God wants to change our diet to a diet of Christ as the real manna so that we may be reconstituted with Christ and live because of Christ to become God’s dwelling place.
God’s goal is to have a dwelling place on earth; this dwelling place is not built with stone or wood but with the people of God themselves, with what they are in their constitution.
God desires to dwell among His people and in His people. The heavens are His throne and the earth is His footstool, but where is His house of rest, His dwelling place (Isa. 66:1-2)? It is with a particular kind of man, one who is poor and contrite in spirit, who trembles at His word.
God desires to dwell with us and in us. But what kind of persons are we so that He may dwell with us? Will He dwell among the natural people or zealous people? Can He identify Himself with us?
If we are to become God’s dwelling place, we need to be the same in life, nature, essence, and element as God Himself, so that we may afford Him a dwelling place to live in .
So for us to become such a dwelling place, we need to not only outwardly pass through many experiences that would shape us in His image, but also inwardly we need to be reconstituted with the element of God.
For us to become the dwelling place of God, we need to have a change of diet from anything else to Christ Himself so that we may be reconstituted with Christ, even rebuilt with Christ; then, in reality and practicality, we will be the dwelling place of God.
This is why in John 6 the Lord again and again said that He is the living bread, the bread of life, the bread that comes out of heaven, and we as His people need to eat this bread and live because of Him, just as He lived because of the Father.
How can we eat the Lord? Do we eat the Lord merely by thinking about Him, reading the Bible, and praying?
The Lord is Spirit, and for us to eat Him and be constituted with Him we need to exercise our human spirit over the words of God, so that the words in the Bible would become the Lord’s spoken word, His instant word, which conveys spirit and life.
The words which the Lord speaks to us are spirit and life; the words of the Bible are black-on-white letters, but when we exercise our spirit, the life and spirit contained in these words will be released, and we will receive the supply of life.
We need to have a Change of Diet to Eat Christ and be Reconstituted with Christ
In the history of the children of Israel we see that, even though God delivered them from Egypt and brought them in the wilderness where He miraculously fed them for forty years with “bread from heaven”, their constitution – especially at the beginning – was that of an Egyptians.
Although God’s people had been brought out of Egypt into the wilderness of separation, they were still constituted with the element of Egypt – signifying the world; God’s intention was to change their element by changing their diet so that their very nature would be changed.
God wants us, His people, not only to be delivered from the world but also have a change of diet so that we may be reconstituted with Christ for the dwelling place of God.
Our very constitution needs to be changed from being natural men, worldly men, to being a heavenly people who are constituted with and transformed by the heavenly Christ.
After we believe into the Lord, on one hand we have received the life of God, but on the other, our constitution is still the same; we need to see our need to have a change of diet, being reconstituted with Christ.
Just as with the children of Israel, God gives us a miraculous diet, a miraculous food – Christ, so that, as we eat of Him day by day, week by week, month by month, and year by year, we would be reconstituted with Christ in all the parts of our being.
For forty years God gave the children of Israel nothing to eat but manna (Num. 11:6); this shows that God’s intention in His salvation is to work Himself into the believers in Christ and to change their constitution by feeding them with Christ as their unique heavenly food!
Amen, God wants to work Himself into us in the form of food so that we may be constituted with Him, thereby being qualified to build up the church as the dwelling place of God (see 1 Cor. 3:16-17; 6:19; 2 Cor. 6:16; 1 Tim. 3:15; Heb. 3:6; Rev. 21:2-3).
Actually, after being reconstituted with Christ, we ourselves become the dwelling place of God.
If we consider the situation and history of the children of Israel, we probably would have murmured and complained just as they did when they had to eat the same food every day again and again…but God’s purpose is to change our diet to a diet of Christ.
God gave His people a bland food, tasteless, because He has a purpose; in giving them the same food day after day and year after year, God caused them to be inwardly reconstituted, and also their flesh was exposed.
At one point the people of Israel couldn’t take this anymore: they complained, for they had the same food day after day, and their soul loathed it.
What about us: when we read the Bible day after day, and year after year, do we get bored of the same words of God? Do we get tired of hearing and reading about God’s plan, His economy, His purpose?
As we come daily to the Lord in His word, do we abhor this seemingly bland food? Are we looking for something exciting, something new, something stimulating?
God purposely gives us only Christ in His word so that our flesh may be exposed.
He can do many miraculous things; He could part the Red Sea, He can do many outward amazing things, but these things will not change our flesh or touch it.
It is only by daily, continually, and constantly eating the Lord in His word to be constituted with Him that He can do the greatest work of all, the work of reconstituting us with Christ for His dwelling place.
We may think that we need to have “a balanced diet”, to “alternate the food”…but with God there’s only one kind of food, one kind of diet – Christ. This single food can satisfy our need and supply all the nutrients that we require to grow in life and be built up as God’s habitation.
We only need to be faithful and diligent to daily come to the Lord and pray-read the word, not expecting anything exciting to happen but enjoy the Lord and taking Christ in by faith.
The more we pray, pray over the word of God, and fellowship with the Lord, the more we are being constituted with Christ.
In all our ordinary situations, Christ wants to constitute us with Himself; we need to see our need to have a change of diet to a diet of Christ so that we may be reconstituted with Him for His building.
Lord Jesus, show us our need to have a change of diet from eating other things to eating only Christ so that we may be reconstituted with Christ and become part of the dwelling place of God. Save us from expecting a miracle or something exciting; may we have normal days of enjoying the Lord in His word so that we may be inwardly changed and reconstituted with Christ! Lord, we open to You; expose our constitution, and show us our need to have a change of diet so that we may be reconstituted with Christ, the heavenly manna to be our daily supply!
The Christ who is our Food is the Christ who has become Subjective to us by our Eating Him
When the Lord shines on us concerning our real situation and need, we will realise that not only the people in the world but even we desire and feed on many worldly, psychological, and even religious “groceries”, and not on Christ.
There are not only physical supermarkets but there are also psychological and religious supermarkets for psychological and religious groceries.
We were once in and of the world, but through regeneration we have been transferred into the kingdom of God; however, our constitution is still mostly worldly, and many times we enjoy things in the world very similarly as those in the world.
We may still desire to “sit by the fleshpots in Egypt” and feed on “cucumber, melons, onions, leeks, and garlic” as the Israelites did….We may not only study to get a good degree for the Lord, but we may “eat” our education and “feed” on our career.
We may not just watch the news to find our what’s going on but “feed” on the newsfeed online, and we may desire to know more and find out more, feeding on so many things other than Christ.
The Lord wants us to have a change of diet; He doesn’t want us to merely be positionally in the church as the kingdom of God today – He wants us to be reconstituted with Christ so that we may become His dwelling place.
The Christ who is our food is the Christ who has become subjective through our enjoyment and eating of Him.
On one hand Christ is in the heavens, enthroned as the Lord of all; on the other hand, He is dwelling in our mingled spirit as the all-inclusive life-giving Spirit.
And He wants to be our food in a subjective way to be our life supply, so that He may get into us to become the very fibres of our being.
For something to become our food it has to be organic and it has to enter into us to be assimilated into us.
What is our real food? Whatever satisfies, strengthens, and sustains us is our food; if we check with our experience, there still are many things apart from Christ that satisfy us and sustain us, things that we desire and feed on.
The things that we feed on become part of our being, and we are joined to them; when we eat Christ as our real food, we are joined to Him and become one spirit with Him (1 Cor. 6:17), but when we eat other things, they get into our being and become part of our inner constitution.
May we be those who have a change of diet to feeding on Christ and living by Him not just occasionally but constantly, even twenty-four hours a day. It is good to bring this matter before the Lord and tell Him,
Lord Jesus, may You become subjective to us as our food day by day. Save us from feeding on other things apart from You. We want to cooperate with You to have a change of diet so that we may eat Christ day by day and be reconstituted with Christ for the dwelling place of God. Amen, Lord, we exercise our being to eat You again and again so that You may be digested and assimilated into our being and thus reconstitute us with Yourself. May You become so subjective to us that You are our food, our life supply, our very constituent.
This article can also be read in the Romanian language / Citiți acest articol în limba română vizitând următorul link, Trebuie să avem o schimbare a alimentației pentru a-L mânca pe Cristos și pentru a fi reconstituiți cu Cristos.
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message by bro. James Lee for this week, and portions from, Life-study of Exodus, msg. 35 (by Witness Lee), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Crystallization-Study of Numbers (2), week 3, The Change of our Diet to the Heavenly Christ as the Reality of the Heavenly Manna, so that we may be Reconstituted with Christ to become God’s dwelling Place.
- Hymns on this topic:
# Feeding and drinking, Lord Jesus, of Thee, / Feeding by reading, and drinking by prayer; / Reading and praying, I eat and I drink, / Praying and reading-Lord, Thou art my fare. (Hymns #811)
# O Lord, do nourish us; You are the food we need; / As we are eating You, we’ll be transformed indeed; / We’re fully satisfied as on Yourself we feed, / So nourish us, O Lord, we pray. / O Lord, do nourish us today / As all our self You wash away. / Not only purify, / But fill and satisfy; / O Lord, do nourish us today. (Hymns #1135)
# The heavenly diet fulfills God’s great plan / Because it supplies and reconstitutes man / To build up the church, His unique dwelling place. / For this heavenly manna, Lord give us the taste! (Song on, Manna)
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