The Ministry of Life for the Body, Message 4

My Great Delight in God's Word

The Experience, Growth, and Ministry of Life for the Body, Message 4

Dealing with Life by Dealing with the Spirit

We have been through a few dealings in the last 2 messages. We have dealt with our national constitution, and then our heart. And in this message, we are going to deal with the other important component in our life - our spirit. Hopefully, it is the last dealing in this series.

I have to admit that the messages in this series are very difficult for me. I cannot grasp all the things taught in the book. And if I had said that I really enjoy reading the last few messages, I would have been a liar. They can be anything but fun stories. But I realise that I should not eat too much sweets (even though I really like them ), because they are not good for health. Barb Stuckey, an author and a food developer, says that "for healthy eating, bitter is better." Likewise, even though encouraging words are good and helpful to our spiritual journey, we also need some bitter words of exhortation and warning to mould and shape our life to be more like Jesus. Yes, it is usually painful to expose our life to God's word. But it is better to take it to the light rather than keeping it in the dark, is it not? Are you ready for another dish of bitter, but healthy, food?

Right thing, right way and right spirit

The value system of this world is based upon one's performance and success. If one is very productive with remarkable performance, he will be highly regarded and valued by the people in the society. For instance, in the science circle, a successful scientist is the one who has published a lot of papers in the very top journals.

Should God's value system be the same? By no means! God's value system is totally different. Our true value depends upon who and whose we are in Christ. We are His beloved children, adopted by grace through faith in His only begotten Son, and we are His. And as His children, He cares more about how we do things rather than how much we can achieve. In His eyes, the process is more important than the result.

Moreover, according to God's standard, doing the right thing is not good enough. Brother Watchman Nee says that we should "do the right thing in the right way and in the right spirit." That is very strict, is that not? The king Solomon writes about this in one of his proverbs, "All the ways of a man are pure in his own eyes, But the LORD weighs the spirits." (Proverbs 16:2)

In my life, I've done good things for many times. But honestly, only a proportion of them was done in right ways, and much less, if any, were done in right spirit. Only the things that fulfil all the 3 criteria really count, and they are really needed for the building up of the Church.

Dealing with our spirit

Since we accepted Christ as our Saviour, we have had the life that we did not have from our birth. At our biological birth, we received only bios life (body) and psuche life (soul). But when we accepted Christ at our second birth, we received the other life, the zoe life (spirit), which is the innermost part of our life in which God dwells. It is well protected, eternal, and pure. It cannot be defiled or destroyed by the enemies, which consist of world, flesh, and devils.

Why then do we need to deal with our spirit? As brother Watchman Nee suggests, we need to do the right things in the right spirit. Therefore we do need to make sure that we have got a proper spirit when we are doing anything for building up of the Body.

However, our spirit itself is not the problem. Brother Nee compares our spirit as pure water. When it is expressed, it passes through other parts of our life - our soul and our body. It takes some dirt and gets contaminated from the passage, thereby manifesting itself as dirty water. Therefore the problem is with the passage. Dealing with our spirit is actually dealing with the passage. And the most common source of contamination is our motive or intention.

Therefore when we are speaking or acting, we need to thoroughly examine it, assuring that it is the right thing driven by the right motive and intention. If not, we then need to stop, and ask God for His power to purify the passage, so that the release of our spirit may not defiled.

A case study

One good case study concerning this topic appears in Luke 9.

⁵¹ Now it came to pass, when the time had come for Him to be received up, that He steadfastly set His face to go to Jerusalem,
⁵² and sent messengers before His face. And as they went, they entered a village of the Samaritans, to prepare for Him.
⁵³ But they did not receive Him, because His face was set for the journey to Jerusalem.
⁵⁴ And when His disciples James and John saw this, they said, "Lord, do You want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them, just as Elijah did?"
⁵⁵ But He turned and rebuked them, and said, "You do not know what manner of spirit you are of.
⁵⁶ For the Son of Man did not come to destroy men's lives but to save them." And they went to another village. (Luke 9:51-56 NKJV)

Why is the Lord not really happy with the request of the sons of thunder, who are among His closest disciples? What is wrong with the request? Perhaps what they are asking may not be quite wrong, because those who deny Him deserve punishment, and they will surely get that when Christ comes back to judge all men. But the Lord immediately rebukes them that they are of a wrong spirit. They ask out of the hatred in their heart, not love. And they do not know His heart at all, do they? The Lord comes to this world to save men, not to destroy them.

The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance. (2 Peter 3:9 NKJV)

To go a little further, even when we pray, our prayer cannot be effective and accomplished unless our request comes out of a right motive. As James says clearly that, "You ask and do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasures." (James 4:5 NASB)

Moreover, when the Lord comes, He will reveal our motive, and He will evaluate and praise us accordingly.

Therefore do not go on passing judgment before the time, but wait until the Lord comes who will both bring to light the things hidden in the darkness and disclose the motives of men's hearts; and then each man's praise will come to him from God. (1 Corinthians 4:5 NASB)

A steadfast spirit

The message lists many characteristics of a good spirit according to many passages from the bible. But may I select only one of them, which appears in psalm 51.

Create in me a clean heart, O God, And renew a steadfast spirit within me. (Psalm 51:10 NKJV)

This is a part of the well-known psalm of repentance, which is written by the king David when the prophet Nathan confronts him after David's affair with Bathsheba. He immediately repents and sincerely confesses his sins towards God. And he asks God for a clean heart and a steadfast spirit.

Parenthetically, the word "steadfast spirit" here is rendered as "right spirit" in many reliable bible translations, including King James version. However, it actually means "upright spirit" that is "immovable, unshakable, standing constantly as something firm and steady." We do need this kind of spirit so that we will be extremely useful to God. How can our spirit be steadfast? We need to exercise our spirit, by contacting Him more and more. If our spirit is strong, it will always be firm, steady, immovable, unshakable, and constantly standing.

From the request for a clean heart and a steadfast spirit, it is like David is asking God to clean the passage of his life, making sure that the release will not be contaminated, and to strengthening his spirit, preventing the source from running dry. Both of them should come together, so that all the members of the Body shall mutually supply one another, and the Church will be rich! Would you like to have them now? Let's pray together, "Create in me a clean heart, O God, And renew a steadfast spirit within me." (Psalm 51:10 NKJV)

Further reading

• The Holy Word for Morning Revival: The Experience, Growth, and Ministry of Life for the Body, week 4.