As believers in Christ, we need to come to the Lord with all our toils and burdens and He will give us rest, and we need to take His yoke upon us, being submissive to do the Father’s will even as He did, for Christ’s life of submission is ours.
God desires to bring us into the full enjoyment of the all-inclusive Christ as the reality of the good land; He wants us to enter into the Sabbath rest to enjoy Christ with God in spirit.
In Isa. 30:15 it says that in returning and rest we will be saved, and in quietness and in trust will be our strength.
Every day we need to enjoy Christ as our quietness; Christ in our spirit is quietness, and though there are a lot of things going on in our environment, we are not disturbed within but we contact the Lord and He gives us rest and peace.
We need to remember that Christ is the quietness in our spirit; in the midst of our situations, though there may be a hurricane swirling very violently around us, we stay in the eye of the hurricane, calmly and quietly enjoying the Lord.
If we enjoy Christ as our quietness and our trust, we will take Him as the One who trusted in God in His humanity, and the issue is that Christ becomes our strength.
In Luke 10:38-42 we see the story of the Lord visiting Martha and Mary; Martha received the Lord in her home, and as Mary sat at the Lord’s feet listening to His word, Martha was very busy preparing many things.
So Martha asked the Lord that Mary would also go help her, but the Lord told Martha, who was drawn about with many things, that Mary has chosen the best part.
Before we can serve God, we need to first sit at the Lord’s feet to enjoy Him.
We first need to sit at the Lord’s feet to be infused with Him, and it is through His word that He infuses us with His burden and with His direction for us to serve.
May we not be troubled and anxious, being drawn about with so many things to do for the Lord, but rather go into the inner quietness and peace in our spirit, where we can hear what the Spirit speaks to the churches, hearing how the Spirit directs us and infuses us with the Lord’s burden.
May we not be distracted from the one thing in God’s economy, which is Christ as the Spirit in our spirit!
May we not get distracted from Him as the all-inclusive, life-giving Spirit in our spirit! May we be like Mary, choosing the better part by sitting at the Lord’s feet and listening to His word as the precursor for our service.
As we quiet our inner being and listen to the Lord’s word, we are infused with His burden and we can serve Him not in ourselves or by ourselves but serve God by our spirit, and we serve with God, by God, in God, and through God.
We Copy the Lord in Spirit by Taking His Yoke – God’s Will – and Toiling for God’s Economy
In 1 Pet. 2:21 we are told that Christ has left us a model so that we may follow in His steps.
This word “model” refers to a writing copy, an underwriting used by the students to trace letters and thereby learn to draw them properly.
The Lord Jesus has set His suffering life before us so that we can copy it by tracing and following His steps.
He lived a submissive life to the Father, He took the Father’s will as His yoke, and He never did His own will; such a life is now before us for us to copy not in an outward way but in spirit.
We shouldn’t merely try to outwardly imitate the Lord and His life but become a reproduction of Him that comes from enjoying Him as grace in our sufferings, so that He Himself as the indwelling Spirit would reproduce Himself in us.
God doesn’t want imitation – He wants a reproduction of His Firstborn Son; we need to take Christ as our model and become His reproduction by living Him out.
God in Christ as the Spirit wants to reproduce Himself in us; as we experience Him as grace in the midst of our sufferings, He lives in us the same kind of life.
We need to copy the Lord in our spirit by taking His yoke – which is the will of the Father – and toil for God’s economy.
Christ as the first God-man is the Head of the Body, the prototype; He is the model, and we are part of the corporate expression of Christ, the reproduction of Christ.
He came as one grain of wheat, and through death and resurrection He has been multiplied to produce many grains (John 12:24).
Christ as the one grain was the prototype, and we as the many grains are the mass production; we are the duplication of the model.
When we read the gospels and exercise our spirit to pray God’s word into us, we are infused with the model of the Lord’s life, with the God-man living that our Lord had.
His life of submission to the Father and of taking the Father’s will as His will is infused into us as we pray over the word of God.
Christ is the prototype to produce a mass production and the mode to produce the many duplications.
The Lord was meek; He didn’t resist His opponents but took the Father’s will as His yoke. The Lord was lowly; He humbled Himself among men in His heart.
He calls us to come to Him in our heart and even come to Him bodily (Matt. 11:28).
We need to come to Him with our entire being; as Paul says in Rom. 12:1, we have to present our bodies to the Lord as a living sacrifice.
May we be those who copy the Lord in our spirit by taking His yoke – the will of God – and toil for God’s economy according to His model.
May we learn from Him not in an outward way but inwardly, taking the will of God as our yoke. God’s will has to yoke us, and we have to put our neck into this yoke.
According to the Lord, His yoke is easy and His burden is light; so we need to come to the Lord again anda gain, bringing all our toils and burdens to Him, and receiving from Him real rest and satisfaction.
Only when we come to the Lord again and again can we have rest in our soul; He can give us real rest and true satisfaction for our soul, and in Him and by Him we can copy Christ in spirit by taking His yoke upon us and toiling for God’s economy.
Lord Jesus, thank You for setting up a model before us for us to copy in spirit. We want to copy You not in an outward way by imitating You outwardly but in our spirit by taking Your yoke – God’s will – and toiling for God’s economy according to Your model. Amen, Lord, we come to You with all our toils and burdens; give us rest for our souls. We want to learn from You, for You are meek and lowly in heart. May there be much learning of You in our daily life, and may we enjoy Your rest and satisfaction as we take Your yoke upon us and toil for God’s economy one with You and in You!
Christ has Given us His life of Submission; we Learn of Him and God Operates in us the Willing and the Working
The Lord was submissive and obedient to the Father throughout His life; He has given us His life of submission and obedience (Phil. 2:5-11; Heb. 5:7-9).
How can we submit to the Father and obey Him? We may think that we need to muster up submission and try our best to submit to the Father, and then God will appreciate our effort; however, we need to realize that, as believers in Christ, we were given the Lord’s life of submission.
Christ’s life of obedience to the Father and submission to the Father’s will is in us; we need to consecrate ourselves to the Lord by opening to Him and allow Him to live this life in us.
We may even tell the Lord, Lord, I take You as my submission to the Father!
In submission there is power; if we want to enjoy Christ as the power of God, we need to enjoy Him as our life of submission.
The Lord learned obedience through the things which He has suffered; as we pass through things, we need to tell the Lord, Lord, I want to learn You as my obedience. I want to learn Your life of obedience.
The divine life in our spirit is a life of submission and obedience. We need to practice day by day to open to the Lord with short and living prayers, telling Him,
Lord, be my absolute submission to God today! Be my uttermost satisfaction with God! I want not only to be satisfied with God but be one with You to be utterly satisfied with God! Amen!
On one hand we need to learn Christ in His life of submission; on the other hand, God is doing in us that which is well-pleasing in His sight through Jesus Christ so that we may be able to do His will (Heb. 13:20-21).
It is God who operates in us both the willing and the working for His good pleasure (Phil. 2:13).
It is not us by ourselves that need to be submissive to God and take the yoke of His will upon us; it is God who operates in us both the willing and the working.
God is shepherding us and perfecting us for the doing of His will; many times we are not willing, but He operates in us, and we may even tell Him,
Lord, You see I am not willing, so please make me willing to live out Your life of submission! Operate in me both the willing and the working for Your good pleasure!
Christ submitted Himself fully to the will of His Father; He didn’t want to do anything for Himself, neither did He expect to gain anything for Himself; hence, regardless of the situation He was in, He had rest in His heart, and He was fully satisfied with the Father’s will.
The Lord’s yoke is the Father’s will, and His burden is the work of carrying out the Father’s will; such a yoke is easy – not bitter, and such a burden is light – not heavy.
When we are in the Father’s will, we feel easy within, for His burden is light. Sometimes there’s a heaviness in our being or in our service, so we need to have a turn in the way we serve and live.
This word “easy” in Greek means “fit for use”; the Lord’s yoke is good, mild, kind, gentle, easy, and pleasant, in contrast to harsh, sharp, and bitter.
If we take the Lord’s yoke – the will of the Father – upon us and learn from Him, we will find rest for our souls.
The yoke of God’s economy is like this – everything in God’s economy is not a heavy burden but an enjoyment!
May we give ourselves to enjoy the Lord and learn from Him, and may we cooperate with the inner operating God to live out Christ’s life of submission in us!
May we remain under the Lord’s dispensing day by day, and may we carry out the stewardship of the grace of God by ministering Christ to others!
Lord Jesus, we want to learn from You, for You are meek and lowly in heart. Thank You for dispensing Your life of submission into us; we want to live not by our human life but by Your divine life, the life of obedience and submission to the Father. Thank You God for operating in us both the willing and the working for Your good pleasure. Operate in us today, Lord, and cause us to be willing to live the Lord’s life of submission. Amen, Lord, we want to cooperate with Your operation in us by being willing to live Christ’s life of submission, taking the Father’s yoke to accomplish God’s economy under the divine dispensing!
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Sources of inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message by Ed Marks for this week, and portions from, Collected Works of Witness Lee, 1994-1997, vol. 3, “The God-man Living,” chs. 12-13, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, The Will of God (2020 spring ITERO), week 7, Taking the Lord’s Yoke (the Father’s Will) upon Us and Learning from Him to Find Rest for Our Souls.
- Hymns on this topic:
– Now I share Thy human life, Lord, / Filled with Thy humanity, / All of Thy complete obedience / Is available to me. (Hymns #474)
– In such a fellowship / Thou, Lord, art grace to me; / My heart and spirit gladdened, filled, / I enter rest in Thee. (Hymns #812)
– As we eat Thyself, Lord Jesus, / Consecrated we become; / By Thy wondrous life within us, / Thy obedience is our own. / No more need we strive and struggle, / Consecrated try to be; / Consecration dwells within us— / Now our part to eat of Thee. (Hymns #1138)
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