Call on the Lord and Inhale God in His Word to be Men of God with the Breath of God

As believers in Christ who love the Lord, we want to be men of God with the breath of God, those who call on the Lord’s name, breathe Him in the Word, exercise our spirit, experience Christ, and pursue Christ in the church as the Body of Christ, to have the humanity of Jesus for the church life today.

Lord Jesus, we call on Your name today. Oh Lord Jesus, we love to call Your name and breathe You in! We open to You. We come to You in Your word to breathe You in. We exercise our spirit to breathe ourselves out and breathe You in. Thank You for being embodied in Your word for us to enjoy You and partake of You! Amen, Lord, infuse us with Yourself through Your word. We want to enjoy You and experience You today, and we want to pursue You with the saints for the building up of the church! Amen!

This week we enjoyed a particular matter related to the book of Job in the Old Testament, that is, that God’s intention with Job was that a good man may become a God-man.

We may read the first two chapters of Job and we may think that there’s nothing wrong with Job, so why did God have two councils regarding him, and why did God allow Satan to do all these things to this righteous man.

We need to realise that the entire Bible is for one thing: not for us to be good men who build up our own righteousness and perfection but for God in Christ as the Spirit to dispense Himself into us as our life, nature, and everything so that we may live Christ and express Christ.

The righteousness God wants to gain in us is the living out of Christ. Job, however, was a good man who expressed himself in his perfection, uprightness, and integrity.

This is not what God wants. He doesn’t want a man who fears God and turns away from evil, nor does He want someone who is perfect and righteous.

So God was lovingly concerned for Job and wanted him to gain God so that he may express God for the fulfilment of His purpose.

God’s intention was that Job would become a God-man who expresses God in His attributes.

So God had to strip Job of his attainments in his perfection, righteousness, and integrity so that Job would be open to the Lord for His divine dispensing for him to be a God-man, not just a good man.

Job did not see this, however, but we today can see this. We realise that God wants a God-man, a man who is one with God and who is regenerated by God with His life and nature.

We believers in Christ are God-men who partake of God’s life and nature to be one with God and express God. Amen!

See God’s Desire, Gain God, have Christ as our Righteousness, and be a God-man Living Christ

As we read the book of Job, we need to allow the Lord to shine on us so that we may understand what He is doing today.

God doesn’t want to merely bless with material riches those who fear Him and turn away from evil; what He wants is for man to gain God and have Christ as his lived-out righteousness.

We need to look not at the earthly things, at the prosperity which some God-fearing people may have; we need to regard the things which are not seen, the spiritual and eternal things.

We do care for our living, we have a job, we care for many practical things, but we forsake our flesh and our natural constitution and lay hold of another life, the eternal life of God, which is Christ Himself (1 Tim. 6:12).

We eat Christ and drink Him, and we let Him constitute us with His life for us to express Him. We want His human virtues and divine attributes to be expressed through us.

So we realise that everything that happens to us is so that we may gain more of Christ.

Not only the good things but also the sufferings, hardships, and trials are for us to gain more of Christ, for God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God (Rom. 8:28-29).

If we look at the New Testament, we see the apostle Paul, who was quite similar to Job, for he kept God’s law, he was righteous and blameless in regard to the righteousness coming from the law, and he did everything according to God’s commandments. He was blameless.

We cannot say that we are blameless, but Paul was blameless in his conscience and according to the law (Phil. 3:4-6).

However, according to Philippians 3:7-10, he said that he counted all these things to be loss on account of Christ, for he wanted to gain Christ as his treasure.

He considered Christ as a greater treasure than these achievements; when he saw Christ, when he saw a vision of the excellency of Christ, he simply dropped all other things and pursued Christ.

He gave up all things and suffered the loss of all things, even counting them as refuse, so that he might gain Christ. Wow!

We need to have such a heart before the Lord; even if God would bless us with some material blessings, we need to count all things as refuse so that we may gain Christ, that is, gain God!

As we go through sufferings in our human life, as we go through all the things God has arranged for us and live in the environment He has designed for us, may we realise that we should simply gain more of Christ.

We need to rejoice in all things, for Christ increases in us. Whether through life or through death, we want Christ to be seen in us, magnified in us, and expressed through us.

May we praise the Lord even while weeping, and we need to call on the name of the Lord even from the lowest pit.

May the Lord become more precious to us as we decrease through all the sufferings, trials, and hardships. In the place of the things that He takes from us, may we gain more of Christ.

All our sufferings are for us to gain God, to have the Triune God constituted into us.

Everything else will pass away, including our self-made righteousness and self-built uprightness; what remains is just God. What will remain in the new heavens and new earth is just God and man.

The righteousness we should have is not our own but Christ as our righteousness.

Like Paul, may we seek to be found in Christ, not having our own righteousness which is out of the law but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is out of God and based on faith.

May we humble ourselves before the Lord and allow Him to open our ears to hear what He speaks to us today and soften our heart for Him to work out in us what He desires for His purpose.

Lord Jesus, we humble ourselves before You today. We come to You and we open to You. We turn our heart to You. We stop our inner being and all our struggling and striving to do things for God and to please God. Oh Lord, shine on us and expose our confidence in the flesh. Save us from building up our own righteousness and our self-made uprightness. We come to You as we are and we give ourselves to You. Grant our heart to be soft toward You for You to do in us what You want to do. Amen, Lord, You are the most precious One. We want to see a vision of Your excellency so that we may count all other things loss on account of Christ! Amen, Lord, everything else is refuse and dung compared to You! We want to gain more of God. We want to live one spirit with You. May we be found in Christ, not having our own righteousness which is out of the law but that which is through faith in Christ! Live in us, dear Lord Jesus! Be expressed through us as our lived-out righteousness for God to be expressed through us! Amen!

Being Men of God with the Breath of God by Calling on the Lord, Breathing Him in the Word, Experiencing Christ, and Pursuing Christ with the Saints for the Body

Thank the Lord for unveiling us to see that we are God-men, those who love the Lord with our whole being, that is, from our heart, soul, mind, and strength (Mark 12:30).

We give ourselves to the Lord to just love Him, exercising not only our spirit to contact Him but also our heart to love Him.

As we love the Lord with all our heart, our soul, our mind, and even our strength, our whole being is transformed. As God-men, we have no confidence in the flesh but rather we deny the self and exercise our spirit to live Christ (Phil. 3:3; Matt. 16:24; 1 Tim. 4:7; Phil. 1:21).

Amen, this is our daily living, a living in spirit and with the exercise of denying the self. Also, as God-men, we are men of God with the breath of God, those who inhale the breath of God in His word (1 Tim. 6:11; 2 Tim. 3:16-17).

In 2 Timothy 3:14-17 we see the man of God with the breath of God. The whole Bible is the word of God, the breathing out of God. God breathed Himself out in His word, and we need to exercise our spirit to breathe Him in.

The word of God is not only logos (John 1:1) but also rhema (John 6:63), the living word of God.

When we exercise our spirit and call on the name of the Lord as we read the word of God, the written word of God becomes the living word of God to us to nourish us.

The essence of the Bible is the Spirit; the Scripture is the embodiment of God as the Spirit.

We must touch the word of God and read the Word by the exercise of our spirit to catch the divine fire and be filled with God as life. Christ is the living Word of God (Rev. 19:13), and the Scripture is the written Word of God (Matt. 4:4).

When we as men of God come to the word of God with the exercise of our spirit, we are equipped and made complete for every good word.

When we exercise our spirit to come to God’s word, we are taught, we are convicted, we are corrected, and we are instructed in righteousness.

This is all by our breathing in the breathed-out word of God! May we breathe the Lord in every day.

May we spend time daily to just come to the Lord’s word and exercise our spirit to enjoy Him, breathe Him in, and be filled with Him.

If we are men of God with the breath of God, when we speak to others we will not only teach them or tell them things but even more, we will breathe God into them.

The living word of God will be in us and we will breathe Him out into others. Amen, may we be the men of God with the breath of God today!

May we enjoy the humanity of Jesus so that we may become proper persons. As we pray-read the Word of God, the humanity of Jesus is infused into us, and we will apply the humanity of Jesus to every detail of our daily walk.

The only way we can be strong and stand against the tide of this age, even be an anti-testimony to the immorality and corruption in this world, is by enjoying the humanity of Jesus.

Today people are full of self-love, hatred toward others who are not like them, and without natural affection; we, however, are men of God with the breath of God who enjoy the humanity of Jesus, and we are filled with the loving affection in the humanity of Jesus.

May we realise that, against the dark background of the corrupted humanity in this world today, we need to be those who enjoy and live by the humanity of Jesus on the positive side.

First, we need to call on the name of the Lord (2 Tim. 2:22). As we call on the name of the Lord, we partake of His humanity.

Second, we need to breathe in the breathed-out word of God to be men of God with the breath of God (3:16). We need to inhale the breath of God in the Bible.

The Bible is the breathing out of God, and we can inhale God in His word; every time we come to the Bible, may we freshly breathe in the divine breath.

Third, we need to exercise our spirit; God gave us not a spirit of cowardice but of love and of power and of sobermindedness (1:7).

When we are not in our spirit, when we don’t exercise our spirit, we are unbalanced in our thinking, wild in our emotions, and unsubdued in our will, but when we turn to our spirit, the Lord is expressed through us.

As we exercise our God-given spirit, we have a sober mind, a strong will, and a balanced emotion to express Christ.

Fourth, we need to experience Christ in our spirit; the Lord is with our spirit (2 Tim. 4:22), and we can enjoy and experience Him day by day.

Fifth, we do all this not just in ourselves but with the saints, in the Body; we pursue Christ with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart (2 Tim. 2:22).

We as God-men are not independent individuals but are part of a corporate God-man – the Body of Christ, the one new man (1 Cor. 12:12-13; Eph. 4:16; Col. 3:10-11).

So we pursue Christ with the saints, being joined to the Lord in spirit and pursuing the Lord with our companions in the Lord for the Body.

Lord Jesus, we want to be men of God with the breath of God. Amen, Lord, we exercise our spirit as we come to Your word so that Your word may become spirit and life to us! We want to breathe You in today. May we freshly breathe in the divine breath whenever we come to the Bible. Hallelujah, God has breathed Himself out in the Word, and we can exercise our spirit to breathe God in as we come to God’s word! Amen, Lord, fill us with Your breath! We want to partake of the humanity of Jesus as we come to God’s word so that we may be Jesusly human today. May we be strong to stand against the tide of this age by enjoying the humanity of Jesus! Oh Lord Jesus, we call on Your name. We pray-read Your word to be infused with Your humanity. May we apply Your humanity to our daily living and may we live even as You lived. We exercise our God-given spirit to have a sober mind, a balanced emotion, and a subdued will so that Christ may be expressed through us! Amen, Lord, we pursue You with all the saints in the Body for the building up of the church! Amen!

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 the brothers on this topic, and portions from, Life-study of Job, msgs. 33 and 37, by Witness Lee, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Noah, Daniel, and Job – Patterns of Living an Overcoming Life on the Line of Life to Fulfill the Economy of God (2026 International Chinese-Speaking Conference), week 5, God’s Intention with Job— That a Good Man Become a God-man – day 6.
• Hymns on this topic:
  – Oh, I’ll praise Thee, e’en if weeping / Mingle with my song. / Thine increasing sweetness calls forth / Grateful praises all day long. / Thou hast made Thyself more precious / Than all else to me: / Thou increase and I decrease, Lord— / This is now my only plea. / Each blow I suffer / Is true gain to me. / In the place of what Thou takest / Thou dost give Thyself to me. (Hymns #626 stanza 5 and chorus)
  – All Scripture is the very breath of God, / And by His Spirit into words was breathed; / By godly men the words were written down, / With all God’s fulness unto man bequeathed. / It is the breath of God as light to man, / With rays divine man to illuminate; / It shines in darkness and to man reveals / What is his truest need and actual state. (Hymns #799 stanzas 1-2)
  – I would inhale Thee, Lord, e’en as I breathe, / And eat and drink Thee as my life supply. / A deeper fellowship with Thee bequeath / That Thou express Thyself through me thereby. (Hymns #764 stanza 4)