Born to Live

we all know that the gospel of John is a gospel of life. the subject of the gospel of John can be considered as born to live.  Being born to live means that after one is born, one must live. After we have been regenerated, we must live. If a person has not yet believed, or has not yet been saved, then he must be born again. The Gospel of John focuses on the matter of being born to live. 

what is this life? or we should say, who is this life?

John 1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

John 1:4 In Him was life, and the life was the light of men.

from the beginning of the gospel of John, it plainly tells us that this life is in Him, the Word. then who is this Word?

Revelation 19:13 And He is clothed with a garment dipped in blood; and His name is called the Word of God.

if we read the whole chapter, or even the whole book of Revelation, we will know this "He" is the Lord, the Christ. therefore, we can see that the Lord is the Word of God, and in Him, the Word, who is the Lord, there is life, and this life is the eternal life, the life of God. 

the sequence in the gospel of John is really interesting. 

1. in John chapter 1: the Lord is the life.

2. in John chapter 3: we, all the believers, are regenerated by this life. 

John 3:5 Jesus answered, Truly, truly, I say to you, Unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.

John 3:14 And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up,

John 3:15 That every one who believes into Him may have eternal life.

John 3:16 For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that every one who believes into Him would not perish, but would have eternal life.

3. in John chapter 6: we must eat the Lord as the bread of life.

John 6:63 It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing; the words which I have spoken to you are spirit and are life.

"the Spirit who give life", in its original Greek, has twofold meaning: who causes man to life and who gives life to man. He not only gives life to man but also causes man to live; He not only causes man to live but also gives life to man. 

the words which the Lord speaks to us are spirit and are life. we have the Spirit, and we also have the word. 

"today we who are saved have the Lord Jesus as the Spirit within and the Bible as the words without! These two cannot be separated. The words without and the Spirit within must not be separated. The words without are not for teaching but for nourishment; likewise, the Spirit within is also for nourishment. Both are our food for our nourishment. Therefore, when we eat the Lord, we receive His words and allow His words to become the Spirit within. As a result, His words and the Spirit become our food and our supply within."

4. in John chapter 10: 

John 10:10 The thief does not come except to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life and may have it abundantly.

I always had a question, why in this verse, John composed in such a way "they may have life and may have it abundantly." it seems repetive to me. why John did not just say "may have life abundantly." now my question is answered. John wrote this verse in this way purposefully. to have life is to be regenerated, to receive the Lord. to have it abundantly is to eat the Lord daily, receive the word of the Lord daily, and touch the Spirit of the Lord daily through His word. we all have received the Lord, so we all have this life. but are we having this life abundantly? this requires us to keep receiving everyday. 

5. in John chapter 11: we no longer live by our old, natural life, but by the regenerated life, by the resurrection life. 

John 11:25 Jesus said to her, I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes into Me, even if he should die, shall live;

6. in John chapter 14: 

John 14:19 Yet a little while and the world beholds Me no longer, but you behold Me; because I live, you also shall live.

according to the context, this verse is refering to the Lord's crucifixion (the world beholds Me no longer), and the Lord's resurrection "I live". when the Lord was resurrected, we were all resurrected with Him. "In His resurrection we were made alive together with Him. In this way we know that He is in us and we are in Him, because He and we, we and He, have become one, and we live together. Therefore, to live after being born is to live with the Lord. The Lord lives and we also live; this is to live with the Lord."

7. in John chapter 22:

John 20:22 And when He had said this, He breathed into them and said to them, Receive the Holy Spirit.

The Lord Jesus passed through incarnation, death, and resurrection to become the breath of life. 

then, how do we live by Him?

1. we need to realise  that before we received the Lord, we only had one life, our own old life. but after we are saved, we got another life, the divine life within us. so it is no longer we who live, but the Lord living within us. 

2. God does not want us to live by our original life. God wants us to live by the new life, the resrrection life. 

3. the new life is in our spirit. so if we want to live by the new life, we need to live by our spirit. 

4. in everything we say and we do, we should not be too quick. we need to examine, if we are speaking and doing accoding to our old life, or according to our new life. not only in big things, but in all small things, we should always check. 

for more detailed reading, please see "A Living of Mutual Abiding with the Lord in Spirit" chapter 1 Born to Live