man has a spirit to contact God and a mind to be continually set on the spirit

Praise the Lord for Romans 8 – the center, the focus, of the Bible and of the entire universe! What we see in this chapter is very mysterious and abstract, but nonetheless crucial and focal to God’s economy. If we experience Romans 8, we are in the center of the universe!

In this chapter, we see that God Himself is life to our body, soul, and spirit – more precisely, “that the Spirit of life, the law of the Spirit of life, the Spirit of God, the Spirit of Christ, and the Spirit of the resurrecting One are all one in the Spirit, who is life to our spirit, mind, and body”. Wow!

Romans 8: the focus of God’s economy

We know God through His Word, which is His breathing out, His expression, the utterance of His heart’s desire. What did God desire in eternity past, before He created? What is God’s intention?

In Eph. 1:3-5 we see that the desire of God’s heart in eternity past is to have a group of people into which He can enter, He could be their life and everything, so that they may be His corporate expression.

For this, God made a plan, an economy, for Him to dispense Himself into man. In Romans 8 we see the focus of God’s economy and the mystery of the universe!

Man has a spirit to contact God

We may not really see this so vividly and it may not dawn on us from the first reading of this, but “the heavens are for the earth, the earth is for man, and God created man with a spirit so that man can receive God” (see Zech. 12:1 and note).

Firstly, God created the universe with the galaxies, the heavens, the earth, the plants, the animals, and millions of other items – with man as the center. Man is the center of God’s creation because it is through man that God can be expressed! The heavens are for the earth, the earth is for man, and man has a spirit to receive God and contain God for God’s purpose!

We human beings are so wonderfully made – in the image and likeness of God. Man is not coming from a monkey, and man is not made according to the “mankind” – man is in God’s image, with God’s likeness, and man has a spirit that yearns to know God, desires to contain God, and longs to be filled with God!

Our human spirit is like a received who is designed to substantiate and receive God as the divine and mystical “radio waves”. By the exercise of our spirit, we can touch God, receive Him, substantiate Him, and be in God’s purpose.

Only God can really satisfy man’s thirst

On the one hand, we are different from any animal or creature on the earth because we are made in the image of God with a spirit to receive Him, and on the other hand, there’s a deep thirst in man to know God, worship God, and have a personal relationship with God.

The atheists may say that they don’t believe in God – even their denying God (who supposedly does not exist) shows that they long after knowing God personally and not as religion teaches them. Man has a deep longing in his spirit and an organic thirst to contact God.

How can we contact God? Just as we need to use the right organ for us to listen to music – we cannot use our mouth for this! – so in our contacting God we need to use the right organ, our spirit! God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truthfulness (see John 4:24). There is no other way to contact God and receive God except exercising our spirit to open to Him – and the best way to do so is calling on the Lord’s name, Oh, Lord Jesus! We need to “tune in” and receive the divine Being in our being by exercising our spirit!

Switching on the law of life all day

When we receive the Lord by opening to Him and contacting Him in our spirit, there’s another life that comes into our spirit – the divine life. This life has a law, the law of the divine life / the law of the Spirit of life, which operates automatically and spontaneously in us whenever we “switch it on”! We need to switch on the law of life in us by turning to the Lord every day and setting our mind on our spirit! Our spirit is life (Rom. 8:10) but our mind is still filled with junk – we need to set our mind on our spirit so that our mind would be made life (Rom. 8:6)!

Though we may think we are “normal” and “we think as normal people do”, our mind is sick with a terrible disease – we need to have our mind healed, cleansed, purified, and even lifed by setting it on our mingled spirit again and again! We don’t “switch on once and for all” by turning to the Lord in the morning – all throughout the day we continually need to set our mind on our spirit!

“Lock your mind on the spirit” (as if you would lock the GPS to the destination) and don’t go to the left or to the right! May our mind be occupied with Christ to the point that we are sick with love for the Lord!

[sharing inspired from, The All-inclusive Indwelling Spirit, ch. 7 (by brother Witness Lee) – and our own seeking of the Lord and His purpose for our life, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, The Focus of the Lord’s Recovery, week 2. ]

Thank You Lord for our spirit – our “receiver” to detect You, contact You, and receive You! May we learn how to exercise our spirit and how to remain in our mingled spirit! O, Lord, thank You for making us in Your image with Your likeness so that we may express You corporately. We just want to set our mind on our spirit all the time. All throughout the day, Lord, remind us to turn and switch on the law of the Spirit of life!