«　WEEK 1　DAY 2　»

　　Gen. 2:7 Jehovah God formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul.

　　Prov. 20:27 The spirit of man is the lamp of Jehovah…

　　2 Tim. 4:22 The Lord be with your spirit…

　　The Bible also reveals to us that it pleases God to mingle Himself with man. This is God's purpose in creating man. Genesis tells us that God created man in His image and according to His likeness (1:26) because the purpose of God's creation of man is that man would be a vessel to contain Him. For example, a Coca-Cola bottle is made to contain Coca-Cola. The appearance of a bottle indicates its purpose. The reason God created man exactly the same as He is is so that He may put Himself into man. However, the process through which God puts Himself into man is not that simple, because God is too mysterious. God as Spirit cannot put Himself into man, unless man has a spirit. Thus, the Bible tells us that when God created man, He not only created man in His image, but He also created a spirit in man (2:7; Zech. 12:1). How wonderful this is! God Himself is the uncreated, eternal Spirit, and in order for this uncreated, eternal Spirit to come into man, God created a spirit for man. (Spiritual Reality Ch 1)

　　God is Spirit. Thus, in order for Him to enter into man, He had to create a spirit in man (Zech. 12:1). Man's spirit is a vessel to contain God and an organ to contact Him (2 Tim. 4:22; John 4:24). The human spirit receives the Spirit of God and interacts with His Spirit, and the two become one (Rom. 8:16; 1 Cor. 6:17). Man's contact and relationship with God are altogether not in the mind, emotion, or will but in the spirit. The Lord Jesus told us that God is Spirit and that those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truthfulness (John 4:24). Our worship of God does not depend on any outward place; it is the same here or there, inside or outside. What is crucial is our spirit. Because God is Spirit, we must contact Him in spirit. (Spiritual Reality Ch 5)

　　Based upon Genesis 1:27, Paul wrote Romans 9:21. He realized that in the beginning God created man with clay and that this man of clay is a vessel. However, this vessel is not for containing milk or water but the God of glory. Hence, in Romans 9:23 Paul said, “In order that He might make known the riches of His glory upon vessels of mercy, which He had before prepared unto glory.” This glory denotes God Himself, because in Psalms and Jeremiah we are told that the children of Israel forsook their glory (Psa. 106:20; Jer. 2:11) instead of being told that they forsook their God. To forsake the glory is to forsake God, because God is glory. Without God, the universe and all that is in it has no glory. God is the source of all glory and splendor. We are earthen vessels to contain God. When God comes into us, we become vessels of glory. (The Subjective Experience of the Indwelling Christ. Ch 4)

　　In order to contact God in spirit, sometimes we have to stop the activities of our body and our soul, and then we have to cry out to God and call on the Lord Jesus from our deepest part. If we do this, immediately there will be light within us. Whenever we stop the activities of our body and our soul, allow the Spirit to work in us, and call from our spirit, “O God! O Lord Jesus,” then, instead of being in our outward activities, we remain in our spirit, the innermost part of our being. At that moment, we know for sure that the existence of God is a reality. (Subjective Experience of the Indwelling Christ Ch 9)

　　We cannot contact God with our body or by our mental consideration because God is Spirit. If we want to contact God, we must use our spirit (John 4:24) because the human spirit is the organ for man to contact God. This may be compared to the receiver in a radio, which is the part that receives the radio waves in the air. Our God is the Lord who created all things in the universe. One day He became flesh to be a man, whose name was Jesus, and lived on the earth for thirty-three and a half years. Then He was crucified on the cross, and by the shedding of His precious blood He accomplished redemption for our sins and became our Redeemer. Moreover, He resurrected from the dead and became a life-giving Spirit. This life-giving Spirit is omnipresent. Although He is invisible and intangible, we can touch Him by calling on the name of the Lord (Rom. 10:8-9). When we call on the name of the Lord Jesus, we receive the Lord Jesus because the Lord's name is just the Lord Himself. Furthermore, after the Lord Jesus resurrected from the dead, He became the life-giving Spirit, so when we call on the Lord's name, this Spirit enters into our spirit to regenerate and save us. Then the Lord Jesus becomes our life and everything to us in our spirit and thus becomes the real satisfaction within us. (The Subjective Experience of the Indwelling Christ, Ch 2)