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You tried to avoid it, but somehow you’ve picked up that cold that's going around. Sniffling, headachy, and congested, you feel awful. So you drag yourself to the store to get one of those multi-symptom cold relief medications, take the first dose, and start to feel a little better.
Nobody likes being sick. But have you ever felt as if you have a spiritual “cold”? You want to express Christ to people, but you find you’re not able to. Maybe you try hard to be patient with someone, but in the end, you’re so exasperated you say something unkind and immediately regret it afterward.
Experiences like these make you realize you’re “ailing” from a shortage of patience and kindness, so you ask the Lord to give you more patience or help you be kind.
But this doesn’t seem to help. The more we ask the Lord to give us patience or to help us be better, the worse we become. But there’s good news: we have a multi-symptom spiritual “medicine” for everything that ails us in our Christian life.
In this post, we’ll discover this effective spiritual medicine God has given us by reading some excerpts from the book The Economy of God by Witness Lee. This book opens up God’s Word in a way that provides tremendous help for setting the direction of our entire Christian life.
Let’s first address the meaning of economy in the book’s title. In Greek, the original language of the New Testament, the word oikonomia is translated into English as economy. This Greek word appears in a few places in the New Testament, such as Ephesians 1:10:
“Unto the economy of the fullness of the times, to head up all things in Christ, the things in the heavens and the things on the earth, in Him.”
Witness Lee also authored the study notes in the New Testament Recovery Version. In note 1 on this verse, he explains the meaning of economy:
“Or, plan. The Greek word, oikonomia, means house law, household management or administration, and derivatively, administrative dispensation, plan, economy (see note 43 in 1 Tim. 1). The economy that God, according to His desire, planned and purposed in Himself is to head up all things in Christ at the fullness of the times. This is accomplished through the dispensing of the abundant life supply of the Triune God as the life factor into all the members of the church that they may rise up from the death situation and be attached to the Body.”
God’s economy, or God’s plan, is to dispense the abundant life supply of the Triune God into human beings.
In the book The Economy of God, Lee lays out in detail God’s economy, which issues in God obtaining an expression of Himself in the universe through His chosen people.
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Chapter 2 of this book, titled “The All-sufficient Spirit,” unveils the riches in the Spirit. Lee writes on page 17 that the Spirit, which we received when we were born again, “is in us as the very transmission of God, transmitting constantly all that God is and has in Christ.”
Lee then continues on page 18:
“Have we ever realized that the Holy Spirit is the best ‘dose’ in the whole world? Just one dose is enough to meet all our needs. All that the Father and the Son are and all that They have are in this wonderful Spirit. Consider how many elements are within this dose: God’s divine nature with Christ’s human nature, His human living with its earthly sufferings, the wonderful effectiveness of His death, His resurrection, His ascension, and His enthronement. Oh, we cannot imagine what kind of dose this is! Yet, praise the Lord, every day we may enjoy it.”
Just one pill of that multi-symptom cold medicine works because it contains a variety of ingredients that target different problems. It’s all-inclusive. It’s a good illustration of the Spirit as an all-inclusive dose that meets all our needs. In the all-sufficient Spirit are many rich aspects of the Father and the Son that we can enjoy daily.
The solution to our problems isn’t to ask God to give us more patience or kindness, but simply to take the dose. When we realize our lack, we simply need to take the all-inclusive dose of the Spirit. According to God’s economy, God wants us to receive and enjoy the abundant life supply that’s in Him.
Lee contrasts enjoying the effective dose of the Spirit with merely learning doctrines and knowing teachings about how we should live as Christians. He shares his experience of being taught according to Romans 6 that we have been crucified with Christ and must reckon ourselves dead. On page 18, Lee writes:
“The more I did so [reckon myself dead], the more I became alive. It did not work, because it was the wrong formula. One day, after many years, the Lord opened my eyes to see that the reality of His death is not in my reckoning, but in my enjoyment of the Holy Spirit. This is revealed in Romans 8. Romans 6 gives only the definition, but Romans 8 gives the reality of the death of Christ, because the effectiveness of Christ’s death is in the Holy Spirit. The more we fellowship with Christ in the Holy Spirit, the more we will be slain.”
The point Lee makes here is that the actual application in our experience of Romans 6 is found in Romans 8, a chapter full of the experience and enjoyment of the indwelling Spirit.
Then on page 19, Lee gives more details of his experience:
“Formerly when I hated a brother, I was told that the ‘hating I’ was crucified, and instead of hating him I should love him. So I tried to reckon myself dead, but it did not work. The more I reckoned myself dead, the more I hated him. Then one day, while fellowshiping with the Lord, I was filled with His Holy Spirit. How the tears flowed! I knew the killing power was within me, killing my hatred and my pride. Automatically, love mingled with tears welled up from my heart for this brother. What was this? This was the killing element in the wonderful dose, the effectiveness of Christ’s death in the Spirit.”
Many of us have found that trying to mentally apply a teaching we’ve learned—such as we’re crucified with Christ, we shouldn’t hate anyone, and we should love our Christian brothers—doesn’t work. But we’ve also experienced that when we take the dose of the Spirit by contacting the Spirit, the “ingredient” of Christ’s death that’s in the Spirit spontaneously operates in us; our hate is killed, and His love fills us.
Let’s find out more about the contents of the dose of the all-inclusive Spirit. First, let’s look at Philippians 1:19:
“For I know that for me this will turn out to salvation through your petition and the bountiful supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ.”
Now let’s read this paragraph on page 19 in The Economy of God:
“Within this Spirit of Jesus, there is an all-sufficient supply. The word ‘supply’ in Philippians 1:19 is a special Greek word meaning ‘the bountiful or all-inclusive supply.’ The Spirit of Jesus is an all-inclusive supply in which all our needs are met. What do we need? Do we need comfort? No one can truly comfort us—not even our children, our parents, or our dear wives. Real comfort comes from the indwelling Spirit of Jesus. When we fellowship with Jesus in this Spirit and when we live in this wonderful Spirit, we automatically have inward comfort. Regardless of the outward environment, there is inward rest and comfort.”
We can replace comfort in this paragraph with whatever we need at any time: patience, kindness, love, longsuffering, peace, even self-control. All are now available to us in the Spirit.
We need to remember that God’s economy, God’s plan, is to dispense Himself as the abundant life supply into our being. So God doesn’t give us a thing such as love or patience, nor does He merely want to help us be loving. Instead, we need to realize He’s the Spirit in us, and in Him is everything we need in any situation. What God wants is for us to simply enjoy the Spirit. When we do, we enjoy Him as the all-inclusive dose that meets our every need.
Unlike the cold medicine, if we want to enjoy this wonderful Spirit, we don’t need to go anywhere to get it. We already have this dose! The Spirit isn’t far away from us. In fact, no one can be nearer to us than He is because He’s in us.
Before we were saved, the Lord was outside of us and separate from us. But when we were saved, that changed. The moment we repented and believed in Jesus as our Savior, we were born again, and the Spirit came to live in our spirit, the deepest part of our being.
And 1 Corinthians 6:17 declares:
“He who is joined to the Lord is one spirit.”
God’s Word tells us that the Lord is not only in us, but that we are actually one spirit with Him! He dispensed Himself into our spirit to live in us and to be one spirit with us. So to enjoy Him as the all-sufficient Spirit, we simply need to contact Him in our spirit. Instead of remaining in our thoughts or feelings, we need to learn to contact the Spirit in our spirit.
Now, let’s read this paragraph from the book on page 20:
“Too many doctrines in Christianity are distracting the Lord’s people from the Lord Himself, causing them to miss the mark of God’s economy. What is this mark? It is simply the all-inclusive Holy Spirit dwelling in our human spirit.”
Doctrines or teachings can actually distract us from and make us miss the target, the mark, of God’s economy. Instead, we must focus on the wonderful, all-inclusive Spirit dwelling in our spirit.
The paragraph continues:
“During the whole day, we need to learn how to contact and follow the Holy Spirit. We need to learn how to fellowship and deal with Him. Christianity teaches us to deal with forms, regulations, and doctrines. Even the Scriptures are read in a wrong way, since little or no contact is made with the Holy Spirit in the reading. We merely learn doctrines in black and white letters. We need to read the Scriptures by exercising our spirit to contact the Holy Spirit, not by using our eyes to see the words and exercising our minds merely to understand its teachings. From morning to evening we must deal with the One dwelling in us, for He is the bountiful supply of the Lord Jesus.”
This paragraph mentions several things that help us focus on and enjoy the all-sufficient Spirit:
Contact Him: we can contact Him by praying, not just during time we set aside for prayer but constantly throughout the day. We can do this by praying short prayers, calling on His name, and even singing to Him.
Follow Him: when the Lord speaks to us within, we should go along with Him and obey Him.
Fellowship and deal with the Spirit: we can fellowship with Him by talking to Him about anything in prayer.
Read the Scriptures by exercising our spirit to contact the Holy Spirit, praying with the Word of God.
As the Spirit in our spirit, Christ Himself is everything that’s required for us to live our Christian life. Our unique need is to contact and enjoy the Spirit daily, and even constantly.
We encourage you to read chapter 2 of The Economy of God in its entirety and learn more about the tremendous matter of God’s economy. You can download the book for free here from anywhere in the world.
If you live in the US, you can also order a free New Testament Recovery Version and read the note mentioned in this post with all its references on the economy of God.
Nowadays, it’s not unusual to hear someone described as being a “spiritual person.” But if you ask people what they mean, you’ll probably hear different things.
For instance, some would say a spiritual person acknowledges the existence of a higher power in the universe, which may or may not be defined as God. Others say spiritual people are those who cultivate their inner feelings and thoughts to love themselves, other people, and the planet. Some might say someone who is spiritual rejects materialistic values and engages in humanitarian works.
Many find it hard to define what they mean or what their view is based on.
But as those who believe in Jesus Christ, our definition should come from what God says in His Word. If we know the biblical meaning of what it is to be spiritual, we won’t spend time pursuing something that’s not according to God.
In this post, we’ll look at verses and read some notes from the New Testament Recovery Version to help us understand what being spiritual means according to God’s Word.
The word spiritual is the adjective form of spirit. That tells us that being spiritual must be related to the spirit.
So what is the spirit?
The Bible reveals God created human beings in a very particular way with three parts: a spirit, a soul, and a body.
We contact the material realm with our body, and we perceive things of the psychological realm with our soul, which is composed of our mind, emotion, and will. And most crucially, we can contact, receive, and even contain God with the deepest part of our being, our spirit. This is why God created us in such a wonderfully complete and detailed way. He wants us to receive Him as our life so that we would express God with our whole being, fulfilling His eternal plan.
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But after God created the first man, who represented all humanity, God’s plan for man was interrupted by Satan, God’s enemy. Satan tempted man to disobey God, causing man to fall away from God. Instead of receiving God, man took in Satan’s evil nature of sin.
Consequently, man’s entire being was affected: man’s spirit was deadened, man’s soul was contaminated, and man’s pure body was changed into the flesh full of lusts. God loves man, but He cannot tolerate sin because He is righteous and holy. So sinful man was condemned to die and was separated from God.
This is why we need to be redeemed and fully saved.
Before we were saved, our spirit was deadened and empty. So it was impossible for us to be a spiritual person, no matter what we thought that meant or how hard we may have tried to achieve it.
But when we heard the gospel, we repented and received the Lord Jesus as our Savior. At that moment, we were not only saved from God’s judgment; we were also born again of the Spirit of God in our spirit! God came to live in our spirit to be our life and everything to us.
Now God wants us to live and do everything by His life in our spirit.
Before we were saved, we lived either by our natural, fallen soul—our own thoughts, emotions, or intentions—or by our fallen flesh, which is full of all kinds of sinful lusts and corruption. But after we’re saved, we need to live by our spirit.
God’s intention for us can’t be fulfilled when we live according to our soul or our flesh. He redeemed us and came into our spirit so we would live by our spirit. This is what it means to be spiritual.
In 1 Corinthians chapter 2, the apostle Paul speaks of both a soulish man and a spiritual man. Verse 14 says:
“But a soulish man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him and he is not able to know them because they are discerned spiritually.”
Paul wrote these words to the believers in Corinth. This shows us that even though we’re saved and born again, we may be a soulish man, not a spiritual man. And a soulish man is unable to receive the things of God because they’re discerned spiritually.
Note 6 explains what spiritually means:
“Spiritually here refers to the spirit of man that is moved by the Spirit of God to fully exercise its function and thereby replace the human soul’s rule and control over man. It is only by such a spirit that man can discern the things of the Spirit of God. A man who is ruled and controlled by his spirit is a spiritual man, as mentioned in the next verse. Since God is Spirit, all the things of the Spirit of God are spiritual. Therefore, to discern, to know the things of the Spirit of God, man must use the human spirit (John 4:24).”
A soulish man is ruled and controlled by the soul. But a spiritual man allows his spirit to rule over his entire being.
Paul goes on in verse 15:
“But the spiritual man discerns all things.”
The first part of note 1 of this verse in the New Testament Recovery Version explains what a spiritual man is:
“A spiritual man is one who denies his soul and does not live by his soul but allows his spirit, that is, his regenerated spirit, which is occupied and energized by the Spirit of God, to dominate his entire being. Furthermore, he lives by such a spirit, moving and acting according to it (Rom. 8:4).”
So to be spiritual, we must allow our regenerated spirit to dominate our whole being. This means we live and act by our spirit in all aspects of our daily life. What we say and do is under the rule and control of our spirit, which is occupied and energized by the Spirit of God.
To live by our spirit, we must learn to exercise our spirit. The more we exercise any part of our being, the stronger it becomes. For instance, the more we exercise our legs, the stronger they become. We need to exercise our regenerated spirit so our spirit is strengthened and can govern our entire being.
How can we exercise our spirit? The best way to exercise our legs is by running or walking. In the same way, the best way to exercise our spirit is by praying. When we exercise our spirit by praying, we contact the Lord and enjoy Him as our life.
Prayer isn’t a formal activity restricted to certain places and times. We can exercise our spirit by praying simple, short prayers anytime, anywhere.
We can begin the day by praying something like this:
“Lord Jesus, thank You for being in my spirit. Thank You for being my life. Remind me today to live according to my spirit.”
Then throughout our day, we can utter short prayers to the Lord to stay in touch with Him in our spirit.
While we’re working, we can pray, “Lord, I want to do this in my spirit with You.” As we talk to someone, we can inwardly pray, “Lord Jesus, I want to talk to this person according to my spirit.”
We can exercise our spirit to stay with the Lord by simply calling on His name. Calling, “Oh, Lord Jesus, Lord Jesus,” is an easy way to exercise our spirit.
As we exercise our spirit every day, we’ll experience living and doing things according to our spirit more and more.
Note 2 on 1 Corinthians 3:1 is encouraging yet sobering. It sheds more light on what kind of man we may be and why it’s important for us to be spiritual. Let’s look at the second paragraph:
“This book [1 Corinthians] reveals clearly that a believer may be one of three kinds of men: (1) a spiritual man, living in his spirit under the anointing of the Holy Spirit (Rom. 8:4; Gal. 5:25); (2) a soulish man, living in his soul under the direction of the soul, the natural life (2:14); or (3) a fleshy and fleshly man, being of the flesh and living in the flesh under the influence of the nature of the flesh.”
Surely in our life with the Lord we all would desire to be a spiritual man, not a soulish or fleshly man. But we shouldn’t think being a spiritual man is only for some special believers. The note continues:
“The Lord desires that all His believers take His grace to be the first kind of man—a spiritual man. This was the goal of this book: to motivate the Corinthian believers who were soulish, fleshy, and fleshly to aspire to the growth in life that they might become spiritual (2:15; 3:1; 14:37).”
The note concludes by highlighting the importance of living in our spirit:
“As we have been called by God into the fellowship of Christ (1:9), who is now the life-giving Spirit (15:45), and as we are one spirit with Him (6:17), we can experience and enjoy Him only when we live in our spirit under the leading of the Holy Spirit. When we live in the soul or in the flesh, we cannot participate in Him or enjoy Him.”
Every one of us can cooperate with the Lord by receiving His grace to be a spiritual man. Being spiritual is a necessity if we want to know and enjoy the Lord as our life and allow Him to grow in us. As He grows in us, little by little we will express Him in our daily life, and not ourselves. This is what the Lord wants, and this is what will fulfill His plan for us.
We hope you’ll take the time to absorb this enlightening note, together with the verses it cites, and even pray about it. May we all take grace to be a spiritual man as the Lord desires. To learn more, we encourage you to read the verses mentioned in this post with their corresponding notes in the New Testament Recovery Version. If you live in the US, you can order a free copy here.
Human beings need each other for camaraderie and mutual protection. The same is true for us believers; we need the support and companionship of other Christians. Whether we’re a new believer or we've been a Christian for a while, we all need spiritual companions.
The principle of spiritual companionship is clearly present throughout the Bible. For example, Ecclesiastes 4:9-12 says:
“Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their labor; for if they fall, the one will lift up his companion. But woe to the one who falls and does not have another to lift him up! Again, if two lie together, they keep warm. But how can one be warm alone? And while a man may prevail against the one, the two will withstand him; and a threefold cord is not quickly broken.”
No matter how strong we think we are in our faith, none of us are perfect. We all fall and fail the Lord. When we do, it’s easy to be discouraged by our sins or failures, and we may find it hard to go on in our Christian life. We need others to lift us when we fall, encourage us when we fail, and help us turn back to the Lord. And we can also do the same for them.
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Sheep in a field have a particular characteristic: they always flock together. It’s in their nature. That’s why it’s rare to see a single sheep all alone, far away from the flock. They naturally want to be together.
In the Lord’s eyes, we believers are His sheep. When we were saved, we were regenerated with the life of God. All believers in Christ share that same life. Now we as God’s sheep have an inherent need and desire to be with other believers for our mutual protection and benefit.
This is why spiritual companions aren’t the same as friends. No matter how close we may be to our friends who aren’t saved yet, the relationship we have with our spiritual companions is different. It’s much deeper because it’s based on our faith in Jesus and sharing the life of God.
We may still spend time with our friends, but our intention shouldn’t be to engage in the old things of our former way of life, some of which were sinful. Our goal should be to share with them how we got saved and how good Jesus is. We may find that a friend is receptive and will pray with us to receive the Lord Jesus.
And if we have spiritual companions, we can pray for our friends together. We can also fellowship about the best way to be with our friends and how to talk with them about the Lord.
The apostle Paul was strong in the Lord and in his faith. It might be easy to think he didn’t need any companions. But the book of Acts and Paul’s epistles show us something different.
Acts 16 records the journey of Paul and Silas as they traveled together to share the gospel of Jesus Christ. When they arrived at Philippi, they spoke to people about the Lord Jesus and were thrown into prison as a result. Verses 25 and 26 tell us what happened next:
“And about midnight Paul and Silas, while praying, sang hymns of praise to God; and the prisoners were listening to them. And suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison house were shaken. And instantly all the doors were opened and everyone’s bonds were unfastened.”
Even Paul might have felt hopeless if Silas, his companion, hadn’t been with him. But together, they prayed and sang hymns of praise to the Lord, despite their desperate situation. The prisoners and the jailer heard them singing and praising.
Paul also traveled to share the gospel with Barnabas, Titus, Luke, Timothy, and other brothers in the Lord. He wrote many of his epistles with one or more of his companions at his side and included their names in his greetings to the churches. These brothers were his spiritual companions, and they fellowshipped, prayed, and preached the gospel together.
Paul knew how important having spiritual companions was from his own experience. So in 2 Timothy 2:22, Paul instructed Timothy, a young brother:
“But flee youthful lusts, and pursue righteousness, faith, love, peace with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart.”
Here, Paul didn’t tell Timothy to withstand lusts by himself to prove how strong he was. Instead, he told Timothy to flee youthful lusts with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart. By being with such companions, Timothy could not only flee lusts but also pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace.
The Lord neither expects nor wants us to live the Christian life all by ourselves. Whether we’re a new believer or one who’s been saved for a while, we all need spiritual companionship.
We can fellowship and read the Bible with our spiritual companions. We can pray for one another and bear each other’s burdens. In this way, we help each other rise up and go on even in difficult situations. If we’re floundering, our companions can strengthen us and encourage us to turn to the Lord.
Regardless of our stage in life, we all need companions so we can pray, fellowship, and pursue Christ together. If we don’t yet have a companion, we can ask the Lord to help us find at least one. The Lord will surely answer this prayer.
If you live in the US, we encourage you to order a free copy of the New Testament Recovery Version here to discover more light and life supply in God’s Word.
