning us is not the fact that we still sin or love the world. It is the fact that we cannot stop our self. Most of us are still living in ourselves. Our mind, emotion, and will are still ruling us, and we are still living by our soul. Although we have been saved and enlivened and have the Spirit of God in us, we still put the spirit aside and live by our mind, emotion, preferences, and ideas. Thus, our first obstacle is that it is hard for us to stop ourselves and deny our soul.
The second obstacle is that our submission to the feeling of the spirit may be conditional. When we live by the spirit, the Spirit of God is living, strong, and powerful, but we still may not fully submit to Him. The Spirit of God operates in us by inwardly moving in us, forbidding us, directing us, controlling us, dealing with us, and requiring things of us. He may require us to get rid of some things and to deal with other things. He may require us to deny our self, to come out of our flesh, to turn to our spirit, and to submit to the feeling in our spirit. This is the Spirit’s moving, operating, forbidding, directing, controlling, dealing, and requiring in our spirit. When we experience this, we may discover that when the moving and operating match our taste, we submit, but when they do not match our taste, we find it difficult and burdensome to submit. The question that we must ask ourselves is, “Are we willing to submit?” Our unwillingness to submit is the problem. The genuine submission of a Christian is to submit to the spirit and to touch the feeling of the spirit.
For example, there once was a Christian who had a friend that he was very close to. If he had to go for a long time without seeing his friend, it was upsetting to him. This Christian was endeavoring to live in his spirit to contact and fellowship with the Spirit, so at a certain point the Holy Spirit began to move and operate in his spirit. Whenever the Holy Spirit asked him to pray, to praise, to meet, or to do good, he was very happy, but whenever the Holy Spirit moved, operated, and touched him regarding his friend, he found it hard to submit. Whenever he was about to go visit his friend, the Holy Spirit forbade him. Whenever he was about to invite his friend to visit him, his inner being did not allow him. He had the clear feeling that although he had been able to visit his friend as he pleased in the past, now the Holy Spirit within him would not allow him to go to see his friend in the same way. Hence, he was in a dilemma concerning whether to submit or not. The feeling in his spirit was requiring him to put his friend aside, but emotionally he was absolutely unwilling to put him aside. Thus, he disobeyed the inner feeling, discarded the moving of the Holy Spirit, allowed his emotions to rule him, and followed his emotions to go to see his friend. In short, he turned from his spirit to his soul, and immediately he lost his fellowship with God. Outwardly he had not committed a great sin or an evil act, and even his family had agreed that he should be friends with this upright person, but because he chose to live in his soul and not in his spirit, he lost the presence of the Spirit and the fellowship of the Spirit.
Spiritual matters are like an electric lamp. When we turn the switch on, the lamp shines. It may seem quite complicated to talk about the Spirit of God, about incarnation bringing God into man, about death and resurrection bringing man into God, and about the experience of death and ascension in resurrection. However, these matters are very simple to experience. Normally, we speak, walk, and live in our soul. We love, give opinions, and make decisions entirely in the soul. Whatever our soul decides, we do, and whatever our soul thinks, we think. But now that we see that deep within us we have a spirit and that the Spirit of God is in our spirit, when we fellowship and contact God in our spirit, the Spirit of God will touch our spirit, and eventually we will obey and follow the feeling in our spirit. This is the Christian living. When this happens, the living that we live out will not be merely an ethical or religious living but a spiritual living. When we have this living, we will live in the spirit, have spiritual reality, and live a life of mingling with God. Then God’s eternal purpose will be accomplished in us.