Spiritual Struggles
On my post last week concerning the transitioning from the living of a life of struggle to the living of grace, I ended with a question: What does that mean "to have all your spiritual struggles interwoven with life and joined to life"? This question originates from a quote from the book, "The Bridge and Channel of God" by Witness Lee:
Nevertheless, to simply substantiate zoe as merely spiritual still falls short because among the aforementioned three, only zoe has the characteristic of being divine and eternal. Why? It's because zoe, the divine life, is God Himself for only God Himself is divine and eternal.
Going back to the matter of spiritual struggles being interwoven with life and joined to life. This matter then becomes clearer that in our spiritual struggles to turn to the Lord, in our spiritual crises to choose Him, we must not put the divine life aside, the Lord Himself aside.
In other words, as we're struggling to stop our being from being anxious, we must invite life in by spontaneously praying, "Lord, I don't know how to stop worrying about this matter. Come in! Be my rest and peace within." As we're going through a crisis in laying aside our own interest and choosing the Lord, we can simply join ourselves to life by praying, "Lord, you know the inclination of my heart, but I cling to You. Even if I have to rebel against my own desires, I fully depend on You to arbitrate and resolve my sense of value. Show me Your worth. Draw me and we will run after You."
Interwoven implies that such interaction, this process, must happen again and again until we can't tell whether it is our struggling or it is our gaining the Lord for they have become one. Joined means whatever may happen, whether we are in a low or high state in our spiritual life, we would not cut off our conversations with the Lord Jesus.
Honestly, the experience and enjoyment of the Lord Jesus as God Himself, as zoe, in both our human and spiritual life is truly multi-dimensional, multi-faceted, and multi-layered. To know the fact that Christ is life and He lives inside of us is just the beginning of our lifetime journey to enter deeper into Him and into the depths of His heart's desire. What a glorious future! That is why Christ in us is the hope of glory.
Colossians 1:27,
To whom God willed to make known what are the 1ariches of the glory of this bmystery among the Gentiles, 2which is 3cChrist 4in you, thedhope of 5eglory,
"The question you should ask is: How can one come out of a life of struggle and self-effort and enter into a living of spiritual spontaneity? The answer to this question is that you need to have all your spiritual struggles interwoven with life and joined to life. Then at a certain stage you will spontaneously be joined to the automatic law of life. In Romans 8 this law is called 'the law of the Spirit of life.' "Before going into further elaboration, I would like to point out that there are three words for life in Greek. The first is bios, which means the physical life; the root word of biology. The second is psuche, which means the psychological life, or the life of the soul. The last is zoe, which is the spiritual or divine life.
Nevertheless, to simply substantiate zoe as merely spiritual still falls short because among the aforementioned three, only zoe has the characteristic of being divine and eternal. Why? It's because zoe, the divine life, is God Himself for only God Himself is divine and eternal.
Going back to the matter of spiritual struggles being interwoven with life and joined to life. This matter then becomes clearer that in our spiritual struggles to turn to the Lord, in our spiritual crises to choose Him, we must not put the divine life aside, the Lord Himself aside.
In other words, as we're struggling to stop our being from being anxious, we must invite life in by spontaneously praying, "Lord, I don't know how to stop worrying about this matter. Come in! Be my rest and peace within." As we're going through a crisis in laying aside our own interest and choosing the Lord, we can simply join ourselves to life by praying, "Lord, you know the inclination of my heart, but I cling to You. Even if I have to rebel against my own desires, I fully depend on You to arbitrate and resolve my sense of value. Show me Your worth. Draw me and we will run after You."
Interwoven implies that such interaction, this process, must happen again and again until we can't tell whether it is our struggling or it is our gaining the Lord for they have become one. Joined means whatever may happen, whether we are in a low or high state in our spiritual life, we would not cut off our conversations with the Lord Jesus.
Honestly, the experience and enjoyment of the Lord Jesus as God Himself, as zoe, in both our human and spiritual life is truly multi-dimensional, multi-faceted, and multi-layered. To know the fact that Christ is life and He lives inside of us is just the beginning of our lifetime journey to enter deeper into Him and into the depths of His heart's desire. What a glorious future! That is why Christ in us is the hope of glory.
Colossians 1:27,
To whom God willed to make known what are the 1ariches of the glory of this bmystery among the Gentiles, 2which is 3cChrist 4in you, thedhope of 5eglory,
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