Have you ever felt like God seemed far away and out of reach, even after you were saved?
Over the course of our Christian life, we sometimes experience the Lord’s presence with us in a clear and definite way. Maybe we’re in a difficult situation and when we pray to the Lord, He feels so near. But after the crisis passes, it seems like that experience of His presence was a mysterious, even accidental occurrence—like we were stumbling around in a dark room, inadvertently hit a light switch, and the lights came on.
As believers in Jesus, we long to know Him and be close to Him. Here’s the good news: the Lord wants that too. He wants us to experience Him intentionally, not accidentally. He wants us to enjoy His presence every day, not just occasionally or only when we have a pressing need. But how can we regularly and consistently experience Him if we feel like He’s so far away?
In this post, we’ll get some help by reading a few excerpts from the book The Economy of God by Witness Lee, which you can download for free here.
What happened when we were saved
Actually, for believers, the Lord Jesus is not distant at all. He’s closer to us than anyone else ever could be.
When we believed in Jesus, some wonderful things happened: we were redeemed through His death on the cross, our sins were forgiven, and we were saved from eternal judgment.
But this isn’t all. Redemption solved the problem of our sins before God, but God’s full salvation includes more than this. According to His eternal purpose, God wants to live in us so we can have His life and know and experience Him subjectively.
So after dying for us, 1 Corinthians 15:45 tells us that in resurrection, “the last Adam [Christ] became a life-giving Spirit.” And when we believed in Christ, He as the Spirit entered into us.
The Holy Spirit and the human spirit
In The Economy of God, Witness Lee devotes chapter 3, titled “The Residence of the Divine Spirit,” to the wonderful fact that the Spirit is now living in us.
Let’s read this excerpt on page 27. Here, Lee begins by pointing out three verses in the Bible that show us the Holy Spirit and the human spirit together:
“In John 3:6 we read, ‘That which is born of the Spirit is spirit.’ This verse speaks of two distinct spirits—one is capitalized, and the other is not. The first occurrence of the word refers to the Holy Spirit of God, and the second, to the human spirit of man. That which is born of the Holy Spirit is the human spirit. Another verse showing these two spirits is John 4:24: ‘God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit.’ Again, the first Spirit is capitalized, and the second is not. We must worship God, who is the Spirit, in our human spirit. Romans 8:16 further confirms the existence of two spirits: ‘The Spirit Himself witnesses with our spirit that we are children of God.’ The pronoun our definitely designates the human spirit and removes any ground to doubt the reality of both the divine Spirit and the human spirit.”
Notice that all three of these verses mention the divine Spirit and the human spirit. All of us need to know, understand, and appreciate these three crucial verses: John 3:6, John 4:24, and Romans 8:16. They’re worth remembering, and even memorizing.
In the following paragraph on page 27, Lee explains why we must know the human spirit in addition to the Holy Spirit:
“Why do we point this out? It is because Christians have very little knowledge about man’s spirit. Much attention is given to the Holy Spirit, but the human spirit, the residence and dwelling place of the Holy Spirit, is almost entirely neglected.”
We might know something about the divine Spirit of God, but we may not have known that we have a human spirit and that the divine Spirit resides in our spirit. Without knowing this, we can’t intentionally experience Christ because we wouldn’t know where to locate Him.
Lee continues:
“Suppose someone wants to visit me. He must first find where I live. If he cannot locate my home, he will have to forfeit his visit.”
This illustration drives the point home.
If we don’t know the Lord’s “address” other than a vague “He lives in me,” no matter how much we want to be close to the Lord Jesus and enjoy His companionship, He will continue to seem far away.
But once we know that Christ lives in our human spirit, we know where to find Him! This is the secret to experiencing Him every day. We can turn to Him in our spirit to contact Him any time and enjoy fellowship with Him. We can consistently experience Him personally and subjectively. We no longer need to hope that somehow, we’ll experience Him; we know where He is and can “visit” Him anytime!
The Spirit’s exact address
Thank the Lord that His Word is specific and clear about this. The three important verses pointed out in the first excerpt we read show the wonderful relationship of the Holy Spirit and our human spirit.
We also have 2 Timothy 4:22:
“The Lord be with your spirit.”
This verse underlines the fact that our spirit is where we need to go to meet Him and experience Him! That’s why striving to think about the Lord more or depending on our feelings doesn’t help us experience Him. We need to go to Him in our spirit.
By turning to our spirit, our deepest part, we can contact the Lord Jesus and enjoy Him. And this is something we can do anywhere, anytime, under any circumstance, in good times and bad times. We can experience Him in all the situations of our life.
A few simple ways we can practice turning to our spirit include calling on the name of the Lord, praying to fellowship with Him, and praying with the Word of God. By turning to our spirit, we’ll realize that the Lord is so near and available to us all the time.
Seeing that the Lord Jesus lives in our spirit will revolutionize our Christian life. We’ll know exactly where to go to find Him at any moment. As we learn to live according to our spirit, contacting the Lord and talking to Him throughout the day, we’ll enjoy His dear presence more and more. Our human spirit is truly the secret to experiencing Him.
We encourage you to download a free copy of The Economy of God here to read chapter 3 in its entirety, along with all its included scriptural references. And if you live in the US, you can order a free New Testament Recovery Version here and read the insightful notes that accompany the verses mentioned in this post.
