If we would live according to the principle of life, we need to discern the spirit from the soul and know the spirit; the key to having a keen sense of life is to love the Lord and drop our opinions. Amen!
We believers in Christ have another life in our spirit – we have the divine life of God in us, and Christ as a living person is in us.
Our Christian living is not ruled by an outward standard of conduct nor is it according to the principle of right and wrong.
We are ruled by the principle of life, the sense of the divine life within us.
We are not ruled by the doors that open in our environment, nor are we merely choosing the right thing and rejecting the wrong thing; we follow the sense of life and peace in our spirit.
Brother Watchman Nee once told a story of how he saw a brother in serious financial need, a very serious situation, and according to his assessment, there was no help coming from anywhere.
Brother Nee considered this brother’s situation and thought that maybe he should help this brother by giving him some money.
So he went to the brother and gave him a certain sum of money; he expected to feel joyful inside when he did it, but actually, the life in him wilted.
He did a good thing by helping this brother in need, and he should have felt very happy inwardly, but actually, he felt life wilted within him.
He could not understand why this happened, for he helped a brother who was in dire need.
So the Lord spoke to Him at that moment and told him that yes, he did a good thing, but this was just an act of chivalry, and good manners, but it was not something of the divine life within him.
Brother Nee went home and knelt before the Lord and confessed his sin; he considered it a sin to do something not out of the divine life in him, something apart from the Lord, no matter how good that thing may be. Wow! This is what it means to live according to the principle of life.
This doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t give any money to anyone or help others; it means that we don’t just help others because they are in need, but we check with the Lord, have a keen sense of life, discern our spirit from our soul, and do all things one with the Lord.
We may feel that a brother is at the top of our list to pray for, so we should call him and see how is he doing; without calling on the Lord or consulting Him about it, we may just call that brother and offer some support.
All this is good, and there’s nothing wrong with it, but what about the sense of life within?
Did we pay attention to the Lord’s inner speaking, the sense of the inner life?
Did we check with the Lord about all things, or do we just do them because they seem to be good, and there’s nothing evil about them? May we have a radical change in our concept regarding our standard of living in our Christian life.
Two Keys to having a Keen Sense of Life: Love the Lord and learn to Drop your Opinions
When we hear that we need to live according to the sense of life in our spirit, we may wonder how can we tell when a feeling is from the Lord or from our mind.
We may be so much in ourselves, we may think our own things, and we may have our own preconceived opinions and feelings, so how do we know when it is the Lord and when it is of us? How can we tell when a feeling comes from the divine life in our spirit or from our mind?
How can we discern between the two, and how can we tell the difference between the two?
First of all, we need to realize that the divine life in us is full of sensation and feeling, for this life is moving and anointing us, seeking to teach us all things (1 John 2:27).
God is operating in us – He constantly operates both the willing and the working according to His good pleasure (Phil. 2:13).
However, on our side we may not have much sense of that; we may not have a keen sense of life.
We need to do something to have a keen sense of life, for we have two main problems: first, we don’t love the Lord that much, and second, we are full of opinions, so we can’t hear the Lord that much. Oh, Lord!
Through the gospel and the ministry of the word, we have been betrothed to the Lord as one Husband, and we should love the Lord with all our heart.
However, as 2 Cor. 11:3 says, we may be beguiled by the enemy through craftiness and different teachings and thus not love the Lord that much.
We need to remain in the simplicity in Christ, following the Lord in a simple way by just loving Him.
The Lord Jesus lives in us, He is the most lovely One, and He has a keen sense of life; we need to be simple in loving the Lord and enjoying Him.
When we love the Lord with all our heart, we have a keen sense of life and we discern His voice from any other voice. What motivates us to seek the sense of life is our love for the Lord.
We need to be reminded again and again to spend time with the Lord. It is not enough merely to do our Bible reading according to a schedule, nor is it good enough to just read the morning revival and be spiritually nourished.
We need to spend private, affectionate, spiritual time with the Lord, being intimate with Him in our contact with Him early in the morning.
The ministry of the age, the ministry of the apostles, draws us to spend time with the Lord, so that we may love Him more and be betrothed to Him.
Watching Netflix or Youtube does not encourage us to spend more time with the Lord, but calling on the name of the Lord early in the morning and telling HIm that we love Him does.
We need to fight for our love time with the Lord in the morning, falling in love with Him and having an affectionate interaction with Him every morning.
This will increase our awareness and our desire for the sense of life in our being, and we will have a keen sense of life.
Secondly, we need to realize that, besides loving the Lord, we need to be aware that we have so many opinions.
We are just full of opinions. We are full of opinions about what is right.
We may not even have the feeling that we have to contact the Lord, for we know the answer already – we just know what’s right and what’s wrong.
![For I am jealous over you with a jealousy of God; for I betrothed you to one husband to present [you as] a pure virgin to Christ. But I fear lest somehow, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, your thoughts would be corrupted from the simplicity and the purity toward Christ. 2 Cor. 11:2-3](https://i0.wp.com/www.agodman.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/For-I-am-jealous-over-you-with-a-jealousy-of-God-for-I-betrothed-you-to-one-husband-2-683x1024.jpg?resize=450%2C675&ssl=1 "For I am jealous over you with a jealousy of God; for I betrothed you to one husband to present [you as] a pure virgin to Christ. But I fear lest somehow, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, your thoughts would be corrupted from the simplicity and the purity toward Christ. 2 Cor. 11:2-3")
If we already know what is good and what is right, why do we need to ask the Lord?
We are so full of opinions, just as Martha was full of opinions when the Lord came as resurrection life to raise her brother Lazarus.
Our opinions darken the counsel of God and hinder Him from doing what He wants to do.
Our opinions and abundant knowledge stop us from contacting the Lord, for we are so much on the tree of knowledge that have no need for checking with the Lord about something. Oh, Lord Jesus!
We need to be delivered from our opinions in order to have a keen sense of life.
Our opinions are eating us from the inside out, for we can’t receive anything from the Lord or give Christ to others because of our opinions.
So we need to learn to love the Lord and drop our opinions. Instead of analyzing too much what the Lord tells us inwardly, we should drop our opinions and follow the sense of life.
We should not analyze or introspect but simply follow the sense of life in our spirit. May we bring this to the Lord and tell Him,
Lord Jesus, we give ourselves to just love You with all our heart! Rekindle our love for You. Draw us every morning, Lord, to spend intimate, personal, and affectionate time with You. We want to be in Your presence and enjoy Your wonderful person. Amen, Lord Jesus, we forget about anything else and just love You. We even drop our opinions to follow Your leading, and we want to live according to the inner sense of life. May we have a keen sense of life and follow the leading of the Lord in our spirit. Amen, Lord, save us from introspecting and analyzing; keep us on the line of life, following You in simplicity. Hallelujah for the sense of life in our spirit!
To Live according to the Principle of Life, we need to Discern the Spirit from the Soul and Know our Spirit!
Hallelujah for our mingled spirit!
As believers in Christ, we need to realize that the Lord is now in our spirit. He is not in our mind, emotion, or will, but in our spirit.
We are children of God, born of God with His life and nature (John 1:12-13), and the Spirit Himself witnesses with our spirit that we are children of God (Rom. 8:16).
1 Cor. 6:17 further says that he who is joined to the Lord is one spirit; we are joined to Him in spirit, and He and we are one in our mingled spirit.
The Lord is the Spirit (2 Cor. 3:17), and He witnesses with our spirit today.
The Lord as the Spirit lives in us, dwells in us, works in us, moves in us, and acts in us, and He does all these things in our spirit.
![But a soulish man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him and he is not able to know [them] because they are discerned spiritually. But the spiritual man discerns all things, but he himself is discerned by no one. 1 Cor. 2:14-15](https://i0.wp.com/www.agodman.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/But-a-soulish-man-does-not-receive-the-things-of-the-Spirit-of-God-for-they-are-foolishness-to-him-1-683x1024.jpg?resize=450%2C675&ssl=1 "But a soulish man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him and he is not able to know [them] because they are discerned spiritually. But the spiritual man discerns all things, but he himself is discerned by no one. 1 Cor. 2:14-15")
For us to live according to the principle of life, we need to discern the spirit from the soul and know the spirit, having a keen sense of life in our spirit (Heb. 4:12; 1 Cor. 2:14-15).
If we don’t know our human spirit, we can’t understand God’s moving within, we can’t follow the Lord, and we can’t hear His voice, for He as the Spirit lives within our spirit.
As human beings, we have many inward parts – we have the spirit, the soul, the heart, the mind, the emotion, the will, and the conscience.
Out of all these parts, only our spirit is the Lord’s residence, the place where He dwells.
The Lord doesn’t dwell in our mind or emotion or will.
Rather, He dwells in our spirit (2 Tim. 4:22).
Our spirit and our body are different, and our spirit is also different from the mind, emotion, and will; our spirit is our innermost part, the place where God in Christ as the spirit dwells.
If we follow our mind, if we try to seek the Lord with our mind, we will end up in confusion, for the Lord dwells in our spirit.
If we exercise our emotion to touch the Lord without exercising our spirit, we will not be able to touch the Lord.
Many times we can testify that, as we are having a time with the Lord, contacting Him and being in fellowship with Him, suddenly we have a thought about someone or something, and if we follow that thought, we lose the Lord’s presence.
We may have fellowship with the Lord or with the saints, and then suddenly we start talking or thinking about a particular thing, and we lose the Lord’s presence. Oh, Lord!
Our fellowship with the Lord is often frustrated by our not knowing the difference between our soul and our spirit.
To follow the Lord, we need to deny our mind, emotion, and will, and turn to our spirit.
We may have this or that feeling, we may have this or that thought, or we may want this or that; all these we put aside and simply exercise our spirit.
A good way to exercise our spirit is to read the word of God with prayer; when we pray over God’s word, it becomes living and operative, and it divides the soul and the spirit in us (Heb. 4:12).
The word of God is living and operative and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing even to the dividing of soul and spirit and of joints and marrow, and able to discern the thoughts and intentions of the heart.
If we desire to know the Lord in a practical way and experience Him in our daily life, we must learn to discern our spirit (1 Cor. 2:14-15).
If we do not know our human spirit, we cannot understand God’s moving within us and cannot follow the Lord, because the Lord is the Spirit living within our spirit (1 John 2:27; 2 Tim. 4:22).
We need to know the difference between our spirit and our other inward parts (Psa. 51:6; Ezek. 36:26; 1 Pet. 3:4).
To do anything in our soul, whether it is right or wrong, is to live in the old man; thus, we need to deny our soul-life, our self (Matt. 16:24-26).
When we follow our spirit, we follow the Lord Himself, because the Lord is in our spirit (2 Tim. 4:22; 1 Cor. 6:17).
May we practice having a keen sense of life in our spirit by turning to our spirit and exercising our spirit, not doing anything according to our mind but being in our mingled spirit again and again.
When we go along with our spirit and follow the sense of life in our spirit, the result is that Christ will make His home in our hearts (Eph. 3:16-17), that is, He will fill our mind, emotion, will, and conscience.
Lord Jesus, teach us to discern our spirit from our soul. We come to Your word with an exercised spirit to pray and read Your word. Amen, Lord, may Your living word divide our spirit from our soul. We choose to remain in our spirit. We reject our thoughts, our feelings, and our desires, and we choose to contact You in spirit. We want to know You in a practical way and experience You in our daily life by living according to the keen sense of life in our spirit. Amen, Lord, we do not want to live in our old man; we deny our soul-life, our self, and we follow You in our mingled spirit. May we be those who go along with our spirit and follow the sense in our spirit so that Christ may make His home in our heart!
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Sources of inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, a sharing by the brothers in the message, and portions from, Collected Works of Witness Lee, 1963, vol. 2, “God’s Intention concerning Christ and the Church,” pp. 114-119, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Taking the Way of Enjoying Christ as the Tree of Life (2022 Memorial Day Weekend Conference), week 2, entitled, The Two Trees and the Two Principles of Living.
- Further reading on this topic:
– Learning to discern our spirit from our soul – portion from, The Fulfillment of God’s Purpose by the Growth of Christ in Us, by Witness Lee.
– Discerning the Spirit from the Soul, article via Irvine CS. - Hymns on this topic:
– ’Tis by this sense that God we know, / The sense of inner life; / ’Tis pow’rful and spontaneous, / And not of any strife. / The greater is our growth in life, / The keener is this sense; / The more we walk and act in life, / The more it is intense. (Hymns #738)
– ’Tis here within our inmost part / That God in Christ is all to us; / ’Tis here the Holy Spirit makes / The Lord reality to us. / ’Tis here within the spirit-part / We contact Christ and dwell with Him; / ’Tis by our spirit we with God / Have fellowship and worship Him. (Hymns #747)
– Lord, teach us to discern the spirit / From soul that we Thyself may know; / Thou art the Spirit in our spirit, / In oneness mingled with us so. / Lord, teach us to discern the spirit, / The soul-life ever to deny, / And ever follow Thee in spirit, / Thyself, the Spirit, to apply. (Hymns #746)
About aGodMan
The Lord is in our spirit. Hence, it is critical for us to learn to discern our spirit and to know the difference between our spirit and our mind, emotion, and will. If we do not know this difference, we will often find our fellowship with the Lord frustrated. For example, many times while we are praying, we sense the presence of the Lord and have genuine fellowship with Him in spirit. Often, however, while we are having such fellowship, we suddenly exercise our mind and begin to think about or remember something. When we do this, immediately our fellowship with the Lord stops…In such a situation we must give up the self and tell the Lord, “Lord, I do not agree with my mind; I agree with my spirit. I reject my mind, and I take my spirit.” This [is] a basic principle—the way to follow the Lord is to do things not according to our mind with its thoughts but according to the inner sense and the deep consciousness in the innermost part of our being. We need to follow this deep inner sense because it is the sense of the Lord in our spirit. When we go along with our spirit and follow the sense in our spirit, there will be a result—Christ will make His home in our hearts [Eph. 3:16-17]…This means that the Lord fills our mind, emotion, will, and conscience…and our whole being will be filled with Christ. Collected Works of Witness Lee, 1963, vol. 2, “God’s Intention concerning Christ and the Church,” pp. 118-119
if we would live according to the principle of life, we need to discern the spirit from the soul and know the spirit.
The Lord as the Spirit is living, dwelling, working, moving, and acting in our spirit, and we are one spirit with Him. Amen!
We need to know our spirit and turn to our spirit again and again so that we may have a keen sense of life.
If we wish to follow the Lord in our spirit we have to discern our spirit from our soul.
The soulish, natural man cannot know the things of God so to know the Lord – as the Spirit indwelling us- and follow Him, we must deny our mind, emotion and will.
We should thank the Lord each day for bringing us clarity concerning the difference between the human spirit and the heart & soul.
The Lord today is the Spirit who lives within our spirit. We know this because the Scriptures tell us so (2 Tim 4:22).
Therefore, it’s critical for us to learn to discern our spirit and to believe that our spirit is different from our conscience, mind, emotion & will.
We must deny our mind, emotion & will, and remain in our spirit.
We need to follow the deep inner sense in our spirit because it’s the sense of the Lord in our spirit.
When we go along with our spirit and follow the sense in our spirit, Christ is able to make His home in our hearts and we become truly joined to Him. the Lord be with your spirit brother. Grace be with you.
Oh Lord! Do keep us turning all the way! Keep us rejecting our feelings and thoughts and just rejoice in you! Keep us feeding on you through your word! Make home in all our hearts!
Amen Lord, may we know the effectiveness of living in our mingle spirit to experience a keen sense of life and live before God continually! Grant us the working and living we need today through Your operating within us to maintain one spirit with You!
amen may we be those who have the discernment between the Spirit and the soul and may be those who live by the Spirit not our faculties of our soul
Dear brother, if we do not know our human spirit, we cannot understand God’s moving within us and cannot follow the Lord, because the Lord today is the Spirit living within our spirit!
Amen Lord, thank You as the Spirit, You are living, dwelling, working, moving and acting in our spirit! We praise You! We desire to know You as the Spirit witnessing with our spirit that we are children of God! May we discern the spirit from the soul, set our mind on the spirit, walk according to the spirit! Amen!
Amen, this often happens, when I have a extremely busy week and start my time with the Lord these thoughts come in so I practise to reject them. I mean it even happens when I’m not so busy like this morning for instance. Thank you for sharing this brother
The place of God’d habitation is our spirit. We come forward to the throne of God in our spirit. The Lord, the Spirit, and Grace are all in the spirit.
Our spirit is the only place where we can receive, experience the Lord as everything to us.
Amen. The Lord is the Living Spirit in our spirit. He is the Divine life, the anointing within us. Praise the Lord we are one spirit with the Lord. He is willing and working and we could know His ways, the sense of life.