I very much enjoyed that we need to enjoy Christ in the principle of the restoration of life as a sprout from the stump of Jesse and as a branch from the roots of Jesse. Especially seeing that Christ is the sprout and the branch for us to enjoy Christ and grow in Christ.
Hebrews 6:5 says: And have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come.
This tells us of an “age to come” which is the age of the coming kingdom, and this verse also tells us that we have tasted the good word of God.
This is the word of the beginning of Christ when we first believed in the Lord Jesus (Heb 6:1).
From this beginning we have to be brought on to maturity by enjoying the deeper word, the word of righteousness, which is concerned not mainly with God’s redemption but with the way of His economy.
The principle here is to stay in the enjoyment by following the Lord – which is a foretaste of the divine power of the coming kingdom. This divine power restores, renews and revives the things that have become old. As we enjoy the Lord every day in a new and fresh way, this divine life with its power renews and restores us inwardly!
Titus 3:5 says: Not out of works in righteousness which we did but according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Spirit.
Matthew 19:28 says: And Jesus said to them, Truly I say to you that you who have followed Me, in the restoration, when the Son of Man sits on the throne of His glory, you also shall sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.
In Matthew 19:28 quoted above the word restoration has the same meaning as regeneration. The King James version says “in the regeneration, when the Son of Man shall sit in the throne of His glory…” Regeneration or restoration means to change from one state to another.
The washing of regeneration in Titus 3:5 begins with our being born again and continues with the renewing of the Holy Spirit as the process of God’s new creation, a process of reconditioning, remaking or remodelling of our entire tripartite being with the divine life.
The washing of regeneration purges away all the things of the old nature of our old man, and the renewing of the Holy Spirit imparts something new – the divine essence of the new man – into our being.
This is a passing from our old state into a wholly new one, from the old creation into the status of a new creation.
So then to enjoy Christ as the sprout from the stump of Jesse means to enjoy Him in His restoring power of life in freshness, and to enjoy Him as the branch from the roots of Jesse is to enjoy Him as the hidden deepening power of life with growing power and fruit-bearing power.
As we enjoy this Christ in the church life He will grow in us and spread through us and will bring us into a new revival so we would be those living in the reality of God’s economy. Lord keep us enjoying You so that You can grow in us and spread through us!
[sharing by bro. Moh from Isaiah 11 and the life-study of Isaiah messages based on this chapter] – read this portion in Spanish via al disfrutar a Cristo vivimos en el principio de la restauración de la vida para un nuevo avivamiento (Isaías 11).
