We have covered two main aspects of the exercise of the spirit. Number one, to touch the Body and to be authorized in the Body you need to turn yourself to the spirit. Then, number two, to minister Christ as life to others you need to turn to the spirit. On this point we need some further illustrations.
Suppose I have the burden to visit a certain brother. As a rule, before I go I would pray and consider what I should do and what I should say to him. Then I would carry out what I had decided. But I say emphatically that this is wrong. Eventually I learned the lesson simply to pray, “Lord, I am going to see my brother. Lord, You go with me. I don’t know what to say, but You know.” Many times in the past I made a decision to say a certain thing to a brother, but when I was with him, there was something different in my spirit. If I had carried out what I had decided, I would have been in the mind, not in the spirit. We should not do this. We need to be available to the Lord’s present leading, flexible toward Him. Many times before I went to see a brother, I had a burden to say a certain thing, but when the time came I said nothing. I was simply there—that is all. The brother would ask me why I had come, and I would tell him that I had come simply to be there with him. Eventually this proved to be the best way. We all need to learn to be in the spirit. Sometimes I had to change what I was going to say in the middle of a sentence. After I had uttered the subject, the predicate had to be changed from what I had intended. Without such a change, I would have done some damage. But by that change, some profit came instead of the damage. We all need to learn to be living in our spirit, flexible in the spirit, with nothing decided, nothing settled, nothing fixed. Here is a lesson for us to learn. If we exercise our spirit, we are in the Body, we are entitled, we are authorized with the Body, and we have something of Christ to minister to others as life because we are in the spirit with Him. He as the life-giving Spirit is now in our spirit. If we exercise our spirit, He will come out along with our exercise of our spirit, and that will be life ministered to others.
On the negative side, we all know that in the Bible Satan, the evil one, is likened to a serpent. In Genesis 3, God destined the serpent to eat dust. Dust is the food of the serpent. We all need to realize that our natural life is a life of dust. Our natural life, our soulish life, is very dusty, very earthy, and it is good to be food for the serpent, the Devil. Whenever you behave yourself in the soul, you are qualified to be the food for the serpent. You should not think that a little bit of gossip is a small thing. Just a little gossip makes you good food for the serpent. First Peter 5:8 tells us that the Devil, like a roaring lion, is walking about on this earth seeking those he can swallow up. However, he is not foolish. On the contrary, he is very clever, and he is subtle. He can get into you without you realizing what he has done, just as germs that you cannot see can come in and make you sick. Before you know that the serpent is there, he has eaten you already.
The only way to escape being eaten by the serpent is to turn yourself to the spirit. Whenever you live, behave, act, move, do things, and say things in the soul, you are good for the serpent to eat. This is why there are many members in the Body, but only a few function. Many are food for the serpent. The little foxes are so cunning, so subtle! Some brothers and sisters are offended just by a long face. Others are offended by a little instruction or a little fellowship that is not according to their liking. Then the offended ones try to vindicate themselves by going to this one and that one to maintain that they are right and others are wrong. It might be that they are right, but only right to become food for the enemy. Once you get even a little bit involved in this kind of thing, you are deadened within as a result.
From experience we have learned that the problem today in the practice of the church life is absolutely a matter with us. If you would keep yourself in your spirit all the time, you would never be good for food to feed the serpent. May the Lord be merciful to us. No matter how long others’ faces may be toward me, no matter what kind of instruction or fellowship may come to me, I would be in the spirit. As long as I am in the spirit, I am no longer food to feed the serpent.
Only the earthy things, only the dusty things, are the food of the serpent. The fleshly life and the soulish life are good to be the food of the serpent. This is why in the church life there is no possibility that we would be living in the spirit and yet have complaining, self-vindication, and self-justification. All of us know that whenever we say something for ourselves, whenever we vindicate something of our own, we are through with the spirit. It might be that we are right according to the tree of knowledge of good and evil, but we are good to be food for the serpent. We spread death to others, and we ourselves are swallowed up by the enemy. Then we are through. You may come to the meeting and may still partake of the service, but there is no life and no ministry of life. There is no spirit and there is nothing living. Life cannot be imitated; it cannot be copied. If you stand up to speak without life, others will sense the death and the deadening because you are not in the spirit, but in the soul. To practice the church life is absolutely a matter in the human spirit.
As long as we are in the human spirit, we are in the Body. We are authorized, not only empowered, but authorized in the Body, and we are one with Christ to minister Him as life. We are delivered from the subtlety of the little serpent. His eating could never damage us because we are in the spirit.