Through Revelation We Receive the Mind-Set of the Spirit

Have you ever thought about why Paul in Romans chapter eight never really gives us instructions as to how to live in the Spirit? He seems to just describe how it is when you are experiencing being according to the Spirit. But he never tells us how. For years I wanted to know how. I poured over these verses seeking to know how. But the Lord doesn’t give how’s.

Actually Romans 5-8 seems to be Paul’s description of our position and experience of being transferred out of the self-life into the life of the Spirit. In Romans 5:12-21 he shows us that through Christ’s righteous act on the cross the free gift in grace of the one man Jesus Christ has abounded to the many unto justification. Now those who receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One Jesus Christ. Through the obedience of the One we are being constituted righteous and grace is abounding and reigning through righteousness unto eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

In Romans 6 he show us what happened in our being identified with Christ through His death and resurrection. Since in God’s operation we went through the death and resurrection in Him we now account ourselves dead to sin and alive to God and consecrate our members to Him as weapons of righteousness.

Then in Romans 7 he illustrates that our deliverance from the law is like a woman who is married and therefore under the law of her husband. Under that law, if she has relations with another man, she is an adulteress. But if the husband dies she is freed from the law and can be married to another. The husband in this case is our old man who was crucified with Christ, and now we are freed from his law and free to be married to Christ to bear fruit to God.

Paul then shares his experience of attempting to keep the law and his subsequent failure. This is everyone’s experience who tries to live up to the standard of God’s law. Paul says that this proves there is a law of sin in our flesh that is stronger than the law of our mind which delights in the law of God. Every time we try to improve ourselves the law of sin in our flesh brings us into death. The answer is not in our effort but in the law of the Spirit of life in chapter eight.

He goes on to describe the situation of a person who has the mind-set of the Spirit versus the mind-set of the flesh which keeps trying to keep the law. But it seems that he never tells us how to get into the way of the Sprit and beyond the constant attempts to live up to God’s righteous standard.

We are so easily deceived. Any kind of effort on our part to please God is in the principle of law keeping and always results in death. One translation says, “to set the mind on the spirit is life and peace.” (Rom. 8:6 NASB) But the Greek is quite different in that verse. It is literally translated, “the mind-set (or the way of thinking) of the Spirit is life and peace.” Living in the realm of the Spirit requires a new way of thinking, not just setting your mind on our human spirit. If you still see it as something you have to do, you are still trapped in the mind-set or the way of thinking of the flesh. Do you see that?

Actually Paul gives us the way to have this change of mind-set in Romans 7:25 when he says, “Thanks be to God, through Jesus Christ our Lord!” The way is to have this revelation from God, that in Christ everything has already been accomplished. I don’t need do anything. The moment I see it, I am delivered into another way of perceiving things, a new mind-set. At this point there is no more striving, only thanks. Thanks comes when you have received the gift. Since righteousness is a gift in Christ to us, once we see it we are left only to praise and thank God.

Watchman Nee, one of the most influential Christian writers of the last century writes in A Table in the Wilderness, “How are we delivered? By one thing only: light. ‘He that doeth the truth cometh to the light.’ God need do no further work. I am sometimes asked: ‘Why always speak of revelation? Why not emphasize God’s work of deliverance?’ I reply: Because the revelation is the work. By it Saul knew himself a blasphemer. By it Job was moved to say: ‘Now mine eye seeth thee, wherefore I abhor myself and repent.’ There is no second work. God makes us see, and that is enough.”

The Christian life is entirely a matter of seeing. When we see that Jesus Christ died for our sins we are saved. When we see we died in Him we are delivered from our selves. When we see that we have the righteousness of God through Christ we no longer strive to improve our selves nor are we ever discouraged with ourselves. Discouragement means we still have hope in ourselves and are still attempting to live up to God’s standard of righteousness by some natural energy of our own. That attempt is hopeless!

What is needed is vision. Praise God, Jesus Christ has accomplished a full salvation. He can do no more nor does He need to. On the cross He said, “It is finished!” Everything that was needed for our complete salvation was done. Now we simply remain in Him. God has placed us in Christ once for all. (1 Cor.1:30) Everything we need is in Him. Once we see that we are delivered. Praise Him.

Our Life in the Organism of the Christ

The book of First John is extraordinary. It is far outside the natural realm. It is written from within the organism of Christ. John has not written it as an individual Christian but as a member of the organic, corporate Christ. This organism is Jesus who is both the head and the body.

The Christian life was never intended to be an individual life but a life as an organic member of the body of Christ. But not a member in the natural sense. You don’t join it. You are born into it. It is a life where each member’s life is a part of every other member’s life. It is where your life is mine and my life is yours. Your sin is mine and mine yours. Your joy mine and mine yours. Your victory or defeat is mine. It is the you-life. Paul says it. You are members one of another. Is it not true?

So when John talks about fellowship in the first chapter, he is talking about this organic entity of God and man, Christ and His body. The Greek word fellowship (koinonia) literally means “common being”. So he says that “our common being is with the Father and with His Son.” John and those with him were living in the reality of that corporate and living entity of Christ and the body. Both are Jesus in this age.

Most Christians believe that Jesus is the head of the body of Christ. How many know that Jesus is also the body? When Paul was struck down to the ground and the Lord Jesus appeared to him, Jesus said, “Why do you persecute Me?” This shows clearly that the Lord Himself reveals that not only is He head but also the body. This is also clearly revealed in 1 Cor. 12:12 (For even as the body is one and yet has many members, and all the members of the body, though they are many, are one body, so also is the Christ.)

John’s desire, which is the Father’s desire, is that all those whom He has called would also live in this reality. The genuine Christians were not called to live in a worldly religious system. Nor were they saved to live an individual Christian life struggling to rise up to a standard that would please God.

They were designed to live in a free flowing life that elevated them above any kind of effort and simply bore them along. God intended and still intends to do it all. Jesus Christ was appointed and is the anointed one to accomplish everything God intended in every Christian. Any kind of effort is not acceptable. Remember the priests in the Old Testament were not allowed to wear wool because it caused sweat. Only linen was acceptable clothing for the priests.

As the New Testament priests we too must not “wear wool”. We are not to be perfected by the flesh but by the free flowing Spirit in the body. (Gal. 3:1) It is the free supply of the eternal life which flows as a life-stream in the body that does it all.

But just like the blood in our physical bodies that gives us life, the moment any member is cut off, it dies and decays. Since the Lord says through Paul that this organic Christ is the head and the body, the moment we are separated from the reality of the flowing Spirit in the body, we too die. Only in the organic Christ are we able to go on living, growing and being built up. Only there will we truly know God.

This book opens to show John’s desire that what he has seen and heard and his eyes have gazed upon and even his hands have handled, concerning the Word of life would be made known to every Christian. That is the eternal life which was with the Father and was manifested to John and to those with him.

To most believers the Christian life is a life outside of them made up of doctrines, regulations, methods, service, giving, preaching, prayer, Bible study, etc, etc. The most zealous one will give themselves to attend Bible school or seminary and become pastors or missionaries. Others serve in many other ways. But almost all do it in an outward way.

Few realize that the Christian life is the person of Jesus Christ who is in the depths of their being as life. The Word of life is this Person whom John heard, saw and touched. The Christian today should live the same way by hearing, seeing and touching Jesus’ life within them.

The big hindrance to living this life is sin. According to John if we say we have no sin we lie and the truth is not in us. What does John mean here by sin? The original word means to miss the mark. What is the mark John is talking about?

Romans 3:23 says, “All have missed the mark and come short of the glory of God”. So the mark according to Paul is the glory of God. Glory is when God is expressed or displayed. When we live in spirit we hit the mark. Then we are expressing God and we are His glory. Isn’t this amazing? But it is true.

It is not a matter of behavior but a matter of being. Christ is our life in the depths of our being. When we remain in Him as the branch remains in the vine. As the branches express what kind of a vine it is, so we by remaining in Christ express what kind of person He is. One of John’s main burdens is that his little children abide in Christ and love one another. By this abiding they will love one another. Love is the expression of the life of God.

What is God’s Means to Accomplish His Purpose?

What is the means by which God will accomplish His purpose of having mankind built up with Him into an expression of God, the building of God, the church which will issue into the New Jerusalem?

The seed of this plan is revealed in Genesis 2:16 when the Lord said to Adam, “From any tree of the garden you may eat freely; 17 but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you shall surely die.” The implication is that the Lord is encouraging Adam to eat the tree of life. The only restriction was to avoid the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

The tree of knowledge represents the law for our behavior. God said in the day you eat of it you will die. According to Romans seven, when we attempt to keep the law because the law of our mind which delights in the law of God, the law of sin in our flesh brings us captive into death. When we come to the law the result is always death.

God never intended us to live by the law. But the law was given so that we would see how sinful we are and how impossible it is to live independent from God. The commandment in the garden was not to bow down and worship God. It was not to get to work for God and do many things.

God’s desire for Adam was that he would eat the right kind of food. The right kind of food in God’s view is the heavenly food represented by the tree of life which represents Christ as our life. (Col. 3:4)

We know today, in the New Testament age, that the real food is Christ as the bread of life. (John 6) Jesus said, “He that eats me shall live because of me.” (John 6:57) This means that we are required to participate in Christ by taking Him in just as we take in physical food. His words are spirit and life. (John 6:63) As we receive the words of Christ we are supplied with His life and thus spontaneously live because of Him. It is not by self effort or by striving and trying harder to live a Christian life. We should not try to fix ourselves up. This cannot work as thousands of saints have testified over many years. Only the life of Christ is qualified to live at the standard of God’s righteousness.

The matter of eating and its importance for God’s purpose can be traced throughout the entire Bible. Not only was Adam required to eat life giving food, the children of Israel in the wilderness ate the manna from heaven. When they got into the land, the manna stopped and they ate the produce of the land. Since the land is a type of the all-inclusive Christ, the food produced from the land is a picture of the supply of life which proceeds from Christ. The priests of God also ate a portion of the offerings offered at the tabernacle in the wilderness and also those offered at the temple in Jerusalem. In the New Testament the Lord Jesus said that He Himself was to be our food. In Revelation the overcomers eat the hidden manna and the tree of life. That tree of life will be our food for eternity in the New Jerusalem.

How do we eat Jesus? In John 6:57 Jesus said, “He that masticates me even he shall live because of Me.” Then in verse 63 He said, “The flesh profits nothing. My words are spirit and they are life.” He made it clear that eating Him has nothing to do with physical eating but with eating in the Spirit.

Paul also referred to this kind of participation in the Spirit in Eph. 6:17-18. He said, “take…the word of God by means of all prayer and petition praying at every time in spirit and watching unto this…” So the secret is to pray the Word of God exercising your human spirit. Paul did tell us that there was a spiritual exercise that is more profitable than physical exercise. (1 Tim. 4:7-8) If we would learn to use our spirit and pray the Word of God back to our Father, we will receive the life that is embedded in the Word.

Try it. A good place to start is with Psalm 23. Just pray, “Father, the Lord is my shepherd. Praise You. The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want. Thank you Father, I shall not want, etc.” Simply continue in that way seeking to contact the Lord in the depths of your being and you will find Him and enjoy the rich supply of His life.

What Shall We Do To Work the Works of God?

Many Christians are focused on the gifts. They are encouraged to find out what their gift is. Then to exercise the gift. In one sense there is nothing wrong with this. But is this what the Lord desires of us?

When we received the Lord Jesus initially and were born again He came into the deep part of our being, our spirit, as life. "God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son that whoever believes in Him should have eternal life." (John 3:16) What we received was eternal life. Now that life in us is Christ Himself. Paul wrote in Col. 2:4, ""When Christ, who is our life, is manifested, then you also will be manifested with Him in glory."

It is not God's intention that we should be occupied with our gifts. It is His intention that we be occupied with His son. Since Christ is our life, shouldn't we care more for knowing that life within us rather than considering and worrying about what gift we have? If we cooperate with the life within, whatever gift we have will spontaneously be forthcoming.

What if you have been on a long trip away from your home. Then upon coming home you brought some gifts for your loved one. When you arrived you gave them the gifts. What if they then were so taken with the gifts that they paid no attention to you. Isn't this the case of many of us? Are we so in love with the gifts that they ignore the very One who gave them to us in the first place.

By the time the book of Revelation was written the glorious church that had come into being on the day of Pentecost had fallen away from reality and was becoming a dead religion. The presence and power of the Lord that was with the church had diminished and the church had fallen from being an organism of Christ as the head with His body to a man-developed religion.

So the Lord gave John the Revelation of Jesus Christ. In Revelation chapter 2 the Lord says to the church in Ephesus that He recognizes all the excercise of their gifts. They did many things and no doubt worked hard. But the Lord was not happy with them. Why? He was against them because they had left their first love.

But interestingly enough, He didn't tell them to love Him. What He told them to do was to go back and do the first works. At first glance this seems a little strange when He had just told them that it wasn't works that He was after but their love. So what did He mean?

Let's look back a John's gospel to see what the Lord Jesus has to say about works there. According to John 6:28 the crowd asked Jesus, "What shall we do, that we may work the works of God? Jesus answered and said to them, this is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He has sent." John defines the word "believe" in chapter one verse twelve. He says that believe is to receive.

What the Lord is instructing the church in Ephesus to do is to go back to their beginnings. Jesus wants them to focus on Him and to continually receive Him. To look to Him, enjoy Him and be continually filled with Him. He is the content, energy and riches of our Christian life. God has nothing more to give us. Christ is everything. By experiencing Him we receive everything that we need to live the Christian life. Within this Christ-life is the love of God by which we love Him and others.

I John says that we love Him because He loved us. When His love flows into us by our being filled in spirit, that love reflects back to Him. It is with the love of God we love Him and others.

Day by day we take Him in as our food and drink. (John 6 and 7) Then that life will operate within us and the love that He requires will be supplied to us with which we love Him.

A Paradigm Shift

The whole book of Galatians is addressing the problem of Romans seven. Certain ones from Jerusalem had come to the region of Galatia and had convinced the saints in the churches there that in addition to believing in the Lord Jesus Christ that they had to keep the Law of Moses.

Paul was aghast. After he had been there and painted such a clear picture of Christ crucified he wondered that they had become so bewitched. Did they now believe that perfection was by the flesh? After they had had such a good start in the Spirit why were they now working for self-improvement by keeping the law? Didn’t they realize that what they were attempting was impossible? And didn’t they see that since they started in the Spirit that they simply should go on to perfection the same way? (Gal. 3)

He tells them in chapter four that they need a paradigm shift. A paradigm shift is when you suddenly see things from a totally new perspective. In Gal. 4:19 he says, “My children, with whom I travail again in birth until Christ is formed in you.”

Many have interpreted this to mean that gradually over the period of a Christian life Christ would be formed in them. But the word “formed” in the original Greek is in the aorist tense. The aorist looks at the aspect of the action of a verb as an event that is without regard to duration. It is simply looking at something that happens in a point of time; hence the word to describe this is punctiliar.

Most Christians make the law their point of reference for their living. That is whatever they do, they check to see if it is right or wrong. If they consider it to be right, and Christians mean right according to the Word of God, then they attempt to do the right thing. This includes outward practices and also character improvement. This is to perfect themselves by the flesh trying to keep the law.

Their point of reference needs to be changed to the living person of Christ as their life. The paradigm shift needed is like installing a new the operating system on a computer. For years your operating platform has been DOS. But there have been many improved operating systems. Install a new one. It only takes a few minutes and the computer will function better.

Many need to receive revelation from the Lord and see that only Christ is qualified to live the Christian life. This life is not about us, it’s about Him. He is well able to do it. Doesn’t Paul say in 1 Thes. 5:24, “Faithful is he who called you who also will do it?”

What does it mean to worship the Lord in spirit and truth?

John 4:24 says, "God is Spirit and those that worship Him must worship in spirit and truth."

Jesus met the woman at a well in Samaria. (See John 4) She brought up the issue of worship. She said that the Jews worship in Jerusalem but those in Samaria in a certain mountain.

Jesus replied that there was about to be a great change. It was true that up to that time the Jews did worship God in Jerusalem and the Samaitan in their own land but that age was ending, for the real worship was coming.

Under the Old Testament arrangement the Jews, who worshipped according to God's Old Testament dispensation, worshipped in the right place and with the proper items, the offerings. The hour had come, said Jesus, when the true worshippers would worship the Father in a new place with the real offerings. That new place is the human spirit and the new offering is Christ who is the reality.

You will notice in verse 24 that the word "spirit" is used twice. The first time it is capitalized and the second time it is with a lower case "s". The first word "Spirit" refers to the divine Spirit of God but the second time the word is used it refers to the human spirit. This is a vital distinction. Since Jesus said that the Father is looking for those kind of believers who worship in spirit and that this is a must, then it is crucial for every Christian to learn their human spirit. Without this knowledge and experience, then a person cannot wordhip God according to His commandment.

But knowing the spirit alone is not sufficient. We also must also know and experience Christ as reality. Truth in this verse means reality. Then we must find out how to worship God both in spirit and with Christ as reality.

To illustrate: I get up in the morning and go to my study and open the Word and begin to come to the Lord. My goal is to find the Word that fills me with Christ. Jeremiah said, "Thy words were found and I did eat them and they became the joy and rejoicing of my heart." (Jer. 15:16) So my goal at this time is to get to the Word and receive the divine life supply of the Spirit which is in the Word. I open to the Word and pray it into my spirit. Sometimes I will simply use the Word itself as my prayer truning to the depths of my being until the life begins to flow and I will continue in this and until the words of prayer flow out of me. I find that there is no effort in practicing this. I don't need to try to pray because when my spirit is filled with Him, I enter into the prayer of God and prayer flows out spontaneously.

Then during the day as circumstances come to me I will keep myself with Him by chewing on the word that I found in the morning. Then any action or reaction will be met by Christ in me rather than my natural reactions. So, say for example, my wife says something that in my self I would react to badly. But if I have remained with Christ in my spirit, my reaction will be altogether different. It will be with joy and rejoicing.

Then when I go to the meeting to worship the Lord I will still remain in spirit and I will offer praises to Him and testify to my experience of Christ that day. I will share how Christ was my life in that situation with my wife and will do it with my spirit flowing out of my innermost being to nourish and build up the church. Thus I will be worshipping the Father in spirit and with Christ as my reality. This is the function of the holy and royal priesthood. (1 Pet. 2:5,9)

This kind of worship is what the Lord desires. It is not simply singing some contempory chorus with a worship team up in the front of the church meeting place. Whether you sing, testify, speak or shout, it is God's requirement that you worship Him in spirit and truth.

Read 1 Corinthians 14. Paul is telling the church that tongues should be restricted and that prophesy should increase. Prophesy primarily means to speak forth something with and for God. It is not primarily something foretelling the future. All the members of the body of Christ should seek to prophesy to build the church. It is how the church is built. Without this kind of worship the church is not built up with Christ.

This is the realtiy of the type in the Old testament. In those days the people would labor on the land to bring forth a harvest of wheat, barley, olive oil, etc. They would also raise cattle, goats, sheep, etc. The when the time came every one would bring the top tenth of their labor to the temple and offer it to the Lord and all would enjoy this produce of the land. According to the Old Testament, this was how the people worshipped God.

All these items are types of Christ in His various aspects. For example, wheat is a type of His death, barley a type of His resurrection and so forth.

! Corinthians 14:24 says that when you come to the meeting everyone has something. One my have a hymn, another a teaching, another a tongue and another an interpretation. All of these must be expressions of Christ as He has been experienced in these ways. These various portions should be offered in order. Then all would be built up, all would be nourished. In this meeting God would be worshipped in spirit and in reality.

It is our hope that many will come into this reality with other believers.

The Basic Revelation We All Must Have

What is the rock upon which the church is built? (Matt. 16:18)

Jesus said, “Who do men say that I am? And who do you say that I am?”
Peter responded, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”
Jesus said, "You are blessed Peter, for this was revealed to you by my Father in heaven."

Then He said, “You are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church."

Peter received the revelation concerning Christ. The word "Christ" means the anointed one. The anointed is the one who has been appointed and assigned by God to accomplish all of God's will. No one else has this assignment. Christ has accomplished redemption, sanctification and glorification. Not only that, He is the only one assigned to live the Christian life. You are not and I am not. Only the Christ has this assignment!

Your assignment from God and mine is different. It is to live and walk in spirit. To put it another way, Peter says that we are to participate in the divine nature. The apostle Paul says it even another way. He says rejoice in the Lord and always rejoice. The writer of the book of Hebrews said we are to look away from everything else unto Him. Others have said that our cooperation with the Lord is simply to enjoy Him.

Jesus Christ is the sum of all spiritual things. He is the All. Eventually He will become all in all. Every spiritual blessing is received and experienced through Him. We are to walk in spirit where Christ dwells in our inner being. All our focus is to be on Him. He is the beloved of the Father and we are beloved by God in Him. Nothing is obtained from God outside of Christ.

We all need revelation to see this wonderful Person is the center and circumference of God’s purpose. Obtaining Him is to receive the divine life. To gain more and more of Him is the process of transformation. Experiencing Him together with other saints is the way the church is built up. God approves of nothing that is outside of the realm of Christ.

Look at the way Paul writes his epistles. He always shows that everything God does and that we receive is through Christ and in Christ. We are not to attempt to please God or work for God independently from Christ. Christ is our life and our living with the called-out ones.

Does this mean that I do nothing? What about caring for others, etc.? Of course we love others and care for them but this follows being supplied with Christ's divine life and nature through our enjoyment of Him and as He leads.

Every morning we come to our dear Lord Jesus praying and reading His word. We participate in the divine nature through His precious promises. As we participate the divine life flows into our spirits and then our through our souls. This is the supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ. Then out of that supply we are enabled to supply others with the very Person of our Lord.

Those who seek will find

When I was newly saved I was so overjoyed to discover that the Lord Jesus was real and that He was living in me. But after awile I began to sense that there was something missing in my Christian life. I had no idea what that something was but I began a search to find it.

After several years I found what it was. It was the church in its reality. Not an organization. Not a group of Christians following a charismatic leader. And not a mission organization working for a certain prupose. But the living dynamic reality of the glorious church.

When I first experienced that church it was so wonderful that I even wondered whether it could really be of the Lord. But soon my hesitation vanished. Jesus was so real, so present and so enjoyable. Religion had vanished and Christ was there so practical and so available.

Sadly that reality lasted only a few years. Leaders began to rise up and control what had been the freedom of the Spirit and soon the Lord's presence was gone. Satan had been able through these sincere but deceived brothers to ruin what the Lord had been raising up of His desire.

Nevertheless, our Lord Jesus Christ is not through. He will have His hearts desire. There will again be the chruch of His design.

There still are in this country those who seek the Lord for His purpose. They are the hidden ones who are looking and praying for God's own yearning to be accomplished on earth before His return.

May we all continue to pursue this goal, cooperating with our dear Lord Jesus until His plan is fullfilled on the earth.