The reality of the good land is Christ Himself as the divine grace, for the grace of the Lord is God in Christ as the Spirit given to us for our enjoyment to energize us, enable us, support us, and strengthen us to live Christ and minister Christ to others as grace. Amen, Hallelujah!
This week we come to the last week in the current morning revival, and the title is, Living a Life of Enjoying Christ as the Good Land with the Temple, the Dwelling Place of God, and the City, the Kingdom of God, as Its Issue.
Hallelujah, we can live such a life!
We can live a life in the enjoyment of Christ as the good land, having the temple and the city of God as the issue of our enjoyment of this all-inclusive One. Praise the Lord!
The direct issue of our daily enjoyment and experience of the all-inclusive Christ is the church as the house of God for His expression and as the kingdom of God for His dominion.
Therefore, we need to receive a lot of help for our enjoyment of Christ as grace so that we may enter into the possession of the good land and become the church as the temple of God and as the city of God.
We need to have particular experiences that are of the grace of the Lord so that God may gain His expression and representation on the earth. God created us in His image and according to His likeness, and by our enjoyment of Christ as grace, we become part of His corporate expression and representation.
The eternal purpose of God can only be fulfilled through our experience of the all-inclusive Christ.
When we are filled with this Christ, when the all-inclusive Christ fills our whole being and is saturated into us, we will come together with the saints to have an exhibition of Christ.
We will come together to a place, the place of God’s choice, in the meetings of the church on the genuine ground of oneness, and there we bring our portion of Christ to exhibit Him. Wow, Amen!
The spontaneous issue of our enjoyment and experience of Christ as grace is that we will have the church as the Body of Christ with two aspects: the temple of God and the city of God.
And the local expression of this organic Body of Christ which is universal, are the local churches, where we meet, bring our portion of Christ, and exhibit Christ.
When the rich, all-inclusive Christ wrought into us is being exhibited in the meetings of the church, God is satisfied and we are richly supplied.
At the same time, the enemy is exposed and the new ones realize that God is among us.
The Reality of the Good Land in 2 Corinthians is Christ as the Grace of the Lord with our Spirit
In the book of 1 Corinthians, we see many portions of the history of the children of Israel in the Old Testament as a type of the New Testament believers (1 Cor. 5:7-8; 10:1-13).
Most of these, however, refer to their experience before entering the good land.
Their experience of leaving Egypt, eating the Passover, crossing the Red Sea, eating the Manna in the wilderness, drinking the spiritual rock that followed them, and having God’s leading, all these are before their entrance into the good land, and they are a type of our experience of Christ.
There is, however, no reference to the good land in 1 Corinthians because, spiritually speaking, the reality of the good land is in the book of 2 Corinthians.
The reality of the good land in 2 Corinthians is Christ Himself as the divine grace.
In 1 Corinthians we see that we can experience and enjoy Christ as our Passover, be delivered from the world by baptism, eat Christ as the heavenly manna as we are following the Lord, and drink the living water from the cleft rock, but we don’t see the experience of the good land in this book.
The good land is seen in 2 Corinthians, for here we see Christ Himself as the very embodiment of the processed Triune God given to us for our enjoyment and experience – this is the grace of the Lord with our spirit. Amen!
In 2 Corinthians we see a group of people, the apostles including Paul, who enjoy the grace of the Lord in a subjective way.
The good land in 2 Corinthians is Christ Himself as the embodiment of the processed Triune God who went through incarnation, human living, crucifixion, resurrection, ascension, and descension, who has reached us as the Spirit to be the grace of the Lord with our spirit.
In 1 Corinthians we see Paul dealing with a lot of problems in the church in Corinth; the saints in this church were spiritual infants, babes, able to take only milk, and they were fleshly, even fleshy, not people who were spiritual.
They were wandering in the wilderness of their soul and lived very much in the flesh.
In 2 Corinthians, however, we see an autobiography of a person in the spirit, one who enjoys the grace of the Lord with his spirit to be the reality of the good land.
Paul was a man in the spirit; he possessed Christ and enjoyed Christ as his God-given portion.
In verse after verse, he expressed both his experience and the experience of many like him who enjoyed the grace of the Lord with their spirit to be their bountiful supply to live Christ and magnify Him.
Grace is mentioned many times in 2 Corinthians, for this book is on the grace of the Lord.
The reality of the good land in 2 Corinthians is Christ Himself as the divine grace; the grace of the Lord Jesus is the central thought and the subject of 2 Corinthians (see 2 Cor. 13:14; 1:12; 4:15; 6:1; 8:1, 9; 9:8, 14; 12:9).
In 2 Cor. 13:14, a concluding verse to this wonderful epistle, Paul says, The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.
The sequence should have been the Father first, then the Son, and then the Spirit, but since this book is on the good land as the grace of the Lord Jesus with our spirit, the grace is mentioned first.
What is the good land? In our daily experience, the good land is grace, the grace of the Lord with our spirit.
Grace is the all-inclusive Christ, the embodiment of the processed Triune God coming to us to dispense Himself into us and be wrought into us to be everything to us.
The good land is with our spirit, for the grace of the Lord Jesus is with our spirit to be our life, our life supply, our strength and power, and everything we need.
We need to come to the Lord day by day and ask Him to give us our daily portion of grace for us to have God in Christ as the Spirit as our everything for us to live Christ, magnify Christ, and minister Christ as grace to others.
Lord Jesus, we want to go on with You and be spiritual persons, those who are in their mingled spirit, to enjoy the grace of the Lord with our spirit! Amen, Lord, we do not want to wander in the wilderness of our soul anymore; we choose to turn to our spirit, live in our spirit, and enjoy the grace of the Lord! Hallelujah, the reality of the good land is Christ Himself as the divine grace, and this grace is with our spirit today! Praise the Lord for the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ with our spirit! Amen, Lord, we turn to our spirit right now. We choose to be in our spirit. We want to live in our spirit. We want to be in our spirit and have our whole being in our mingled spirit. We take You, dear Lord, as our everything. You are our life and our life supply. You are our everything. We want to live one spirit with You, enjoying the grace of the Lord with our spirit moment by moment!
Grace is God in Christ as the Spirit given to us for our Enjoyment to Enable us to Live Christ and Minister Him as Grace to others
What is grace? What is the grace of the Lord?
Many Christians think that grace is unmerited favour, something that God does for us or gives to us just because He loves us.
We have no merits, but God gives grace to us. Grace is much more than this.
In 1 Cor. 15:10 Paul said that he was what he was by the grace of God, and it was not him who laboured but the grace of God that was with him.
This grace by which he lived was Christ HImself, as he testified in Gal. 2:20 – no longer I but Christ.
No longer I but the grace of God in 1 Cor. 15:10 equals no longer I but Christ in Gal. 2:20.
The grace that motivated the apostle and operated in him was not some matter or something that God gave him or did for him.
Rather, it was a living person (John 1:16-17), the resurrected Christ who, as the embodiment of the Father (Col. 2:9; John 14:7-11) became the all-inclusive life-giving Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45; 2 Cor. 3:17) and dwelt in the apostle for his empowering enjoyment (2 Tim. 4:22; 2:1). Amen!
Grace is not only what we say before eating nor is it merely the final blessing a minister gives at the end of a Christian service.
Grace is not only something God does for us or something He gives us.
Grace is the all-inclusive Christ, the embodiment of the Triune God, being dispensed into us to be our life, our life supply, and our everything, for us to enjoy and partake of.
God doesn’t give us something called “grace” which is apart from what He is; He gives us Himself as grace for our full enjoyment so that we can be what we cannot be, do what we cannot do, and live what we cannot naturally live.
The grace of the Lord with our spirit enables us and energizes us to face all kinds of situations, meet all kinds of needs, and magnify Christ in all kinds of circumstances.
Grace is not God coming to us to save us when we’re in a pickle; it is God Himself as life and everything coming to us to dispense Himself into us to be our everything.
The grace of the Lord with our spirit is not just a gift or a help from God; it is the person of God coming to be with us and in us, to do everything for us, to supply us, and to energize us to live Christ and minister Christ as grace to others.
We conduct ourselves in the grace of God, and grace abounds in us.
We work together with God and do not receive the grace of God in vain.
The grace is given to us and to the churches, and this grace is rich toward us.
God is able to make all grace abound to us so that we may abound unto every good work.
His grace is sufficient for us, even in our sufferings and struggles, and His power is perfected in our weakness so that His power might tabernacle over us. Amen!
We may be in a situation of suffering with many limitations, and it is there that we can enjoy the good land as the grace of the Lord with our spirit.
In a difficult situation, when we’re bothered, full of suffering, and with many perplexing matters happening to us, we may naturally pray that the Lord would deliver us.
We may ask Him to do something to help us by His grace.
The more we pray for God to deliver us from such situations, the more nothing is accomplished; it is as if God is not interested in changing our environment and delivering us from suffering.
It seems that God is withholding something until we’re really disappointed, until we’re super-discouraged and we’re ready to give up.
And then, He comes in to be enjoyed by us as the grace of the Lord with our spirit.
God is not interested in delivering us from suffering or difficulties; He wants us to enjoy Him as the divine grace right there, in our troubles and difficulties.
There’s something in us called the grace of the Lord with our spirit, and this grace motivates us, operates in us, and energizes us.
Grace is God in Christ as the Spirit given to us for our enjoyment, energizing us, enabling us, supporting us, and strengthening us to face any kind of trouble.
When we enjoy God in Christ as the Spirit to be the grace of the Lord with our spirit, we can fit all situations, endure any kind of treatment, accept any kind of environment, work under any kind of condition, and take any kind of opportunity so that we may be good stewards to dispense the varied grace of God into others for the building up of the church as the house of God and the kingdom of God (1 Cor. 15:10; 2 Cor. 1:3-12; 12:7-9; 1 Pet. 4:10; Eph. 3:2). Wow!
The more we enjoy the grace of the Lord with our spirit, the more we enter into the possession of the all-inclusive Christ as the good land and thus live Christ and minister Him as grace to others.
Grace is all we need, and grace is with our spirit.
The grace of the Lord is with our spirit; this grace is simply the life-giving Spirit, the compound Spirit, even the sevenfold intensified Spirit with our spirit to supply us.
Our Christian life should be a life by the grace of God, a life by the enjoyment of the grace of the Lord Jesus with our spirit.
In all our daily living we need to simply enjoy the Lord’s grace, even the Lord as grace to us for our life and life-supply! Hallelujah!
Lord Jesus, we exercise our spirit to enjoy the grace of the Lord with our spirit! May we realize that grace is not something that God gives us or does for us but the very God Himself in Christ as the Spirit given to us for our enjoyment! Amen, Lord, we want to enjoy You as grace today. Give us today’s portion of grace. We do not ask to be delivered from our troubles, afflictions, and sufferings; we want more of Your grace. Oh Lord, your grace energizes us and enables us to live Christ. Your grace supports us and strengthens us to face any kind of trouble and fit all situations! It is only by Your grace with our spirit that we can endure any kind of treatment and accept any kind of environment. Keep us in the enjoyment of Yourself as grace so that we may be able to work under any kind of condition and take any kind of opportunity to minister and dispense grace into others! Hallelujah for the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ with our spirit! Amen, Lord, may we live a life by grace today. May Your grace fill us, reign in us, be manifested through us, and flow through us. May others see the grace of the Lord in us and may they sense the grace of God among us!
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, 1967, vol. 2, “An Autobiography of a Person in the Spirit,” ch. 10, 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 12, entitled, Living a Life of Enjoying Christ as the Good Land with the Temple, the Dwelling Place of God, and the City, the Kingdom of God, as Its Issue.
- Similar articles on this topic:
– What is Grace? Read more via, Hearing of Faith.
– We are in New Jerusalem Based on Grace, via, New Jerusalem blog.
– Christ as grace, a portion from, Autobiography of a Person in the Spirit, An, Chapter 10, by Witness Lee.
– God’s Love for Us Is Unfathomable, via, Bibles for America blog.
– The grace of Christ, a portion from, The Riches and Fullness of Christ and the Advanced Recovery of the Lord Today, Chapter 2, by Witness Lee.
– The Highest Definition of Grace, via, Living to Him.
– The grace of God in the economy of God, article via, Affirmation and Critique.
– What is the Grace of God and How Can You Enjoy It? More via, Holding to Truth in Love.
– The way to enjoy Christ as grace, a portion from, Autobiography of a Person in the Spirit, An, Chapter 10, by Witness Lee.
– The Genuine Ground of Oneness, Message 5: Enjoying Christ with God on the Ground of Oneness, a video message via LSM youtube. - Hymns on this topic:
– Grace in its highest definition is / God in the Son to be enjoyed by us; / It is not only something done or giv’n, / But God Himself, our portion glorious. / God is incarnate in the flesh that we / Him may receive, experience ourself; / This is the grace which we receive of God, / Which comes thru Christ and which is Christ Himself. (Hymns #497 stanzas 1-2)
– Grace! ’tis a charming sound, / Harmonious to the ear; / Heav’n with the echo shall resound, / And all the earth shall hear. / All sufficient grace! / Never powerless! / It is Christ who lives in me, / In His exhaustlessness. (Hymns #312 stanza 1 and chorus)
– Lord, Thy love is the expression / Of Thy loving self divine, / Making life so full of meaning, / Harmonized with God’s design. / Grace of life, how all-sufficient, / Is my portion day by day; / I’m the object of Thy favor / And Thy sweetness taste alway. (Hymns #152 stanza 3)
About aGodMan
The Riches and Fullness of Christ and the Advanced Recovery of the Lord Today, Chapter 2, by Witness Lee
The reality of the good land is Christ as grace to us, as seen in the book of 2 Corinthians.
Grace is not merely something that God does for us or gives to us; grace is God in Christ as the Spirit given to us for our enjoyment, energizing us, enabling us, supporting us, and strengthening us to face any kind of trouble, to fit all situations, to endure any kind of treatment, to accept any kind of environment, to work under any kind of condition, and to take any kind of opportunity to minister Christ as grace into others for the building up of the church.
Living a Life of Enjoying Christ as the Good Land with the Temple, the Dwelling Place of God, and the City, the Kingdom of God, as Its Issue
Praise the Lord! 😃🙌🙋🏼
https://www.hymnal.net/en/hymn/h/497
brother, we need to see that grace is not some thing or power but a living person.
It is God in Christ as the All-Inclusive Spirit enjoyed by us.
It was such grace which motivated and empowered Paul to no longer live to Himself but live by another life – the Son of God – and to labour more abundantly than the other apostles.
It is such grace, when enjoyed by us which energises, enables us to face any trouble, fit any kind of situation, environment and endure any kind of mistreatment to be stewards dispensing such grace into others for the building up of the church.
Amen brother.
Grace is nothing less than Christ Himself coming into us for us to enjoy, to experience, to partake of, and to possess.
We are the most blessed people on Earth because we have someone within us who is energizing, enabling & strengthening us to do things for God’s satisfaction and for others’ edification.
May we not receive the grace of God in vain by being too idle to exercise our spirit and labour in spirit and by the Spirit so that Christ may be duplicated in us.
2 Cor. 6:1, footnote 1, Recovery Version Bible
Yes, In short, grace is God in Christ as the life-giving Spirit for our enjoyment and His satisfaction.
Wow!
Hallelujah for grace, by the grace of God, we work together with God by a life that is all-sufficient, all-mature, able to fit all situations, able to endure any kind of treatment, to accept any kind of environment, to work in any kind of condition and to take any kind of opportunity for the carrying out of their ministry!
Yes Lord,
Your Grace is Sufficient for Us.
Amen
6/10/24 Living a Life of Enjoying Christ as the Good Land with the Temple, the Dwelling Place of God, and the City, the Kingdom of God, as Its Issue (week 12, Day 1)
First Corinthians 10:1-13 is a special section of the Word, a portion written with the history of the children of Israel as the background. Paul wrote this epistle not only according to the situation at Corinth but also with the history of the children of Israel as the background. Israel is a complete type of the history of the church.
The Bible contains two histories—the history of Israel and the history of the church. The history of the children of Israel is a type, and the history of the church is the fulfillment of the type. Thus, the entire Bible gives us one revelation, the revelation of God’s economy. In the Old Testament, we have a type, an example, a picture, of God’s economy, whereas in the New Testament God’s economy is fulfilled.
There are three major types in the Bible that portray the way by which God fulfills His purpose:
1.) the good land,
2.) the temple, and
3.) the bride
The good land typifies the All-inclusive Christ, as the grace of God which is covered in 2 Corinthians, and not in 1 Corinthians.
In 1 Corinthians, Paul likened the Corinthian believers to the children of Israel in experiencing Christ as their redemption, typified by the Passover in Egypt, and as their sanctification, typfied by the heavenly manna and water for the spiritual rock in the wilderness. But there was no mention in 1 Corinthians about the good land as a type of Christ for their enjoyment. This is because spiritually speaking, the reality of the good land is covered in 2 Corinthians.
Experientially, 2 Corinthians is altogether a continuation of 1 Corinthians. After portraying redemption in Egypt and sanctification in the wilderness, according the 1 Corinthians, the entering and enjoyment of the good land is continued in 2 Corithians.
Christ, Who typifies the good land is the divine grace of God for our enjoyment. In 2 Corinthians 13:14, Paul says, “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.” Supposedly, the love of God should be mentioned first, but in this verse, the grace of the Lord is mentioned first. This is because 2 Corinthians is on the matter of the grace of Christ (2Cir 1:12; 4:15; 6:1; 8:1, 9; 9;8, 14; 12:9). The grace of the Lord is the subject of this book.
First Corinthians 15:10b also says, “…, yet not I but the grace of God which is with me.” Then, Galatians 2:20b says, “…; and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me;” These two parallel verses show us that the grace of God in 1 Corinthians 15;10b is just Christ in Galatians 2:20b.
In 2 Corinthians 12:9, the Lord said to Paul, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is perfected in weakness.” Accepting the Lord’s word, Paul went on to say in verse 9, “Most gladly therefore I will rather boast in my weaknesses that the power of Christ might tabernacle over me.” This verse reveals that the grace of Christ is the power that is made perfect in weakness.
We must all love our weaknesses because our weaknesses become the very site in which the grace of Christ as His power is perfected. If we are strong in ourselves, we cannot enjoy Christ as grace. In order to enjoy Christ as grace, we must be weak persons. The weaker we are, the more we will realize the sufficient grace that constantly strengthens us into the inner man (Eph 3:16).
Grace is not the outward material blessing that we received as something given to us by God, but grace is the living Person of our Lord Jesus Christ Who has been given freely to us by God (John 1:14, 17). Grace is Christ Himself Who embodies God with all His riches and Who indwells our regenerated spirit to be enjoyed by us. Christ as grace energizes us, enables us, and strengthens us.
Listen to the audio version of this article via,
Youtube:
https://youtu.be/EYtIMeINdwg
Rumble:
https://rumble.com/v50pv1e-grace-is-god-in-christ-as-the-spirit-for-our-enjoyment.html
[HWMR-Week 12 Day 1]
Amen! The good land is Christ Himself given to us as the divine grace for our enjoyment.
I think I may have shared this before… but I will so again at the risk of being redundant. And if I am redundant then let my redundancies be of Him. Amen.
Many years ago, when I was a new one, I asked the Lord in my confusion, “What is Grace? What is mercy?” He answered me with just 4 words: “Grace is mercy seen.” This has sustained me all these years. For what else could Grace be but Christ Himself, God seen by man. Mercy personified.
He more recently told me that “Mercy saves us but Grace holds our hand.” I particularly enjoy that… Jesus holding my hand.
I am so encouraged that so many see that Grace is nothing less than Jesus Christ Himself. It is His coming to us and our receiving Him, taking His hand. May we all enjoy His Grace, day by day, within our Spirit, which overcomes our souls to be enjoyed as the good land. Amen.
Hallelujah!
The grace of the Lord is within us, strengthening us, energising us and enabling us to face all kinds of environments.
Ameeen!!!
To live a Life of enjoying Christ as the good land is to enjoy the all-inclusive, all-sufficient divine grace! Such grace is the reality of the good land. Such grace enables us to live an all-fitting life.