Christ should have the preeminence in our human living – we need to express Christ in our human living by living in the organic union with Him.
The all-inclusive, extensive Christ is preeminent in the Triune Godhead, in the economy of God, in God’s administration, and in the old and new creation; this Christ needs to become the preeminent One in us.
When we see Christ, when we see His supreme preciousness and His preeminence, we will allow Him to fill our entire being; He will then replace every aspect of our natural life with Himself.
The key is to see and allow; the Lord doesn’t force Himself on us but rather, He shines on us, He shows us who He is and what He is in God’s economy and in everything, and if we allow Him, He infuses Himself into us.
Our will is therefore very important; our will is the key. If we look at the Lord’s God-man living, we see that He was a genuine and real man; He denied His own will in order to take the divine will as His will.
The defining moment of His entire life was when He was in the garden of Gethsemane, where He realized that God’s will for Him was the cross. The Lord’s prayer was therefore, Not My will but Your will be done.
This is actually a summary of how He lived His entire life – not His will but God’s will. This shows that the Lord’s human will didn’t match the divine will at that moment, but He consciously denied His human will and consciously took the cross, which was the Father’s will.
Such a One, Jesus Christ the God-man, now lives in us and He wants to be expressed in us and through us.
We may realize that God’s desire is that Christ would have the first place in everything related to us, and we may willingly give Him the preeminence; however, there may be times when we may not agree with His will and His arrangement…even in these times we need to say, Lord, may Your will be done, not my will.
Christ and only Christ should have the preeminence in our tripartite being and in all our spiritual experiences.
Our story as believers should be a repetition and duplication of the history of the Lord, and the experience of Christ should be our history as believers in Christ.
Hallelujah, we are organically one with the Lord, for we have been grafted into Him, and all that He is becomes ours, all His experiences become our history, and our experience is of Christ and of what He is and has passed through!
Christ should have the Preeminence in our Human Living: He must be Expressed in us
At the end of the book of Colossians, in Col. 3:18-4:1, Paul was speaking concerning the human relationships such as the fathers, the wives, the husbands, the children, the masters, and the slaves.
Such exhortations can easily be taken as ethical and moral advice and we may want to practice them, but actually, all these are an expression of our living in the organic union with the Lord.
It is crucial for us as believers in Christ to realize that we are in an organic union with Christ, and our living should be His living, for He is our life and He should be expressed through us.
Christ should have the preeminence in our human living: He must be expressed in us and through us, in our human life and through our human life.
This means that we shouldn’t desire or yearn to live “an angelic life” or “live like the heavenly creatures who always praise God”; rather, wherever the Lord put us and in whatever situation we’re in, we need to give Christ the preeminence in our human living by expressing Him.
God doesn’t desire to be expressed through the angels or other spiritual beings; He desires that Christ be expressed through human life (Phil. 1:19-21).
Our living as believers in Christ must be in union with Christ; this means that in our living we need to be one with Him (1 Cor. 6:17; John 15:4-5).
Hallelujah, we are joined to the Lord as one spirit, and now we live in Him, because of Him, with Him, and by Him! We need to be one with the Lord Jesus just as He is one with the Father (John 10:30; 14:10; 6:57).
How did Christ live the Father? How did He expressed the Father all the time in His work, living, speaking, and attitude?
The key is in John 6:57, where the Lord said that the living Father sent Him and He lived because of the Father, so we who are sent by Him should eat Him and live because of Him.
This means that the Father sent the Son, and the Son lived a life of eating the Father, taking in the life-supply in the word of God, which brought Him into a continual fellowship with the Father.
As a result, Christ lived the Father and expressed the Father. This is how we should live.
We and Christ should now have one life and one living; Christ indwells us, His life becomes our life, and our living becomes His living (Gal. 2:20).
When we see a vision of the all-inclusive, extensive Christ and realize that we have been organically joined to Him, we will no longer live in and by ourselves but in Christ, in the organic union with the Lord.
The living of the believers with Christ results in the expression of Christ in their human living; this is what it means to give Christ the preeminence in our human living.
So we should do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus (Col. 3:17); this means that we should do all things in the Spirit, by the Spirit, and according to the Spirit.
The name denotes the person, and the Lord’s person is the Spirit (2 Cor. 3:17). For us to do things in the name of the Lord Jesus is for us to act in the Spirit; this is to live Christ and to give Him the preeminence in our human living.
Lord Jesus, we give You the preeminence in our human living. Live Thyself through us, Lord Jesus, for You are our very life. Thank You Lord for bringing us into an organic union with You, where Your life becomes our life and our living becomes Your living. Amen Lord Jesus, we want to eat You in Your word, be inwardly supplied in a rich way with all that You are, and live because of You! Lord, be expressed through us! May it be no longer us who live but Christ who lives in us so that He may be expressed through our human life!
Living our Human Life in the Organic Union with Christ to Express Him in our Living
In Col. 3:12 – 4:16 Paul speaks of the matter of the living of the saints in union with Christ.
First, we need to allow the peace of Christ to arbitrate in our heart (3:12-15) and let the word of Christ dwell in us richly (vv. 16-17), and then, we can live in union with Christ.
To live in union with Christ means that in our living we’re not apart from Him; rather, we abide in Him as the branches abide in the vine, for apart from Him we can do nothing (John 15:1-5).
Anything that we do apart from Christ has no value in God’s eyes; if we’re separated from the all-inclusive Christ who is joined to us as one spirit, we cannot do anything.
In our natural man we can do many things, and we’re prone to do many things even for God, but in God’s eyes what matters is what we do in union with Christ.
May we be one with the Lord in our living, and may we have our human living in the organic union with Christ so that we may express Him.
God’s desire is that He would be expressed through man, that is, that He would be expressed through our human living.
In Col. 3:18 – 4:1 and Eph. 5:22 – 6:9 we see the believers’ ethical relationships; these are not to be performed as an act or as something we strive to do, but they should be lived out in our organic union with the Lord.
In Ephesians the emphasis is on the need of having spirit-filled ethical relationships for the expression of the Body in the normal church life.
In Colossians the emphasis is that we should hold Christ as our Head and take Him as our life by having His rich word dwelling us, so that the highest ethical relationships would issue from Christ as our life to express Him.
May we be those who live in union with Christ so that Christ may be expressed through our humanity.
When we allow the peace of Christ to arbitrate in our heart and let the word of Christ dwell in us richly, we will spontaneously express Christ in our human living.
Religions such as Hinduism, Buddhism, and Catholicism estimate our human living quite low, not caring for marriage or proper family life but encouraging men to remain unmarried and aspire to “live an angelic life”.
But such an angelic life cannot express Christ; rather, Christ needs to be expressed in the husbands, the parents, the wives, the children, the masters, and the slaves.
God is sovereign in arranging whom should we marry and what children we should have, and through our living the family life we can learn many valuable lessons from the Lord.
It is easier, however, to live and express Christ in the meetings than in at home in our family life; but how wonderful it is for a brother or a sister to express Christ in their married life!
May we learn through the many experiences of our human life, family life, work life, and church life to live Christ, express Christ, and manifest Christ!
May we do all things in the name of the Lord Jesus, being one with Him so that as wives we would subject to our husbands, as husbands we would love our wives and not be bitter against them, as children we would obey our parents, as parents we would not vex our children, and as slaves we would serve our masters as we serve the Lord!
Lord Jesus, we want to remain in the organic union with You so that we may live Christ and express Christ in our human living. We allow the peace of Christ to arbitrate in our heart and we let the word of Christ dwell in us richly! Amen, Lord Jesus, we want to live our daily life in the organic union with the Lord so that we would be one with Him and have Him expressed through us. Live Yourself, Lord Jesus, through us, for You are our very life! We want to learn to abide in You and live You in our human life, our daily life, our Christian life, and in our church life!
Read this article in the Romanian language / citiți acest articol și în limba română la următorul link, Să-L savurăm pe Cristos pentru a-I absorbi bogățiile și pentru a crește cu creșterea lui Dumnezeu pentru Trup.
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message by bro. Mark Raabe for this week, and portions from, Life-study of Colossians, msgs. 29-30 (by Witness Lee), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Knowing and Experiencing the All-inclusive, Extensive Christ (2019 Thanksgiving Conference), week 3 on the topic of, The All-inclusive, Extensive Christ Having the Preeminence in All Things.
- Hymns on this topic:
– Live Thyself, Lord Jesus, through me, / For my very life art Thou; / Thee I take to all my problems / As the full solution now. / Live Thyself, Lord Jesus, through me, / In all things Thy will be done; / I but a transparent vessel / To make visible the Son. (Hymns #403)
– As the living Father has sent Me / And I live because of the Father, / So he who eats Me, / He also shall live, / Shall live because of Me, / Shall live because of Me. (Scripture song)
– If Thy mind and mine should differ, / Still pursue Thy way; / If Thy pleasure means my sorrow, / Still my heart shall answer, “Yea!” / ’Tis my deep desire to please Thee, / Though I suffer loss; / E’en though Thy delight and glory / Mean that I endure the cross. (Hymns #626)
About aGodMan
