As believers in Christ and as those who are burdened for the building up of the church, the Body of Christ, we need to be those who bear a sign that we are God’s people.
What is the distinctive sign that we are the people of God? There must be something like a ring, a seal, a sign that shows everyone else that we belong to God and we are one with God. This sign is the Sabbath, the principle of the Sabbath.
We need to bear a sign to indicate that we are God’s people by depending on Him, enjoying Him, resting with Him, and then working together with Him by being one with Him.
Just as the apostles were filled with the enjoyment of God and then they simply testified of this enjoyment, so we need to enjoy God, take Him as our strength and everything, and then testify of this One who is so much to us.
If we don’t do this, if we do our best to do things for God in ourselves yet without enjoying God, we will follow the customs of the nations and we will bring spiritual death into the church life.
May the Lord sanctify us, separate us from anything that’s not of Him and saturate us with His element, so that we would work together with Him in the way He wants us to.
May we be those who bear the sign that we are God’s people by resting with God, enjoying God, and being filled with God FIRST, and then working with God in oneness.
Lord, we love You! We open to You to enjoy You more. May we just enjoy You and drink from the springs of God’s salvation until we are filled with God. Lord, we are Your people bearing the sign that You are our strength and our everything!
Bearing a Sign that We Are God’s People
In the world people do everything in, by, and for themselves, and we are all trained for many years to do just this. Therefore, if we do something good or if we accomplish something that is considered a success in people’s eyes, we will be appreciated. Many times in the world the means are justified by the goal.
But in God’s work, in the building up of God’s dwelling place, things are different. If we want to work together with God in His way for the building up of His Body, we need to bear the sign that indicates that we belong to God.
This sign is that we are those who rest with God first, enjoy God first, and are filled with God first, and then we work with this One who fills us!
This is like an engagement ring which the woman has to wear to show that she belongs to him and she is unto him, an agreement and a covenant between us and God. When we take the lead to enjoy the Lord and rest in Him, we will bear a sign.
We need the Lord as our enjoyment and our strength, and we need to firstly enjoy Him and then overflow with the enjoyment of Him.
Acts 6:4 shows us that the disciples continued steadfastly in prayer and ministry of the word. First, we pray, we enjoy God and absorb Him, and then we minister the Word which He has just freshly spoken to us.
By enjoying God first, we have an agreement and a covenant with Him, which assures God that we will be one with Him and everything is done and spoken in oneness with God!
Doing Everything Out of Our Enjoyment of God
I keep thinking of Peter in the book of Acts, the disciple who betrayed the Lord and was cowardly following Him as He was taken to the high priest’s house…
Once Peter was with the other disciples and they enjoyed God, being filled with God, he was a different person – no longer a coward, no longer denying, but rather overflowing with the enjoyment of God to the ones around (Acts 2:14)! As Peter was speaking on the day of Pentecost, he was inwardly continually partaking of Jesus, drinking and eating Him!
The other side of this is that it is very serious matter to work for the Lord by ourselves without taking Him in and enjoying Him (see 1 Cor. 12:13; John 6:57).
How much we need to be sanctified by the Lord by being separated from any worldly concept and ways of serving God and saturated with God, His ways, His thoughts, and His desires!
May the Lord replace anything that is fleshly and natural in us so that we may serve not in oldness of letter but in newness of spirit, by being all the time in our spirit!
It is so easy in the church life to do many things without first enjoying the Lord and without being one with Him… But we need to realize that this kind of service, though accomplishing something outwardly and not being essentially evil, results in spiritual death and the loss of the fellowship in the Body of Christ (Exo. 31:13-15)!
When we do things for God outside of the enjoyment of God, we mar the building, we destroy it and not build it up, and we experience spiritual death.
Regularly and Continually Enjoying God
God emphasized the Sabbath when He was speaking concerning the building up of the tabernacle in Exo. 31.
Also, as one entered the tabernacle he just needed to enjoy God in every item of the furniture there: enjoy God as the bread of life (the showbread table), as the light of life (the lampstand), and as our acceptance before God (the incense on the altar).
The way for us to build the church is by having these regular and continual experiences of enjoying Christ as the bread of life (John 6:35), the light of life (John 9:5; 12:46), and as the reality of all the offerings for our acceptance to God (Eph. 2:18).
We need to be delivered from the failure and evil committed by so many of God’s people of Not Enjoying God as the source of living waters (Isa. 57:1-2, 20)! The reality of keeping the Sabbath is by enjoying God in our spirit!
If we practice to live in our spirit, we will enjoy God, we will enjoy resting with God, and we will enjoy rest and peace in our spirit, soul, and body! We need to practice all the time to not work for God by our own strength but by the enjoyment of God.
In our speaking, our working, our doing this and that, and in our serving God, we need to seek to be one spirit with the Lord. Working for God and with God should begin with enjoying God and should continue in many intervals with the refreshment by enjoying God.
Again and again, stop and enjoy God. In everything, be one with the Lord!
Lord Jesus, keep us enjoying You! Strengthen our enjoyment of God, and cause us to enjoy You regularly and continually. May we have set times during the day in which we pray and get into the Word. Lord, keep us drinking of the Spirit and eating You as the bread of life. We want to be one with You in everything we do. Lord, one spirit with You all the time!
References and Further Reading
- Sharing inspired from brother Dick Taylor’s sharing in the message and portions in, Life-study of Exodus (msg. 172), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, The Unique Work in the Lord’s Recovery, week 6 (entitled, Keeping the Principle of the Sabbath in Relation to the Work of Building).
- Buy this morning revival book online via Living Stream Ministry.
- Hymns on this topic:
# O Thou art ever one with me, / Unrivaled unity! / One spirit with me all the time / For all eternity!
# He who is joined to the Lord is one spirit. / Our life is a life that’s in organic union.
# Therefore with joy shall ye draw water / Out of the wells of salvation. / And in that day shall ye say, / Praise the Lord. - Pictures credit: created and edited by friends on Facebook (taken with permission).
About aGodMan
The building work of the tabernacle and all its furniture should begin with the enjoyment of God and continue in intervals with the refreshment by enjoying God. This will indicate that we do not work for God by our own strength but by the enjoyment of Him and by being one with Him. This is the meaning of the Sabbath, and this is the reason that a word about the Sabbath immediately follows the word concerning the building up of God’s dwelling place on earth. May we all see this matter and be impressed with it. (Life-study of Exodus, pp. 1827-1831)
Brother, I enjoy this post very much. How wonderful it is to bear such a sign that we "need God" in the way a Bride both needs and desires her bridegroom. This is altogether a different view than doing something for a far away God because we are so small, so unable and so human while He is so grand, so able and so divine. While this is true, He said in Matthew 11 to come to Him as the God who bent down and became a man, to learn from Him for He is meek and lowly in heart, to be yoked with Him. He is God, but He was peaceful and well pleased to be bound up in a man to join Himself to us, so we could be yoked into this God-man by becoming God-men with Him as His Bride, as His counterpart, as His co-laboring ones (S.of S. 7:12) ! How sweet this is! I never saw this as like the union in marriage (8:5)before I read your post. Thank you!
Amen! We need to bear the sign that we are God's people – not by "doing a lot of things for God" but by enjoying Him and loving Him first and foremost! This goes against our natural concept, so we will need to deny ourselves and just enjoy Him. He's so enjoyable! He just wants us to spend time with Him and enjoy Him!
May the Lord save us from of "running ahead of God" and from the evil of not enjoying Him first! Lord, recover our first love!