enjoying Christ

By experiencing Christ as the wine-producing vine and by being filled with Him as the new wine, we believers in Christ may become a drink offering in Him and with Him, being poured out upon the saints’ sacrifice of the faith. Hallelujah!

The most happy person in the world is not the most selfish one but the one who is the most unselfish.

When we are one with the Lord as the One who sacrifices Himself for others, we are happy in Him and with Him.

However, in ourselves and by ourselves we are not willing to sacrifice, for our natural life is a selfish life.

At most, we sacrifice ourselves for the one or ones we love, but we are not willing to sacrifice ourselves continually and indiscriminately.

But praise the Lord, through regeneration Christ came into us, and His life is a life of sacrifice.

In Him and with Him we can be willing to sacrifice ourselves for others.

Actually, it is by our enjoying Christ as the new wine and by being filled and saturated with Him that we are one with Him and more than willing to lay down our soul life in order for others to receive the divine life.

When we are filled in spirit, when we are beside ourselves with the enjoyment of Christ as the new wine, we simply are one with Him to sacrifice ourselves for others.

This is true not only in the church life but even in the family life, in the marriage life.

The only way the wife can sacrifice herself to take care of her family is by being one with the sacrificing Christ within her.

The only way the husband can sacrifice himself to love his wife and raise his children is by experiencing the indwelling Christ who is a life of sacrifice.

The only way for the parents to raise their children and to bear with them in the family life is by enjoying and experiencing Christ as the One who sacrifices Himself.

He is in us. He lives in us. Only the life of Christ is a life of sacrifice.

He lives in us to energize us to sacrifice ourselves for others in order to bring them cheer and to make them happy.

First, we are happy, for we drink the new wine of Christ.

Then, we are filled with the Lord to lay down our soul life on behalf of others, being willing to spend and be utterly spent on their behalf.

However, it is not us who does it; it is Christ in us who lives His life of sacrifice.

We simply abide in the Lord and enjoy the riches of His life, and He has a way to bear fruit in us and through us for the Father’s satisfaction and glorification. Hallelujah!

This truly is joy, the joy of the Lord becoming our joy. And we can experience this in the organic union with the Lord day by day.

Christ is the Drink Offering – He Poured Himself out as the Real Wine before God for His Satisfaction

When speaking of experiencing Christ as the vine, or a land of vines, we need to realize that, on one hand, He’s the vine and we are the branches, and on the other hand, He was pressed and crushed to become the new wine for others to drink.

In Gen. 35:14 we see the mention of the drink offering; Jacob set up a pillar in the place where God had spoken to him, and he poured out a drink offering and poured oil on it.

Later in Exo. 29:40-41 we see the mention of the drink offering being offered on top of other offerings.

The drink offering typifies Christ as the One who poured Himself out as the real wine before God for His satisfaction.

Only Christ satisfies God, and only His life and His offering make Him happy.

The drink offering was offered not for the offerer to enjoy nor for the priest to receive and enjoy but simply for God to enjoy and be happy.

Because the drink offering was poured out for God, we can say that God drinks.

On one hand, God eats the offerings that are offered to Him, and by the drink offering, God drinks.

God wants to drink something for His satisfaction; the drink offering makes God happy, for He drinks it.

There were the basic offerings, and on top of them, there was the drink offering (Num. 15:1-10; 28:7-10).

The wine of the drink offering was poured out for God’s satisfaction; it was poured out for God to drink.

Today God wants to drink something, and we can offer Him the drink offering for Him to be satisfied and made happy.

However, nothing of ourselves and in ourselves can make God happy, for in our natural man we are not a drink offering.

Only Christ satisfies God, and only the Christ who fills us and saturates us and is poured out of us can satisfy God and make Him happy.

Making God happy by the drink offering has nothing to do with us improving our behaviour or trying better to please God so that we make Him happy.

Christ poured out His being unto God (Isa. 53:12), and He satisfied God.

He poured out His life unto death, and God was satisfied with His offering.

On one hand, Christ came to replace all the offerings.

He is the reality of all the offerings and replaced them all.

On the other hand, He came as the reality of the drink offering, to offer Himself to God for His unique satisfaction and enjoyment.

Heb. 10:1-12 indicates that Christ is the fulfilment of all the offerings.

He came to do the will of God (vv. 7, 9), which was to replace the sacrifices and offerings with Himself in His humanity as the unique sacrifice and offering for our sanctification as God’s chosen people.

Christ came to offer Himself as the unique offering; He is the reality of the burnt offering, the meal offering, the peace offering, the sin offering, the trespass offering, the wave offering, the heave offering, and the drink offering.

By one sacrifice on the cross, by His death for us before God on the cross, Christ fulfilled all the types and became the reality of all the offerings to appease God, justify us before God, and make God happy. Hallelujah!

Christ is the heavenly, spiritual wine poured out to God for His pleasure; Christ poured Himself out as wine to make God happy.

At least twice when He was on earth the Father testified from the heavens that Christ, His beloved Son, is the One who delights Him, and in Him He found His pleasure and delight.

What a Christ we have!

We can enjoy Him and experience Him as such a One, and in Him and with Him we can also become a drink offering to God for His satisfaction!

Praise You, Lord Jesus, for coming to replace all the sacrifices with Yourself as the unique sacrifice for God’s satisfaction and delight. Hallelujah, Christ is the reality of all the offerings, and His sacrifice on the cross replaced all the offerings with Himself. Amen, Lord, we take You as the reality of all the offerings. We take You as the reality of the drink offering. Thank You for being the unique One who satisfies God and makes God happy. We praise You as the One who poured Himself out as the real wine before God for His satisfaction. Amen, Lord, You make God happy and You also make us happy. We want to drink You as the new wine and be filled with You as the new wine. We want to enjoy and experience You as the reality of the drink offering so that we ourselves become a drink offering to God for His satisfaction. Hallelujah for our Christ, the reality of the drink offering for God’s satisfaction and enjoyment!

Drink and be Saturated with Christ as the New Wine to become a Drink Offering to God

The Gospels reveal to us a marvellous person who is the first God-man; He lived a perfect life and poured Himself out for God’s satisfaction.

When we look to Him, we are filled with appreciation and praise, and we ourselves drink of Him as the new wine.

However, we need to realize that the drink offering typifies not only Christ Himself but even more the Christ who saturates us with Himself as the heavenly wine until He and we become one to be poured out for God’s enjoyment and satisfaction and for God’s building (Matt. 9:17; Phil. 2:17; 2 Tim. 4:6). Wow!

On one hand, Christ is the reality of the drink offering.

On the other hand, this Christ lives in us and saturates us so that in Him, with Him, and one with Him we also become a drink offering to be poured out for God’s enjoyment and satisfaction, and also for God’s building, the church.

The drink offering is very significant, for it is an optional offering.

It depends on the experience and enjoyment of the offerer whether he offers the drink offering.

If one of the basic offerings was offered without the drink offering, this indicated that there was something lacking with the presentation of the basic offering.

It may have been that the offerer did not have enough enjoyment and experience of Christ as the good land.

When we lack in our experience and enjoyment of Christ, we are not able to be poured out as a drink offering.

We can still take Christ as the reality of all the offerings and offer Him to God, but it requires our full enjoyment of Christ and our drinking Him to be saturated with Him as the new wine for us to become the drink offering in and with Christ.

We cannot offer the drink offering in our natural constitution.

We cannot offer the drink offering according to our natural concept.

We must enjoy Christ to such an extent that He fills us, saturates us, and permeates us as the heavenly wine.

When we enjoy Christ by taking Him into us to the extent that we’re saturated and filled with Christ as the new wine, we will become the wine to be poured out as a drink offering upon the offerings we present to God.

Today in the church life in the Lord’s recovery we need many saints to experience Christ to the extent that they are so filled with Him and saturated with Him as the new wine that they become the new wine poured out upon God’s building for His satisfaction in His building.

We need to aspire to be such ones today.

We need to enjoy Christ more and even give ourselves to be saturated and filled with Him as the new wine so that we may be one with Him as the drink offering to be poured out before God for His satisfaction and enjoyment.

As we prepare ourselves for the Lord’s coming and deal with many things in our being, we need to keep our being open to the Lord to enjoy and experience Him as the new wine.

We need to enjoy and experience the sacrificing Christ who is the new wine.

In our circumstances we are limited, but in Christ, we are not limited.

May we not look into ourselves to see where we are and what we need but may we turn to the Lord and drink of Him as the new wine.

The more we drink Christ and are filled with Him as the new wine, the more we will be able to be one with Him and be poured out as a drink offering before God for His satisfaction.

The drink offering is a type of Christ as the heavenly wine that is enjoyed by us, the offerer, filling us and causing us to become wine to God.

The drink offering is not something objective, something that only Christ is and can do.

The drink offering is very subjective, something that we as believers in Christ can enter into and even become.

We ourselves can become the drink offering because we are so saturated and filled with Christ as the new wine.

This causes us to become a delight to the Father for His satisfaction and cheer.

May we aspire to be such ones and may we give ourselves to the Lord to be such ones today in the church life.

May we drink Christ as the new wine, experience His sacrificing life, and be saturated and filled with Christ as the new wine to become a drink offering to be poured out for God’s satisfaction and upon the building of God.

Lord Jesus, we come to You to drink You as the new wine today. Fill us and saturate us with Yourself as the new wine until we ourselves become a drink offering for God’s satisfaction. May we go on in our experience and enjoyment of Christ until we’re filled and saturated with the heavenly wine of Christ. Amen, Lord, we want to enjoy You by taking You into us so that we may be filled with You and thoroughly saturated with You! Fill us, Lord Jesus! Saturate us with Yourself. We want to live a life for Your satisfaction and enjoyment. We want to have our being filled with Christ as the new wine so that we may be poured out as a drink offering upon the sacrifice and service of the saints’ faith. We come to You to enjoy You as the heavenly wine. Fill us. Make us wine to God. Grant us the experiences we need for us to experience Christ as the wine-producing vine today for God’s satisfaction.

References and Hymns on this Topic

• Inspiration for this article/sharing comes from the Word of God, the enjoyment in the ministry, a sharing by brother Ray Mulligan in the message for this week, and portions from, Life-study of Philippians, msg. 14 (by Witness Lee), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Laboring on the All-inclusive Christ Typified by the Good land for the Building up of the Church as the Body of Christ, for the Reality and the Manifestation of the Kingdom, and for the Bride to make Herself Ready for the Lord’s Coming (2023 Winter Training), week 5, entitled, A Land of Vines.
• Similar articles on this topic:
  – The morning revival for today, via, the Church in Auckland.
  – Constituted a drink offering, a portion from, Life-Study of Philippians, Chapter 14.
  – Do You See New Jerusalem in Exodus? More via, New Jerusalem blog.
  – A Story of Consecration: Loving Jesus with Our Best, via, Bibles for America blog.
  – Poured out as a drink offering, a portion from, The Experience of Christ, Chapter 5, by Witness Lee.
  – What is Consecration in the Bible and Why Should You Consecrate Yourself to the Lord? Via, Holding to Truth in Love.
  – Concerning Allegorizing the Bible, via, Shepherding Words.
  – 10 stages of our experience of the truth, via, Conversant faith.
• Hymns on this topic:
  – Lord, Thou art all the offerings / Prepared by God for us; / They are so rich in meaning, / So sweet and glorious. / They have fulfilled God’s purpose / And met His heart’s desire; / They too have satisfied us, / And faced what we require. (Hymns #195 stanza 1)
  – From the branches of the grape vine / Sap and blood and wine doth flow. / Does the vine, for all it suffered, / Lost, and yielded, poorer grow? / Drunkards of the earth and wanderers, / From it drink and merry make. / From their pleasure and enjoyment / Do they richer thereby wake? / Not by gain our life is measured, / But by what we’ve lost ’tis scored; / ’Tis not how much wine is drunken, / But how much has been outpoured. / For the strength of love e’er standeth / In the sacrifice we bear; / He who has the greatest suff’ring / Ever has the most to share. (Hymns #635 stanzas 14-15)
  – We are tasting of the living wine, / In spirit tasting life divine, / And whoso tasteth, every time / Shall have the joy of God. / What, have the joy of God? Yes, have the joy of God! / What, have the joy of God? Yes, have the joy of God! / And whoso tasteth, every time / Shall have the joy of God. (Hymns #1150 stanza 4)