Thursday

Related Verses
Luke 1:79
79 To shine upon those sitting in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.

Eph. 4:18-19
18 Being darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance which is in them, because of the hardness of their heart;
19 Who, being past feeling, have given themselves over to lasciviousness to work all uncleanness in greediness.

Gen. 2:9, 16-17
9 And out of the ground Jehovah God caused to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food, as well as the tree of life in the middle of the garden and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
16 And Jehovah God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden you may eat freely,
17 But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, of it you shall not eat; for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.

2 Cor. 11:2-3
2 For I am jealous over you with a jealousy of God; for I betrothed you to one husband to present you as a pure virgin to Christ.
3 But I fear lest somehow, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, your thoughts would be corrupted from the simplicity and the purity toward Christ.

John 14:27
27 Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Do not let your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.

John 16:33
33 These things I have spoken to you that in Me you may have peace. In the world you have affliction, but take courage; I have overcome the world.

Related Reading
Regardless of how moral the unbelievers are, they have only the human conscience to go by, and this has been greatly damaged by the fall of man…Their damaged conscience does not work very well. Even if the unbelievers’ conscience did work well, it is the only thing that they have. 

We believers have not only a created conscience but also a renewed conscience. Our conscience, as a part of our spirit (Rom. 9:1; cf. 8:16), has been renewed through the regeneration of our spirit. In addition to this renewed conscience we have these five great things: the divine life, the law of the divine life, the Holy Spirit, Christ, and God. Thus, there is no comparison between the created conscience of the unbelievers and the renewed conscience of the believers who are indwelt by the Triune God as the divine life. (CWWL, 1979, vol. 1, “Basic Lessons on Life,” p. 547)

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Anything that has life has feeling. The higher the life is, the stronger the feeling is. The divine life is the strongest and highest life, so it has the richest, strongest, and keenest feeling [cf. Eph. 4:18-19]. 

We Christians should be persons full of feeling all the time. We should not be dull or numb. We must be very sensitive, full of sensations because we are living and rich in life. This is because we have a regenerated spirit with our conscience renewed. We also have the divine life, the law of this divine life, the Holy Spirit, Christ, and God. Therefore, the sense of life is high, rich, strong, and keen within us. 

If we are living in the natural life, the sense is of death and is entirely on the negative side…If we are living in the divine life, the sense is of life and is entirely on the positive side. Then we have the feeling of life and peace with all its positive points. The sense of life makes us know whether we are living in the natural life or in the divine life. The sense of life guides us, governs us, controls us, and directs us…Since we are seeking after Christ as our life, we must take care of this sense of life. If we do not have the positive sensations of strength, satisfaction, peace, rest, release, liveliness, watering, brightness, comfort, etc., we must realize that we are not living in the divine life; it must be that we are living in the natural life. 

To live in the natural life is one thing, and to live in the flesh is another thing. You may consider that these are one, but still there is a little difference…There is no good flesh. But the natural life sometimes may be good. The natural life is versus the divine life, and the flesh is versus the spirit. 

Therefore, there are two aspects concerning the function of the sense of life. The first aspect is to let you know whether you are living in the divine life, and the second aspect is to let you know whether you are living in your spirit. Negatively speaking, it makes you know whether you are living in the natural life, as a natural person, and also whether you are living in the flesh…Many times we have the sense that we are living, walking, and acting in the flesh. Sometimes we are not that fleshly, but still we have the sense that we are walking in our natural life, in our natural man, not in the divine life. 

We need much prayer to pray ourselves into the sense of life. Then we can give a word not merely in teaching but practically in fellowship. Our message will be a kind of fellowship, telling people how we have experienced these things, how the sense of life is so real and practical to us, and how we are under this kind of controlling, guiding, directing element within us day by day. (CWWL, 1979, vol. 1, “Basic Lessons on Life,” pp. 546-549) 

Further Reading: Life-study of 1 John, chs. 5, 26