We have already seen that the way for us as Christians to mature is to let the Lord fill us in our being, that is, to let the Spirit of the Lord have the full ground in us. When the Lord regenerated us, His Spirit with His life entered into us. Thus, our spirit, which was originally deadened, became enlivened. We know that death is darkness. When the spirit is deadened, it is dark and without light. When the Spirit of God with His life entered into our deadened spirit, our spirit was made alive and became bright.
God’s Spirit is God’s life, even God Himself. God Himself is light, and God’s life is also light. Therefore, when the Spirit of God with God’s life enters into us, it is like a great, rich light entering into our spirit. This great and rich light enters into our spirit and brightens it, making it full of light. Our spirit is the lamp of God. The lamp is where the light is. Light is contained in a lamp and shines through a lamp. Our human spirit is the lamp of God. The Spirit of God with God’s life is the great and rich light contained in our spirit, which is the lamp. The spirit in us is bright and shining. God shines out from our spirit into our being. The purpose of His shining out is that He would shine into all of our inner parts.
We all know that our spirit is the deepest, innermost, and most central part of our whole being. Surrounding the center of our being is the circumference of our soul, which is our very person, our self. When we talk about what kind of people we are, we are referring to our soul. Our soul, which is our natural man, clearly consists of three parts. These three parts are the organs by which we think, like and dislike, and make decisions. The organ by which we think is our mind, the organ by which we like and dislike is our emotion, and the organ by which we make decisions is our will. When added together, these three parts or organs make up our outer man, our soul.
The Spirit of God with God’s life shines out from our spirit, shining forth to every part of our soul. The deepest and most central part of our being is our spirit. When the Spirit of God with God’s life entered into this spirit, this spirit began to shine and became bright. Formerly, this spirit was in darkness and was deadened. Now this spirit shines and has been made bright and alive because the Spirit of God with God’s life has entered into it. However, this central part of our being is only one part of our being. Surrounding this central part is our outer man, our soul. This soul consists of three parts—the mind, emotion, and will. All of our thoughts and knowledge come from the mind, all of our likes and dislikes are from the emotion, and all of our decisions, plans, choices, and resolutions are determined in the will. When we talk about our person, most of the time we are referring to what we think about, what we love, and how we make decisions. These are the activities of our person.
Proverbs 20:27 says that this spirit, which is our deepest part, is the lamp of God. Jehovah God searches the inner parts of man through this spirit. According to psychology, the inner parts of man consist of the mind, emotion, and will. From the human spirit God uses His Spirit to shine forth, penetrate, and search every part of man. Therefore, this spirit is the lamp, and the light in this lamp is the Spirit of God and God’s life. This light needs to shine forth into every part of the human mind, emotion, and will.
What is the way for a Christian to mature in life? We have to say again that the central meaning and purpose of being a Christian is to allow God to mingle Himself with us. The beginning of our being matured in life is when God first mingles with us, that is, when His Spirit with His life enters into our spirit. This is the first step. At this point our spirit has the element of God and is mingled with God, and we are regenerated. Our spirit was in darkness and death before we believed in the Lord. Because our spirit was deadened, we had no feeling, and because it was in darkness, we could not distinguish between black and white or right and wrong. However, when God’s Spirit with God’s life entered into us, our spirit was made alive and bright. The fact that our inner being has been made alive and bright is proof that God’s Spirit with God’s life has entered into us.
Perhaps some may ask how they can tell whether they have been made alive and bright in their inner being. Someone who is dead has no feeling, but someone who is alive has feeling. Before we believed in the Lord and were regenerated, perhaps we did not feel wrong when we quarreled with our family. We had no feeling in our deeper part and were dead inside. When we grip and pinch a person a little bit, he cries out in pain because he has feeling. If he were a dead person, he would do nothing no matter how much we gripped and pinched him because such a person is dead and does not have feeling.
Formerly our spirit was dead. We did not feel that we were wrong when we did something wrong such as quarreling with others in our family and causing turmoil. This proves that our spirit was dead and had no feeling. However, one day we believed in the Lord and were regenerated, and our spirit became alive. How do we know that our spirit has become alive? In the past when we blamed others and spoke in anger, we had no feeling. Now, however, whenever we do these things, we feel as if we are being poked by a needle. We feel that there is something wrong, and we have a sense of pain. This proves that we have been made alive. However, this feeling may still be somewhat weak. Though we may be pricked and may have a sense of pain in our heart, we may still want to reason and quarrel with others. The more we quarrel outwardly, the more we sense the pain inwardly. One day we may quarrel with our family outwardly, but inwardly we may be being pricked until we cannot bear it anymore. Then the next morning we may confess to the Lord, saying, “Lord, I lost my temper with my family yesterday. I was truly wrong. What should I do?” The Lord may then lead us to deal with this before our family and to tell them, “I was wrong yesterday. I feel very sorry about that. The Lord has convicted me, and I have no peace. Please forgive me.” What is this? This is the spirit in us being alive, bright, and full of feeling. When the spirit in us is bright, we can distinguish between black and white and between light and dark. By this we know that we have been regenerated and that the Spirit of God with God’s life has been mingled with our spirit. In other words, God and our person have already begun to be mingled in our innermost part.