dealing with our mind, emotion, and will so that Christ may live in us

For the Lord’s life to flow into us and out of us freely we need to deal with any obstacles and any problems in its way. Eventually, we will realize that the problem is not this or that thing, this or that matter, or even this or that part of our being. Our person with our mind, our emotion, and our will is an obstacle for the living out of God’s life.

We need to be broken by cooperating with the Lord in His dealings and we need to be strengthened into our inner man so that Christ may make His home in all our heart through faith (Eph. 3:16-17). We need more mingling of God with every part of our being to match Him and be one with Him!

Setting our mind on the spirit

A proper Christian is one whose mind, emotion, and will fully cooperate with his mingled spirit, allowing the divine life to flow out and be lived out in him. We all have to admit that many times we are abnormal Christians, those in whom the mind, the will, and the emotion do not cooperate with the spirit but rather contradict the spirit.

We need the Lord to shine on us and expose the problem of our mind – too many times we do things which originate from our thoughts and not out of God’s life in our spirit. Even if we do good things, things and activities for God, if they don’t issue out of the divine life in our spirit, they may be nothing more than religious activities! Even if they are successful, they are not a testimony of Christ lived out from our spirit (Eph. 4:23; Rom. 12:2).

When we as believers in Christ set our mind on the spirit, our outward actions are in full agreement with our inner man, and there is no discrepancy between us and God (see Rom. 8:6). When we set our mind on our spirit, anything we do results in life and peace, and we and God are at peace – we are one. We need to learn to set our mind on the mingled spirit and learn to follow the sense in our spirit rather than our good thoughts for God.

“Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus” (Phil. 2:5) – He submitted to the will of God fully, and His mind can be in us. As full grown, let us have this mind (Phil. 3:15) – when we let Christ’s mind be our mind, we will all have the same mind and we will be one in the church life.

Most of the problems come out of our mind, where we have many opinions. The Lord Jesus wanted to reveal Himself as the resurrection and the life, but Martha and Mary had their own concepts which frustrated the Lord Jesus (see John 11). Peter had his own mind which was not set on the things of God, and he was a great frustration to the Lord (Matt. 16:23).

It is so easy for us to express our good opinions and to live according to our good concepts. We need to set our mind on the spirit, get our mind soaked in the Word of God, and allow the Lord to mingle Himself with our mind so that we may have the mind of Christ (1 Cor. 2:16).

Having a strong yet flexible will

Sometimes we may have a clear view of what the Lord’s mind is – our mind understands and agrees with it – but our will is stubborn and does not want to submit and obey the Lord’s will. This is our experience time and time again – we understand, know, apprehend, and even deeply sense that the Lord wants us to do a certain thing, but our will refuses to submit to the Lord’s will.

The result of not submitting to the Lord’s will is that we lose the Lord’s presence, even though we may do what we want or what we think we should do. We need to have a strong will for the Lord’s will yet a flexible will when it comes to allowing Him to operate in us and through us.

It is not about having a STRONG will or a WEAK will – both a strong will and a weak will to carry out the Lord’s will are hindrances to God’s life. Our will needs to be dealt with by the Lord to be both strong and pliable, flexible, by being subdued and resurrected by the Lord! It is God who operates in us both the willing and the working – we just need to co-operate with Him and allow Him to subdue our will (Phil. 2:13).

Our will may be stubborn at times and like a noodle at other times, it may be very strong in some things yet extremely weak in things concerning God’s will. For God as life to live in us and flow out of us, we need to allow the Lord to subdue our will and make it strong in being one with Him and flexible/pliant in being submissive to Him.

Being one with Christ in our emotion

As if our mind and our will don’t pose enough problems in the way of the Lord’s life being lived out of us, our emotion is also a mess! We like things God doesn’t like, and we dislike the things God likes. “The Lord direct your hearts into the love of God” (2 Thes. 3:5) – we need to allow the Lord to saturate and permeate our emotion, so that our love would be one with God’s love, and we would be one with Christ in our emotion.

Our feelings of love, anger, hate, joy, sorrow, likes and dislikes, should be God’s feelings of love, anger, hate, joy, sorrow, likes and dislikes. Our emotion needs to be God’s emotion, and we need to fully enter into God’s emotion (Phil. 1:8).

In a very real sense, we cannot control our emotions – we cannot make up our minds about whom we should love, what we should like, etc. We need the Lord to come in to saturate and fill our emotions with His emotions so that we would love others with His love and hate Satan with His hate. We should love whatever God loves, like whatever God likes, and hate whatever God hates – our emotion and His emotion should become one emotion (see Eph. 5:25; 2 Cor. 12:15; 1 Cor. 16:24; Rev. 2:6).

Much mingling of the divine emotion with our human emotion is needed! The way is not forcing ourselves to like what God likes but being mingled with God until we like what He likes!

The outer man being broken and the inner man being strengthened

The conclusion is that our whole being, our entire person, is an obstacle in the way of God’s life flowing in and out of us and being lived out in us. The problem is not merely our emotion, our will, our mind – if our being has never been broken by God, life cannot have a way in us.

We need to cooperate with the Lord in His dealings with us so that our natural being may be broken and our inner man may be strengthened, for Christ to make His home in our heart and live in us! We daily need to be strengthened with power into the inner man so that our spirit would be strong and would even invade and permeate our mind, emotion, and will, making us fully one with Christ in our mind, emotion, and will (Eph. 3:16-17)!

Lord Jesus, may Your life in us have a way. We don’t want to allow any obstacles in us to the flow of Your life. Cause us to cooperate with the operating God – operate in us both the willing and the working! Lord, saturate and permeate our mind, emotion, and will, until we become one with You in Your mind, Your emotion, and Your will. Mingle Yourself with us, Lord, and strengthen us with power into our inner man that You may make Your home in all our heart!

References and Further Reading

• Sharing inspired from, Knowing Life and the Church (by Witness Lee, ch. 4), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Taking the Lead as Elders and Responsible Ones, week 2.
• Hymns on this topic:
  # In our daily life and all we are and do and think and say, / How we need a deeper mingling just to gain the Lord each day;
  # As I love You I set my being — / My spirit, my soul and body. / With my heart, my mind, and my strength, / Absolutely on Thee.
  # O that Christ may make His home my heart, / Spread Himself in every part! / Saturate and life impart!
  # Christ our content and reality / To shine out from us unceasingly: / He must have a way in you and me, / He must have a way.