Eat and Experience Christ as Barley and Feed Others with our Experience of Christ

In ourselves, we cannot meet our needs, but within us we have Christ as a barley loaf, a portion of the unlimited resurrected Christ, and He can meet our needs and produce a surplus; as long as we eat Him and experience Him, we can feed ourselves and also feed others by what we have experienced of Christ. Amen!

Thank the Lord for the good land – the all-inclusive Christ given to us as our portion.

The first two items in this land are wheat and barley; this land is a land of wheat and barley.

In His wisdom, the Lord mentions wheat first, and then barley. If we look at the New Testament to see what do wheat and barley represent, we will be very encouraged.

Wheat is a type of the incarnated, crucified, and buried Christ, and barley is a type of the resurrected Christ.

On one hand, when the Lord Jesus became a man, He was limited, constrained, and under a lot of limitations and constraints.

On the other hand, He did not complain nor did He speak out against these limitations; rather, He lived by the divine life, the resurrection life of Christ, to express God.

Christ was satisfied with the Father, for He spent time with the Father and took the Father as His source.

We can never understand fully what happened at the time of the Lord’s incarnation, but we do know that the infinite God became a finite man.

The One who was not limited by time or space became a finite man who was limited by time and space.

Even more, those around Him limited Him, constrained Him, and pressed Him.

However, He did not fight back nor did He seek to escape the limitation; rather, He was willing to be limited, even willing to die and be buried.

The Lord Jesus went to the cross willingly. No one had to force Him; He willingly chose the cross, the cup that the Father gave Him, and He received the baptism of His death.

He knew that, even though He had to go through the highest pain imaginable to man, the death of the cross, there was resurrection that followed.

Christ in His incarnation, death, and burial is the reality of the grain of wheat.

Then, in His resurrection Christ became a life-giving Spirit – He became the resurrected Christ who is unlimited and powerful.

He is the most powerful One: He overcame the power of death, and He came back to life. Wow!

The barley signifies the resurrected Christ.

Christ is the firstfuits of resurrection, and in His resurrection, He is unlimited and powerful.

Wheat and barley are types of Christ for our experience.

We can experience Christ as the wheat in our limiting situations, and as we remain under the restrictions and limitations, we apply Him as the reality of barley.

The power of resurrection is in us, for the resurrected Christ as the life-giving Spirit is one with our spirit.

Praise the Lord, we can experience and enjoy Christ as the reality of the good land, a land of wheat and barley!

We Can’t meet our Needs but a Portion of the Unlimited Resurrected Christ is in us to Meet our Needs and Produce a Surplus!

We need to come to the Lord in His word regarding the intrinsic significance and practical application of all the features and items of the good land, for the good land is a complete type of the all-inclusive Christ for our experience.

When we experience the all-inclusive Christ with His unsearchable riches, we are built up to be the Body of Christ for His corporate expression and we’re formed as the army of God to fight for His interests on the earth.

The barley is mentioned in the New Testament in a few places, especially in John 6.

There was a great need for food for so many people, and there were only five loaves of barley and two fish; what could these do for such a great crowd, five thousand men besides women and children?

Today we have a great need; we have many needs, and we realize again and again that we cannot meet our needs.

Especially in this modern world where there’s an app for this and for that, where you can try to find a technological solution for so many problems, and where solving problems is the main function of many people, we need to realize that we cannot meet our needs in ourselves.

We may be able to temporarily meet a need, but the real needs cannot be met by ourselves and in ourselves.

We are limited. We’re limited both in knowledge and ability, and we’re limited in time and space.

We need someone else; we need Christ.

Though we cannot meet the need in ourselves, we need to realize that within us there’s a barley loaf.

There is a portion of the unlimited resurrected Christ in our spirit, and He can meet our needs.

Christ is the resurrection and the life, and whoever believes into Him, even if he should die, shall live (John 11:25).

In John 11 there was a great need – Lazarus just died, and the Lord Jesus came to visit him and his sisters.

In the midst of this need, where death was very present, the Lord Jesus came as resurrection life not only to raise Lazarus from the dead but even more, to impart His resurrection life into His believers.

May we be delivered from our knowledge, our empty knowledge and vain concepts concerning what the Lord should have done and may we turn to Him and take Him as our resurrection life.

We need to apply Christ as the unlimited resurrected One in us. We need to remember that Christ is in us, and we need to apply Him.

Especially as we grow up and more and more responsibilities are put on us, as we raise a family and we have to meet so many needs, we need to realize that only the resurrected Christ in us can meet our needs and can meet the needs of those around us.

Praise the Lord, within us, there’s a barley loaf, a portion of the unlimited resurrected Christ, and this One can meet every need!

Even more, He can produce a surplus to meet others’ needs as well.

The resurrected Christ is the loaf of barley, and nothing can hinder Him or limit Him.

As seen in Judges, with Gideon and the dream that one of the Midianites had, if we eat Christ as the barley loaf we also become a loaf of barley rolling over the camp of the enemy.

May we eat Christ as the barley and may we become one with Him to meet others’ need by feeding them with Christ as the resurrected One.

May we experience Christ as the unlimited resurrected One, and may we allow Him to meet our needs today.

Lord Jesus, we come to You to enjoy You and experience You as the barley loaf. We acknowledge that, in ourselves, we cannot meet our needs. We cannot meet our needs in ourselves, but praise the Lord, there’s a barley loaf within us! Hallelujah, the unlimited resurrected Christ is in our spirit to meet our every need and even to produce a surplus to meet others’ needs! Amen, Lord, we open to You. We come to enjoy You. We want to apply You as the resurrected Christ, the One who can meet our every need. We take You as the loaf of barley and we eat You. We partake of what You are. You are the resurrection life and resurrection power in us. Nothing can hinder You. Nothing can limit You. We are so hindered and limited, but You are in us, and You are full of life and resurrection power. We want to apply You as the unlimited resurrected Christ and we want to live because of You!

Eat and Experience Christ as Barley and Feed Others with our Experience of Christ

On one hand, we believers in Christ need to enjoy Christ and experience Him as a land of wheat and barley in a personal way in our daily experience.

On the other hand, if we are faithful to enjoy and experience Christ as a loaf of barley, we will have something of Christ to minister to others, and we will feed them with our experience of Christ as barley.

If we remember that Christ is barley in us, when we come to the meeting, we can apply Him as barley to feed others by our prayer or our testimony.

We may meet with a brother and, remembering that Christ is in us as the barley, we will apply Him in our fellowship with this brother.

Many times, however, we just chat with the saints; we have a good time with them, talking about the weather and other things, but we do not minister Christ to them.

When we depart, however, we feel hungry and sick from not applying Christ.

We need to grasp every situation as an opportunity for us to apply Christ.

Then, when we come to the meeting, it will be easy for us to praise the Lord or give a testimony, for we will have some loaves of barley to offer to the Lord in the meeting.

When we come to the meeting, we shouldn’t look around and see if there are some older saints who would start the meeting; we simply need to bring out our portion of Christ and share it with the saints.

We can exercise our spirit to share something of the Christ we have enjoyed, and we can offer a prayer or praise to the Lord.

Many times, however, we come to the meeting and we shrink back in fear; the enemy may accuse us by reminding us of our failures, and we may think that we don’t have much of Christ to share with others.

But we need to realize that, even if the apostle Paul would be in the meeting with us, each one of us has at least one loaf of barley, even though our brother Paul may have one hundred.

As long as we have a little bit of the resurrected Christ, we have more than enough to meet every situation.

We simply need to apply Christ as barley and then exercise our spirit to feed others with our experience of Christ as barley.

Each one of us has a responsibility when we come to the meeting; we need to share the Christ we have enjoyed and experienced.

It is together that we can apprehend with all the saints what the breadth, length and height of Christ are, and we can know the knowledge-surpassing love of God (Eph. 3:16-21).

The stewardship of the grace of God was given to us for others; we were given something of Christ, a portion of the all-inclusive Christ, for us to have something to minister to others also (Eph. 3:2).

We should not think that we are too weak; indeed, in ourselves we are weak, but in our spirit there is One who is barley, resurrection life and power.

When we come to the meeting, we can apply Christ as a loaf of barley to feed the saints around us by our prayer or by our testimony.

We need to practice this. We will be enriched by our pratice.

We should not be discouraged nor should we be silent. Our mouth shut up defeats us and wins the devil’s smile, so why not praise the Lord, pray, and testify for Him so that we chase the enemy away. Amen!

Sometimes when we come to the meeting we may feel like the little boy who has five barley loaves and two fish, and there’s a great multitude before us to be fed (John 6:9).

The Lord doesn’t want us to go and buy food for others: we need to give them something to eat (Matt. 14:16).

As long as we have the experience and enjoyment of Christ as the barley, as long as we have something of the resurrected Christ wrought into our being through our experience of Him, that is good enough – that will meet the situation.

May we believe in the resurrected Christ, apply Him, and share Him with others, and we will see that the remainder abiding in us will be even more than what we started with. Wow!

This is barley, this is the resurrected Christ. We apply the resurrected Christ, the unlimited, inexhaustible One, and He feeds us and others, and He multiplies!

On one hand, we are in limiting situations and in constraining circumstances, and it is there that we contact Christ and apply Him as the barley, the unlimited resurrected Christ in our spirit.

On the other hand, when we come together with the saints, we can share Him with others, and He feeds us and others, even being multiplied in us and in others as we minister Him to others.

Lord Jesus, we want to apply You as the barley-Christ in our experience. Remind us that You are in our spirit as the unlimited resurrected Christ, ready to impart Your resurrection life into every part of our being. Amen, Lord, keep us coming to You to enjoy and apply You as the resurrected Christ in every situation. In ourselves we cannot meet the need nor can we face the situation. But praise You, Lord, You can. We go ahead trusting wholly in You and counting wholly upon You! Amen, Lord, we exercise our spirit to contact You, enjoy You, and experience You in our daily living and in all our situations. We want to experience You as the unlimited, inexhaustible One. We exercise our spirit to eat Christ as the loaf of barley and also minister Him to others. Amen, Lord, make us those who bring out the riches of Christ we have enjoyed and experienced in the meeting to feed the saints for the building up of the church. May we learn to apply Christ and make use of the Christ we have, and may we feed others with the Christ we have experienced!

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 brother Minoru Chen in the message for this week, and portions from, Collected Works of Witness Lee, 1961-1962, vol. 4, “The All-inclusive Christ,” ch. 7, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Laboring on the All-inclusive Christ Typified by the Good land for the Building up of the Church as the Body of Christ, for the Reality and the Manifestation of the Kingdom, and for the Bride to make Herself Ready for the Lord’s Coming (2023 Winter Training), week 3, entitled, A Land of Wheat and Barley.
• Hymns on this topic:
  – O how glorious! O how holy! / God is the eternal life! / Full, unlimited, and pow’rful, / Pure, and merciful, and bright! / In this life are all His riches, / All His nature, love and light… / How mysterious, yet how real! / God Himself now flows in me! / In my heart, with me in oneness, / He has come my life to be. / Hallelujah! Hallelujah! / I will praise unceasingly! (Hymns #602 stanza 1 and 7)
  – Lord, Thy life abundant, / Flowing, rich and free, / Constantly refreshes / And empowers me. / Death by life is swallowed, / Weakness is made strong, / All my bonds are broken, / Gloom is turned to song. (Hymns #841 stanza 4)
  – This land includes so many things: / Wheat, barley, vines, deep-flowing springs, / Fig trees and never-failing bread— / O what a land before us spread! / To have the produce and abound / We daily labor on the ground; / Then to the meetings we will bring / The topmost Christ, our offering! (Hymns #1165 stanza 2 and chorus)