The culture within us is spontaneously replaced by the Christ whom we enjoy, experience, and gain.
As believers in Christ who have received Christ, we should not allow culture to be a substitute for Him; rather, we need to enjoy Christ, experience Christ, and live Christ, learning in a practical way to take Christ as our life and person to replace our culture.
We should simply not allow anything of our culture to be a substitute for Christ.
We can never change our culture, and we shouldn’t just “drop our culture” when we hear that culture is versus Christ.
We are born in a particular family, we grew up with a particular culture, we acquired particular habits, we eat a particular kind of food, and we behave in a particular way. We have certain inclinations concerning a certain food and taste, and we shouldn’t try to change our taste, drop our culture, or change the way we are.
Rather, we should simply focus on enjoying Christ, living Christ, and experiencing Christ, until He in us becomes the all-inclusive, extensive Christ who replaces every part of our culture with Himself.
For us to live in the new man, we should not allow our culture to become a substitute for Him.
It is one thing to say that we are against culture and we condemn culture, and it is another thing to allow Christ to replace our culture with Himself.
It is not merely about the Korean saints dropping their love for Korean food and the Chinese saints giving up Chinese food; this shouldn’t be the result of our seeing that culture is a substitute for Christ.
We are who we are; we are born with a certain kind of innate nature but by the Lord’s mercy and under His light, we do not allow that particular culture to be a hindrance or a substitute for Christ.
For example, when we are allowed to meet together, we may meet with some saints that are of a different nationality and background from us; we may want to go out to eat a meal, and it is then that we should not insist on our favorite food, on the food that we usually eat.
Rather, we should simply live Christ. We are not in a movement of “changing your culture” or “eliminate your culture”; we are not here to drop our culture or hate our culture.
Rather, we are here to enjoy Christ, see Christ, take Him as our center and life, and take Him as our person for the one new man. As we have received Christ Jesus the Lord, may we walk in Him, having been rooted and grounded in Him.
Hallelujah, we have received Christ Jesus the Lord, we have been rooted in Him, we are grounded in Him, and now we need to walk in Him.
As we walk in Christ by living Christ, we will not express our culture but Christ, we will not live out our culture but live Christ, and we will shine out not with our own righteousness but with Christ as our everything.
May we put off the old man and put on the new man so that we may be the ones who live the one new man in reality! Amen!
May we be those who enjoy Christ, eat Christ, live Christ, and express Christ, so that He would replace our culture with Himself.
Realizing that our Culture Limits our Enjoyment and Experience of Christ and Seeking to Gain Christ and Enjoy Him more
Every kind of culture is versus Christ, and Christ is versus every kind of culture. In Col. 3:10-11 we see that in the new man there cannot be Jew and Greek (racial differences and religious differences), slave or free man (difference in social status), and barbarian or Scythian (differences of cultural background and education), but Christ is all and in all. Hallelujah!
All these cultural differences are here to divide us; if we are not careful, if we are not Christ-centered, we will be divided.
Any culture – no matter what kind of culture is – is versus Christ. Apart from Christ, everything we have and every product and development are part of culture.
We shouldn’t justify our culture, saying that our culture is definitely not as bad as others’ culture; rather, we should realize under the Lord’s light that our culture limits our enjoyment and experience of Christ.
The factor that limits the expansion of the enjoyment of Christ is culture; spontaneously, the culture within us keeps us from the real experience of Christ.
We see this with Paul who, in Phil. 3:3-9 shows us a list of his achievements: he was a Pharisee of Pharisees, of the tribe of Benjamin, circumcised on the eighth day, an authentic Jew (not a fake one), keeping the law, being perfect and blameless.
All these show us that he had an impressive resume: what a man he was, with such a high and refined culture, even religion, according to the tradition of man; he was the man of man.
But when he met Christ, he realized that all those things had to be counted as loss, for they hindered him from enjoying Christ and gaining Christ.
When we meet Christ, when we enjoy Christ, when we really touch Christ, we will realize how much our culture limits the expansion of the enjoyment of Christ, and for the Lord’s sake, we will drop anything that replaces Him.
When we do not exercise our preference in the food we eat and the things that we do when we are with others, but we take their way and go along with them, we can keep the oneness.
Because we love the Lord, we enjoy Him, we are filled with Him, and He is everything to us, we can just live Christ and allow Him to replace our culture with Himself.
Apart from Christ, whatever we are and whatever we do is related to culture in some way. Even the most uncultured person has culture, and this culture hinders him from enjoying the Lord and advancing in the growth in life.
Apart from Christ, every human product and development is part of culture.
It is to no avail simply to decide to drop our culture; even our dropping our culture apart from Christ can become a culture in itself.
Instead of endeavoring to drop our culture, we should simply come to the Lord in His word, seek to see a vision of the all-inclusive, extensive Christ, and just enjoy this One.
We are not here being concerned with culture – we are here concerned with Christ, with the experience and enjoyment of Christ!
When our focus is our enjoyment of Christ and experience of Christ, we will simply drop everything else and focus on Him.
All the factors of our culture limit Christ and our experience of Christ, but when we focus on Him and enjoy Him, we simply drop and give up anything that replaces Him.
Lord Jesus, we come to enjoy You, be filled with You, and be saturated with You. We want to pursue enjoying You and experiencing You more and more. May nothing hold us back from enjoying You. We love You so much, dear Lord, and we put aside anything else that would substitute You in us. Amen, Lord, shine on us. Bring us into a deeper enjoyment and experience of You. We want to pay the price to gain the excellency of the knowledge of Christ. Nothing else matters to us, Lord, except to gain You and be found in You. May nothing limit the expansion of the enjoyment of Christ.
When our Entire Inward Capacity is made Available to Christ, the Culture within us will be Replaced by Christ
Because our culture hinders us from experiencing Christ and enjoying Christ, we are very burdened by the Lord that both us and all the saints in the Lord’s recovery may learn in a practical way to take Christ as their life and person to replace their culture (Eph. 3:17a; Col. 3:4).
The Lord has come into us to be our life and person, but do we take Him as our life and as our person for the one new man, or do we still live as we used to, with a little improvement in our behavior to meet some Christian standards? Oh, Lord Jesus!
When the Lord shines on us concerning our daily living and our meeting life, we will realize that our culture hinders us from experiencing, enjoying, and living Christ, and our need is to take Christ as our life and person so that He may replace our culture.
The Lord is not satisfied only with the spread of the Lord’s recovery to all the six continents and to many of the major cities in the countries around the world; merely having a gathering of believers from different cultures, backgrounds, colors, and nations doesn’t meet the Lord’s need.
We may all read the same ministry, enjoy the same up-to-date speaking, but we may still live the same way as before, and we may not live Christ.
What the Lord wants is that all the room within us would be given to Christ. When our entire inward capacity is made available to Christ, spontaneously the culture within us will be replaced by Christ.
Merely dropping our culture without having Christ fill us and replace it will lead to terrible things; but when Christ comes in, when we give HIm the full ground in our being, He will occupy all the ground within us and will replace culture with Himself.
As we live toward the end of this age, our enjoyment and experience of Christ need to increase for the church as the one new man.
We should not allow our naturally born life in us to hinder our living of Christ, our enjoyment of Christ, and our living in the Body of Christ.
Rather, may we realize our urgent need that the Lord would deliver us from our culture by living Christ so that, when we come together, we would not just be a gathering of diverse believers but we would all truly live Christ.
When all the room in our being is given to Christ, we will no longer live our Ghanaian culture, our Nigerian culture, our Chinese culture, our American culture, our British culture, our German culture, or whatever our culture is; we will simply live Christ for the one new man.
In Christ we have the liberty to set aside our culture in order to enlarge our capacity to enjoy the Lord; all the room within us must be given over to Christ.
May we learn to empty ourselves, open to the Lord, and make available all our inward capacity to Christ, so that spontaneously, the culture within us will be replaced by Christ – the Christ who dwells in us (Col. 1:27; 3:10-11).
The Lord has to enlarge our capacity; we need to learn to enter into the church life, mingle with the saints, blend with the saints, and not be conscious of our culture but focus on enjoying Christ, experiencing Christ, and living Christ.
And when we meet with the saints, we simply need to let Christ live in us; He will blend us with the saints, and we will see no difference between the saints, for all of them are the saints – they are excellent in Christ, and there is no one higher or lower.
And when we return home from the meeting, may the Lord save us from living as we used to live, in our own culture; may we live according to Christ, taking Him as our everything. It is good to tell the Lord with all honesty,
Dear Lord Jesus, we want to be taken over, occupied, and possessed by You. We give You our full capacity. We open every room in our being to You. Dear Lord, we don’t want to be limited or frustrated in our experience of You. May nothing hinder our enjoyment and experience of Christ. We just want to enjoy You without any limitation, restriction, or confinement. Lord, we just want You! We want to live by You and not by any kind of culture. We open to You, dear Lord, and we empty ourselves before You; fill us, occupy us, saturate us, and live in us the kind of life that You want for the church as the one new man!
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Sources of inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message by James Lee for this week, and portions from, Life-study of Colossians, pp. 306-311 (Witness Lee), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, The All-Inclusive, Extensive Christ Replacing Culture for the One New Man (2020 Thanksgiving Conference), week 2, Living the All-inclusive, Extensive Christ instead of Our Culture.
- Hymns on this topic:
– I am crucified with Jesus, / And He lives and dwells with me; / I have ceased from all my struggling, / ’Tis no longer I, but He. / All my will is yielding to Him, / And His Spirit reigns within; / And His precious blood each moment / Keeps me cleansed and free from sin. (Hymns #564)
– Glory! Glory! Live by Christ today! / Glory! Walk in Spirit and obey! / Failure turns to vict’ry, / Sighing turns to song! / Glory! Glory! Live by Christ today! (Hymns #1356)
– Oh, Christ in all His glory put on humanity / So He could be my Person, and live instead of me. / A man in life and being, He fully fits my case, / So all His glorious Person can me replace. / O Lord, O Lord, You are the man for me! / I take You as my Person, as my full identity. / O Lord, O Lord, subdue my every part, / And every moment, every place, make home in all my heart. (Hymns #1177)
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