The Sense of the Divine Life

By Arthur J Licursi, with some thoughts taken from Watchman Nee

John 1:4 In him was life; and the life was the light of men.

John 1:12 But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name:

John 1:13 Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

Romans 8:15 For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father.

Romans 8:16 The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God:

Life & The Sense of Life

Every level of the created higher life forms has their kinds of senses. A fish is a higher life form than a tree and thus it has the sense to be startled by noise and movement. Man has his five senses to see, touch, smell, hear, and taste. God's life, in the person of Christ, has now come to dwell in every regenerated, rebirthed, person. His life indwelling man is also provides a sense that man does not otherwise have. I call it the sixth sense. It is the sense of His life within us. It is a normal sense, not so dramatic; it is a new kind of natural, spontaneous, sense within. It is Christ alive in our spirit, as the core of our new regenerated being.

Life That Is Intangible But Real

For the Christian the issue is Christ’s life in the believer. In man's view, life is something intangible and abstract. But a sense that we have by life, though invisible, is something not to be denied. No one can show you life, physical or spiritual, but you can know life by the senses of life. It is difficult to present life to man in a concrete way or to point a finger at something and say, “This is life”. We cannot show others something called life, nor can others show us something called life. But we can know life by the senses of a life.

Christ’s Life and Sense Within

God has given us Christ’s life (Col 1:26-27, Gal 2:20, 1John 4:13), and this life has innate senses; it is a life that can be known by its senses. Although we cannot see something called life, the fact that we have new senses within us proves that we have a new life.

After a man receives the Lord, we can say that he is not only saved but also regenerated (Titus 3:5). This means that he is born of God’s very life that is in Christ who has come to dwell in man; he has received a new life from God. Yet this is something that is very difficult to explain. How does a person know that he has life? How do others know that he has the life of God? How do we know someone has the life of God? The existence of God's life is proven subjectively by the sense of this life. If God's life is in a person, then the sense of His life must also be in that person.

Here are some examples of the “sense of life” after we have after we receive Christ as our life?

Romans 8:16 “The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God:”

This is a witness we have in ourselves, by the Holy Spirit within, that we are His and He is ours. It is a sense knowing that we just know and it may not be. Eventually it becomes so certain nobody could dissuade us. It would be as certain as we know our name. This is evidence that the Spirit of Christ is in us.

When a Christian is incidentally overcome by sin, he will feel sorrowful. This is by the sense of Christ in us as our new life. When he sins, he feels uneasy, and he feels a barrier between himself and God and loses his joy; these are all from the sense of life. Because God's life has no part in sin, when a man possesses His life, he will surely have a sense towards sin. When he has this sense of life, it proves that he has life.

We may also by the sense of His life have a sense that something inside us is restraining us from doing or from saying something we are about to do or say. We of course have the free will to obey that sense not to obey the sense we have by Christ’s life in us as our new life. If we obey we maintain a sense of peace and rest. If we disobey we will have the sense of heaviness, even darkness, or unease within, as we’ve cut ourselves off from intimate union with Christ who is the light of life in us. Suffering these consequences of our wrong choice, to disobey the sense of His life, should lead us to ultimately learn to yield to Him in the future.

Occasionally we may feel prompted to do something as led by the indwelling spirit of life in Christ Jesus (Rom. 8:2). But most often we may simply live, without a consciousness that it is Christ, we just live freely; we can still assume that it is us in accord with Him, unless we are restricted by the indwelling Lords evidenced by a lack of inner peace. Normal life in Christ is as normal as living in a physically healthy body. The sense of His life is without bells and whistles. Thus, the majority of time, when I consciously sense the Lord within it is not His prompting me to do something, but rather His sense of life is warning and restraining me from within to keep me from something. In this way I am learning to conform to Him who dwells in me, as He wills.

Learning To Trust The Sense of Life

Eventually, as we learn to trust, obey, and live by the sense of His indwelling life, we will be living in accord and one with the will of the Lord in all our doing and saying. The Scripture is truth and of God, never to be abandoned, yet it is given as training wheels to point us to Christ as ALL, for us to ultimately come to learn to live by the indwelling life of Christ in this time of the dispensation of the grace of god (Eph 3:2). God the Father has literally given His Son and dispensed His Son into our spirit that we might have life (Col 1:27, 3:3). This is the new economy we live under in the “dispensation of grace” - Christ is the grace of God, dispensed into our spirits. We are thus stewards of the grace of God given freely to us.

Evidence Of The Life

If a man confesses that he is a sinner and receives the Lord Jesus to be his Savior yet never has any feeling about sin, is he regenerated? If he is confronted and still will not admit a problem is he likely a regenerated child of God?

If a man does not have any feeling or sense of his own, how can we say that he has the life of God? If he has the life of Christ in Him, then he ought to have the sense. It is impossible for a person to have God's life yet not have any the sense of God's life.

When a man has God's life, not only will he have the sense toward sin, but the life he possesses will also give him an innate knowledge about the nature of God our Father. We have not received a spirit of slavery but a spirit of sonship. Spontaneously we feel that God is very approachable and that it is a sweet thing to call, “Abba, Father”. Our innate knowledge of the Father comes by a sense of Christ’s life within.

Some religious people only know doctrines and memorize Bible verses; they have never contacted God in any sort of intimate union. They may be afraid of God and have never touched God. They do not have any relationship with God. The Spirit has not witnessed with their spirit that they are children of God. They cannot cry, “Abba, Father”, from their spirit. They may pray, but in their prayers, they do not feel that sin is far from them or that God is near them. They do not feel the evil of sin or the intimacy of God. These have never had a living relationship with God, since they have not received the new life from Him that makes them a new creation in spirit (2Cor 5:17). They do not sense that God is near or that Christ has removed the barrier between them and God. Anybody who is of God hears Him (John 8:47). They do not have the sense that they are God's children. They say that they are Christians, but they do not have the proper feeling before God.

They may sing with their mouth, but they do not have that sense within them. These are like Claudius in Hamlet who said, “My words fly up to thee Oh God, my thoughts remain below, … words without thoughts never to heaven go”.

We Have His Life & Mind In Our Spirit

The existence of His sense of life within proves the existence of life. If one never has the sense, how can anyone say that they have this life? We who are born of God know Him; He lives within and speaks to us by the sense of His life as our life.

1 Cor. 2:16 For who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ.

1 John 4:13 Hereby know we that we dwell in him, and he in us, because he hath given us of his Spirit.

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