Have You Seen the Focus of the Bible?

When you’re considering whether to read a new book, don’t you want to know what its focus is? I do. In fact, I’d probably read the jacket, the preface, and probably the beginning and the ending, before deciding whether to read the book through. Why? I want to see where the author is coming from and if there is some central point or focus.

If you can find the focus of a book, it makes your reading much more meaningful and changes the way you view every chapter. You know which chapters to read for background information and which chapters to read in depth.

As Christians, we agree that the Bible is God’s Word, His story. But, since the purposeful God is the Author of the Bible, surely His book must have a focus. This focus is what I’d like to zero in on in this post.

The Focus of the Entire Bible

This focus of the Bible is that the Triune God—the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit—desires to enter into His redeemed people so that He can be their life and so that they can be His corporate expression (Gen. 1:26; 2:9; Rev. 22:1-2; 21:11).

The only way that we can become God’s expression is for God to enter into us to be our life. But, in order for such a great God to reach us and enter into us, He had to pass through some processes.

First, God had to become a man like us, to put on our human flesh and blood (John 1:1,14; Heb. 2:14).

Second, He had to pass through 33 1/2 years of perfect, sinless human living to express God in His humanity (Luke 23:4; 2 Cor. 5:21).

Third, He had to die to redeem us with His precious blood and to release His divine life that was hidden in the shell of His humanity (1 Pet. 1:18-19; John 12:24).

Fourth, He had to rise from the dead on the third day to become a life-giving Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45) so that He could breathe the Spirit as life into His believers (John 20:22) so that He might live in us (14:20).

Romans 8—the Focus Revealed and Applied

There is one chapter in the Bible that brings us right into this focus, Romans 8. It takes God’s eternal purpose and brings it into our subjective experience. By reading this chapter, especially verses 9-11, we can see how the Triune God comes to dwell in us. We can realize that the Spirit’s indwelling is actually the entire Triune God indwelling us. In this chapter we have the Spirit of life (v. 2), the Spirit of God (v. 9), the Spirit of Christ (v. 9), and the Spirit of the One who raised Jesus from the dead (v. 11). Eventually we have such an all-inclusive Spirit reaching us, entering into us to be life to us.

First, when we contact Him, He regenerates our spirit, making our spirit life (v. 10; John 3:6). Second, as we set our mind on the spirit, He makes our mind  life (Rom. 8:6). Then as we allow this resurrecting Spirit to indwell us, He even gives life to our mortal body (v. 11).

To see more on how to cooperate with this indwelling Triune God so that He can spread His life in us, you may also want to read my previous post, 6 habits to live a normal Christian life, also on Romans 8. By applying these six life practices or habits God can spread His divine life in us to make us His corporate expression (Rom. 8:2, 10, 6, 11, 29). Hence, these life practices are just the application of the focus of the Bible.

The Issue of Seeing the Focus of the Bible

If you feel that your Christian life is empty, lacking in real content, it may be that you have missed the focus of receiving the processed Triune God as the Spirit into your inner being to be life to you.

Even if you’ve done nothing wrong, without the proper “spiritual breathing,” you may still feel empty within. That’s because you’re short of exercising your spirit to call on the name of the Lord Jesus. In fact, He promises to be rich to us whenever we call upon Him (Rom. 10:12-13). For more consideration of this point, you may enjoy reading Calling on the Name of the Lord by Witness Lee. You can find it online at ministrybooks.org or get it mailed to you for free when you order the Basic Elements of the Christian Life series from Bibles for America.

By continually breathing in His Spirit as life and allowing Him to spread in our being, more and more of Christ will gradually be added into us. Then, as we receive His life element into our being, this divine life will cause us to grow for the building up of His Body, and the preparation of His bride as His corporate expression (Eph. 4:15-16; 5:26-27). This will bring the Lord back!

When we really see this focus, we will be full of joy, praising the Triune God that He indwells us and is one with us! We should also pray that this focus will become the governing vision in all our living.

“Dear Lord, thank you for revealing Your heart’s desire and purpose to enter into us to be our life so that we may be part of Your corporate expression. Lord may Your  focus become our focus. Remind us that You dwell in our spirit and that we simply need to exercise our spirit, to continually breathe You in. Lord, spread Your life freely in all our inner being so that we may grow along with all our fellow believers to be Your built up Body and prepared bride for Your soon return.”

This post was inspired by days 4-6 of Week 3 of the Holy Word for Morning Revival on the Focus of the Lord’s Recovery which was based on a book by Witness Lee entitled The All-inclusive Indwelling Spirit, Chapters 3-5. You can find it online at ministrybooks.org. You can also read a similar post by a fellow blogger at agodman.com.