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Every believer must pay attention to the divine life. When we pursue the Lord Jesus, what we are actually pursuing is the growth in life. Our growth in life will eventually lead us to a maturity in life. Christians need to become mature not only in the human life, but especially in the divine life. Our growth in life before the Lord should eventually make us weighty people. Then when others are in our presence they will sense something rich and honorable with us. They will know there is something different about us. How do we achieve such maturity? We first have to know the divine life. If we do not understand the life that we received at our regeneration, then we can never grow unto maturity. Maturity comes from the proper understanding of what life is and how life operates. The divine life we have received includes three things. First, the divine life has its sense. Second, the divine life has its nature. And third, the divine life has its operation. No Christian can neglect any one of these three things.
The Sense of the Divine Life
The first thing we have to understand is that the divine life is filled with sense and feeling. Every life has its feeling. A low or simple form of life has very little feeling. The higher the life, the more sensitive is the feeling. If you pull a leaf from a tree, the tree will not cry out. The tree is a lower form of life, a vegetable life. If you are petting a dog and you accidentally pull its hair, the dog will react. The dog is a little higher form of life, an animal life. It has a little more feeling and sensitivity. The human life is much higher than a vegetable or animal life. If you give someone an angry look or speak to him with a disdainful tone, he will be offended. His feelings will be hurt. There is a delicacy and sensitivity to the human life because it is a higher life. Because of this, the human life should be cultivated and developed. But the very highest life is the divine life, and the divine life has the highest degree of sensitivity.
As believers we all have the divine life, which has the richest feeling. The divine life has feelings about everything. Yet all of that feeling is centered on just one thing: God and God’s purpose, God’s economy. When the divine life operates in us, with all kinds of feelings, it leads us to just one direction, i.e., we become focused and centered on God’s economy. The human life is sensitive, but all the feelings from the human life are directed towards the self. But the sensations and feelings of the divine life are all directed towards God and His economy. We should be filled with all sorts of feelings, but those feelings should point us towards God’s economy.
When a person is first saved, he spontaneously loves the Lord. He lives for Christ, and his existence is for God and His economy. Satan’s strategy is to take Christians away from the living Christ. Satan causes Christians to lose their feelings towards God and His economy and instead be directed towards something else. He comes in with all kinds of things, even the top things, with the single purpose of causing Christians to deviate from God’s economy. He wants the divine feeling and sensitivity to be damaged and oppressed to the point where the Christian is not directed to God’s economy any longer. A person can be a regenerated Christian and still lose the sense of life.
This shows us that we need to be careful. Anything that comes in to replace Christ could cause us to lose our sensation. Even the highest teachings should not replace Christ. If we focus on the teachings instead of Christ Himself, we could lose our sense of life. Satan can use both low and high things. He can come in a very ugly way, or he can come pretending to be an angel of light. Either way, he has the purpose of taking away our sensitivity to Christ. He wants us to lose our feelings for God’s economy. This is a serious matter. We should never aim at something other than Christ.
When you are very young you must learn to honor the sense of life. That means you must honor even the small feelings about the most practical matters. For instance, suppose you are driving home, and you have a small feeling to visit a brother. Don’t ignore or overrule that feeling. Instead, tell the Lord, “Lord, there is a feeling, a sense within me. I want to learn how to follow this sense of life. I am going to follow the anointing within me and visit this brother.” Suppose you visit that brother and are having a conversation, and you become very excited. Then there may be a sense of life within that tells you, “Quiet down. Don’t get too excited.” Then you should respond inwardly, “Yes, Lord, I will lower my voice. I want to be one with You when I am with my brother.”
Let the sense of life regulate your person in all things. Then your growth in life will be healthy. At first when you practice this, you may be able to count how many times the sense of life operated within you. Eventually you will not be able to count the number of times, because it will simply become your person. It becomes very normal. When the Lord says to pray, you pray. When the Lord says to call on His name, you call on His name. When the Lord gives you a feeling to read the Bible, then you read the Bible. When the Lord gives you a feeling to be with a brother, then you go to be with the brother. And if the Lord tells you to clean your house, you clean your house. This is the description of a spiritual man. Whoever practices this will be so simple, and yet so spiritual. Learn to respond to the sense of life within you.
The Nature of the Divine Life
Life also has its nature. When you follow the Lord, you must learn to operate according to the nature of the life within you. For example, the human life has its human nature. That human nature causes you to eat, to drink, and to sleep. You don’t need to do something to make yourself hungry or thirsty. You don’t need to do something to make yourself sleepy. At certain times you will be hungry, and at certain times you will be sleepy. This is very normal, because it is according to human nature. There is a natural, basic instinct in our nature. There is a natural drive to eat, to sleep, and to do many other things.
The divine life also has its nature. In our human life you may feel, “It is time for me to eat.” In the divine life you may feel, “It is time for me to be with the brothers,” or, “It is time for me to read the Bible.” You like to do these things, because they are part of your nature. In the same way that there is a hunger for food in your human life, there is a hunger for the word and for fellowship in the divine life. The divine life operates according to its nature. That nature will always drive you to something healthy.
As a believer you must learn to live according to the divine nature, the nature of the divine life within you. This doesn’t mean that you never plan or schedule anything. You need planning and scheduling, but what you rely on is the divine nature. The divine nature is in you, and that nature has its operation which will drive you to do many spiritual things. For example, when you visit a brother at night and you have some fellowship, then as you go home you are satisfied and joyful. What is the reason? Because you did something according to the divine nature. You fulfilled the law of the operation of life within you. When you spend some time before the Lord singing hymns and touching His presence, eventually your whole person feels glorious and transcendent. What is the reason? Because the divine nature has been satisfied. You have lived your life according to the nature of the divine life within you.
When you are learning to follow the Lord, pay attention to these things. First, take care of the sense of life. Second, take care of the nature, the needs, and the drives of this life. If you want to live as a human being, you need to take care of the basic human needs. You need to eat. You need to sleep. You need to exercise. You need to be educated. At a certain age you need to get married, and then you need to have children. These are just normal drives in the human life. The human life with its nature tells you what your needs are. The divine life operates in exactly the same way. The more you live according to the basic needs and drives of the divine nature, the healthier your Christian life will become. Your serving life will be so healthy because you are living according to the nature of the divine life.
The Operation of the Divine Life
The divine life not only has its feelings, and not only has its nature, but it also has its operation. The operation of the divine life within you is filled with purpose. This operation has two elements: it is eternal, and it is in the power of resurrection. Whenever there is a drive within you according to the operation of the divine life, it always comes with eternity, and it always comes in the power of resurrection. For this reason, if you are pursuing a goal that is not eternal, you will never be satisfied. When you live according to the divine operation, you will say, “I only want Christ. I only want God’s economy. I only want to see the Lord’s purpose accomplished.” When you abide in the operation of the divine life, you will become peaceful and restful. Outwardly things may be frustrating and bothersome, but they won’t bother you. All the temporary difficulties will become nothing, because the operation within you is eternal and comes with resurrection power.
May we tell the Lord, “Lord, I love You. I am learning to follow You. Lord, please don’t let me deviate from life. I want to pay attention to the sense of life. I want to abide in the nature of life. I want to labor according to the operation of life. Then my Christian life will be so healthy.”
