The Secret of the Christian Life—Living in the Mingled Spirit

Whether you’ve received the Lord recently or have been a Christian for many years, it’s crucial to realize the secret to living the Christian life. Unfortunately, the spiritual progress of many sincere believers has been frustrated or seriously delayed because of a lack of enlightenment concerning this secret.

So let’s consider this secret of the Christian life—living in the mingled spirit, a living of the Lord’s Spirit with our spirit mingled as one spirit.

Three verses reveal two spirits—God’s Spirit and our spirit.

That which is born of the Spirit is spirit—John 3:6.

First, John 3:6 says,

“That which is born of the flesh is the flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.”

The Christian life begins with such a birth, the human spirit (the small “s” spirit) being born of the divine Spirit (the big “S” Spirit). If even once in your life you called on the name of the Lord Jesus, praying to receive Him, you possess such a mingled spirit.

This is divine birth is the intrinsic meaning of being “born-again.” It’s not just a conversion to the Christian faith, but the beginning of an organic union of the Lord’s Spirit with your spirit.

If you have never done so, take a moment to pray,

“Lord Jesus! Thank you for dying for my sins. Lord, I believe that you rose from the dead so that as the Spirit You could regenerate my spirit to make me a child of God. Lord, come into my spirit and  mingle Your Spirit with mine.”

The Spirit witnesses with our spirit—Rom. 8:16.

Second, Romans 8:16 says,

“The Spirit Himself witnesses with our spirit that we are children of God.”

Once you’ve prayed to receive Christ, believing into His name, you are a child of God (John 1:12). Not only does the Bible assure you of this fact, but the Spirit Himself, the Spirit of God, witnesses with your spirit, that you are a child of God. Such a witnessing begins from the moment you receive Christ.

However, if you do not open your mouth to confess the Lord’s name, you give the Spirit nothing to “witness with.” So do not be a silent Christian, open your mouth and confess,

“I am a believer in Christ; Jesus is my Lord. Christ lives in me.”

I can guarantee you, according to this verse, that the Spirit will witness with your spirit.

Our spirit worships God’s Spirit—John 4:24.

Third, John 4:24 says,

“God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truthfulness.”

Once you’ve received the Lord, having God’s Spirit joined to your spirit, you have the proper organ to render God the true worship He’s seeking (John 4:23).

The spirit of man, contacting and being mingled with the Spirit of God is the fundamental matter of all true worship and service to God.

This is a most crucial lesson for us to apply in all of our Christian living and service!

These two spirits become one mingled spirit—1 Cor. 6:17.

First Corinthians 6:17 says,

“But he who is joined to the Lord is one spirit.”

These two spirits become one mingled spirit—the Lord as the Spirit mingles with our spirit. How these two spirits are united together to become one spirit is the deepest mystery in the Bible.

So to be a proper Christian, we need to see that the Lord Jesus as the embodiment of the entire Triune God (Col. 2:9) became a life-giving Spirit through the processes of His death and resurrection (1 Cor. 15:45). Now, as the Spirit, He comes to us to indwell our spirit and to be mingled with our spirit to become one spirit with us (2 Cor. 3:17; Rom. 8:9-10; 1 Cor. 6:17).

All our spiritual experiences are in this mingled spirit

Now that we have seen that such a mingled spirit—the divine Spirit indwelling and mingling with our human spirit is the secret of the Christian life, we need to learn to apply this secret, to live in the mingled spirit, in everything we do.

We need to realize that every aspect of our Christian life—our fellowship with the Lord, our prayer to Him, our receiving of God’s word, and our abiding in Christ and serving the Lord are all in this mingled spirit:

First, to have real fellowship with the Lord we need to be in this mingled spirit—John 4:24; 2 Cor. 13:14; Phil 2:1.

Second, to pray to the Lord we must also be in the spirit. We need to practice to exercise our mingled spirit whenever we pray—Eph. 6:18.

Third, to receive God’s word we must be in the mingled spirit. We can only receive the life supply contained in God’s word by contacting the Spirit as the essence of the Scripture with our mingled spirit—Eph. 6:17-18; cf. John 6:63.

Fourth, to abide in the Lord we need to practice being one spirit with the Lord. That is, we need to remain in our mingled spirit in order to abide in Him—John 15:4-5; 1 Cor. 6:17.

Fifth,  to serve God in a living, fresh, and acceptable way, we must do it in our mingled spirit—Rom. 1:9; 7:6.

Finally, by living in the mingled spirit, we let Christ fill us and saturate us until we are permeated with Him and He is expresses through us—Eph. 3:16-20.

The unique requirement of the Bible—to walk according to this mingled spirit

You may ask, “How can we say that the Bible only requires one thing of us—to walk according to the mingled spirit? Aren’t there hundreds, if not thousands of commandments, ordinances, exhortations and teachings in the Bible?” In response, let’s read Romans 8:4 which says,

“That the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the spirit.”

By practicing the simple secret of living in the mingled spirit, in the union of God’s Spirit with our spirit, we are one with Him in everything that we do. All of God’s righteous requirements are fulfilled NOT BY us, but IN us. We’re no longer trying to please God. We’re simply one with Him in the mingled spirit and fulfill His requirements spontaneously. What a release! What a secret to the Christian life!

“Dear Lord Jesus, thank you for opening Your word to show us the secret of the Christian life. Praise you that as the embodiment of God, You became the Spirit so that we could receive You. Thank you also for creating us with a human spirit so that we can contact You, receive You, be indwelt by You, and even be mingled with You. Praise you, that by believing into You, we now have such an organic union with You in our mingled spirit. Lord, now remind us all the time to fellowship with You in this spirit, to pray in this spirit, to read Your word in this spirit and to serve You in this spirit. Praise you, that we are one spirit with You!”

This post was inspired by Message Four of a conference on the Focus of the Lord’s Recovery. You can obtain a excellent presentation of this topic in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on this subject. You can also read more on this topic in Living in the Spirit by Witness Lee, also available on ministrybooks.org.  A fellow blogger has also covered this topic in a similar post at: agodman.com. Photo Credit: by pippalou at morguefile.