It is good to be brought back to God’s original intention, what He desired to do and achieve from the very beginning: He wants to dispense Himself into us as life to be our life, life-supply, and everything, so that we may express Him corporately (see Gen. 2:9; 1:26).
God’s intention is the same throughout the ages, and today all He wants is a group of people who are open to Him to receive His life, grow in His life, allow His life to spread in their inner being to reconstitute them and live out this life to become His corporate expression.
God’s purpose to have a group of people who express Him in His image and represent Him with His dominion can be fulfilled only by life: only the life of God, the divine eternal life, can fulfill God’s purpose. However, throughout the ages this simple yet vital matter of the eternal life has been lost, misinterpreted, and put aside; now many Christians pay more attention to teachings, doctrines, practices, and outward things rather than opening to the Lord and cooperating with Him that His life in them would grow.
At the end of the Bible, we see the New Jerusalem, God’s miraculous structure of treasure, which is a city of life – in it there’s a throne out of which flows the river of life, and on this side and on that side of the river grows the tree of life-giving fresh fruits every month.
Our destiny is to forever drink God as the Spirit (the river of water of life) and eat Christ as the tree of life, and we will live forever under God’s throne to express Him and represent Him corporately in the universe.
Today we want to see how we as believers need to live according to the principle of the tree of life, that is, live in dependence on the Lord by taking Him in as our food, drink, and breath, and contacting Him always in our spirit. May we never graduate from breathing in the Lord, eating Him, and drinking Him!
Living According to the Principle of the Tree of Life, the Principle of Dependence
There are two principles of living today – one is the principle of depending on the Lord (the principle of the tree of life) and the other is being independent of Him (the principle of the tree of knowledge of good and evil).
The tree of life denotes God Himself as life; after man was created by God, he was placed in the garden of Eden, and God put the tree of life in the middle of the garden, together with the tree of knowledge of good and evil. God warned Adam that in the day he eats of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, he will surely die (Gen. 2:9, 17).
The principle of the tree of life is dependence on God as life, and the principle of the tree of knowledge is being independent of God. After we graduate from school, we have the knowledge and no longer need our teachers or the textbooks – we are now independent; knowledge makes us independent.
But when we take God in as life by eating Him as our spiritual food, drinking Him as our living water, and breathing Him in as our spiritual air, we depend on Him. We can never graduate from breathing, eating, and drinking; the day we graduate from breathing is the day we die. We must breathe every moment, and we must eat and drink every day; eating indicates dependence.
God presents Himself to us as the tree of life to be our food, and we need to depend on God continually. The proper principle of life is dependence; we depend on the food we eat and the water we drink, and if we want to go on in life we need to keep eating and drinking.
The more we grow in the divine life the more dependent on the Lord as life we are. It seems that if we grow in life and pick up things, learn how to do things, and know the Lord more, the more independent we should be, but this is not true: the more we grow in life and mature, the more we depend on the Lord.
A sign of growth in the divine life and of spiritual maturity is an increased dependence on the Lord. The more mature we become, the more we depend on the Lord for everything, even in small things.
Knowledge or religion means to be good and do good, to worship God, and to work for God, yet without having the living presence of God. The Pharisees in the time of the Lord Jesus searched the Scriptures (which is something good) but they were not willing to come to the Lord Himself so that He may give them life (John 5:39-40).
Even such a good thing as depending on our Bible knowledge is a sign of independence if we don’t come to the Lord again and again. Coming to the Lord and checking with Him all the time is a sign of dependence. Knowing the Bible apart from touching the Lord in a living way is independence.
We may think that we know what God wants from us, what His will for our life is, but if we don’t depend on Him, we are independent of Him. The Lord encourages us to abide in Him and He will abide in us, because apart from Him we can do nothing (John 15:5).
Apart from depending on the Lord for everything we can do nothing. We need to depend on the Lord moment by moment, touch Him, wait on Him, look to Him, and check with Him concerning everything.
To not depend on the Lord is to do things without His living presence, and this is religion and eating the tree of knowledge, not the tree of life.
Lord Jesus, we need You. We are nothing without You. Open our eyes to realize that apart from You we can do nothing. Every time we open our mouth or make a decision, cause us to first come to You and contact You to hear Your feeling concerning this. Lord, save us from being independent from You. We want to live according to the principle of the tree of life by depending on You in everything. Lord, may Your life in us take the lead. May we pay attention to Your life in us and not to our knowledge or opinions! Lord, we take You in as the tree of life and we depend on You!
Not being Independent from God but Learning to Depend on Him Continually
In God’s eyes the greatest sin is independence, that is, doing things and taking decisions apart from Him. Independence is like a spiritual insulation which disconnects us from the life of God, causing us to be alienated from the life of God (Eph. 4:18). We should not think we are “experts” in spiritual matters and so we don’t need to exercise our spirit or contact the Lord anymore because we have been doing this for so many years.
In the spiritual realm we are dependent beings: we depend on the Lord continually, and we cannot live the Christian life without the Lord. Even one second of independence from the Lord is spiritual death.
We must learn the lesson before God that we should never act merely according to the standard of right and wrong. The standard of right and wrong is not bad; it is a good standard, but it is not good enough for a Christian. The Christian’s standard surpasses right and wrong. The things which are wrong are wrong, but the things which are right are not always right. If we act according to God’s life, He will show us that His demands are higher than those of human law. This being the case, it becomes very easy to live the Christian life. In every matter when we seek God’s speaking within us, spontaneously there will be the shining of inward light. Please remember that our regeneration is a fact. It is also a fact that God is living in us through the Lord Jesus. The Lord is constantly expressing Himself within us. We hope that each of us would be able to say to God, “Grace me so that I live by the tree of life, not by the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. I want to constantly pay attention to life. I want to ask, `What is the sense of life?'” If we live by this principle, we will see a great change in our Christian life. (Watchman Nee, Two Principles of Living)
In the church life and in the family life it is beautiful when we depend on the Lord, but independence is ugly. In the world today much emphasis is placed on being independent, living on your own two feet, and accomplishing something in life by yourself.
But to exercise independence from the Lord in anything is a sin; in God’s eyes, the greatest sin is independence, because independence is the principle of death.
We need to return to the tree of life, take God in as life, and depend on Him continually in our Christian life.
Anything that we do in dependence upon the Lord is in the principle of the tree of life, but anything we do independently of the Lord is in the principle of the tree of knowledge.
Life is God Himself, and the principle of life is dependence; when we depend on God in everything and take Him as our life, constantly turning to Him and contacting Him, everything is life.
Lord Jesus, save us from declaring independence from You. Lord, we want to learn to depend on You continually. Show us the principle of the tree of life so that we may stay away from the principle of the tree of knowledge. Lord, we depend on You moment by moment, and we want to live in a direct contact with You. You are our life, our Friend, our Father, our Counsellor, our God, and our everything. May there be no insulation between us and You but may there be a flow of life as we depend on You in our daily life.
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Inspiration: the Word of God, my Christian experience, brother Minoru Chen’s sharing in the message for this week, and Life-study of Genesis, msgs. 13-14 (by Witness Lee), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, The Crucial Points of the Major Items of the Lord’s Recovery Today (ITERO 2015 fall), week 5 / msg 5, The Eternal Life.
- All Bible verses are taken from, Holy Bible Recovery Version.
- Further reading on this topic: see Watchman Nee’s, Two Principles of Conduct (PDF file here, and text here).
Hymns on this topic to strengthen this burden:
# The tree of life, if man would eat, / God’s will and plan in man, God would complete. / This vessel man is for God’s plan, / God filling him and thus, God expressing…. / Lord, we love You. Lord, we need You; everyday Lord we do. / We can’t make it. Lord, we hate it when we’re not with You. / You’re so wonderful and so faithful, Oh precious One! / To You we now respond. (Song on the tree of life)
# Lord, I need You more today, than any other. / Lord, I need You more right now, than ever before. / Lord, You are so near, be everything to me, / I couldn’t live a day without You; / I’m totally dependent on You; / Lord, I need You. (Song on depending on the Lord)
# When we abide, there’s a flow within. / As branches we—are expressing Him. / Our God needs us, we depend on Him. / To bear much fruit, to bring others in. (Song on abiding in Christ)
About aGodMan
Knowledge or religion means to be good and to do good, to worship God or to work for God without having the living presence of God. Anything good done for God without His presence is religion. A certain thing may be both life and knowledge to us. If we experience the presence of the living God while doing it, it is life. However, if we do it without God’s presence, it is simply dead knowledge. No way or method can help us. We need the living God.
What is life? Life is God Himself. What is the principle of life? The principle of life is to be dependent on God for everything. If you depend on God, everything is life. (Witness Lee, Life-study of Genesis, pp. 176-177)