Enjoy and Share the Rich and Sweet Christ, the Land Flowing with Milk and Honey

The good land of Canaan is a type of the all-inclusive Christ; it is a land flowing with milk and honey, for Christ is so good, so sweet, and so rich for us to enjoy, experience, partake of, and minister to one another in the church life for the building up of the church.

Oh, what a Christ we have! He is the good land given to us for our enjoyment and participation.

Just as a land is allotted to the people and the people need to build on that land and make their living there, sowing the seed, watering the plants, and caring for the crops until they are harvested, so Christ is our all-inclusive good land.

A portion of the all-inclusive Christ as the good land has been allotted to us, and each one of us needs to labour on the good land until Christ produces Himself in us and we have a surplus of Christ to bring to the meetings of the church.

How do we “labor on Christ”? What is this to labour on Christ, and where can we see this in the Bible?

We labour on Christ as the good land by exercising our heart to have faith in the Lord and to love the Lord, and by exercising our spirit to contact the Lord and receive His divine dispensing as the Spirit (2 Cor. 3:16; 13:14; Gal. 3:14).

The Spirit, the consummated, all-inclusive, life-giving, compound Spirit, is the reality of the good land, the reality of Christ.

If we want to enjoy and partake of the all-inclusive Christ today, we need to first turn our heart to the Lord and then exercise our spirit to partake of Him.

We can simply turn our hearts to the Lord right now, asking Him, Lord, I turn my heart to You. Cause my heart to turn to You!

On one hand, we turn our heart, for we initiate the process; on the other hand, we ask the Lord to cause our heart to turn to Him.

When we turn our heart to the Lord, we have faith in Him and we love Him.

With our heart to believe and love; we need to believe into the Lord and love Him so that we may be in the proper condition to enjoy the all-inclusive Christ.

We need to also exercise our spirit, the deepest part of our being, to contact the Lord as the Spirit.

We need to exercise our spirit to receive the dispensing of the all-inclusive life-giving Spirit, the reality of Christ as the good land.

Everything we need is in this Spirit. Christ is now the Spirit, and the Spirit is the reality of the good land.

When we open to the Lord, turn our heart to Him, and exercise our spirit to receive His dispensing as the Spirit, we labor on Christ as the good land to enjoy and produce His riches.

We need to do this every day and many times during the day.

And we need to take care both of our heart and of our spirit.

Sometimes we try to exercise our spirit, but our heart is not right; we need to turn our heart to the Lord first and then exercise our spirit.

When our heart is open and soft toward the Lord, we can contact Him as the Spirit and receive His divine dispensing.

It is true that we have never seen the Lord nor touched Him physically, but we can turn our heart to this wonderful unseen One, we can ask Him to turn our heart, and we can exercise our spirit to enjoy Him as the all-inclusive Christ reaching us as the life-giving Spirit.

Oh, what a Christ we have!

Enjoy Christ as a Land Flowing with Milk and Honey – He’s So Rich, So Sweet, and So Good!

When God came to Moses to commission him to go and deliver His people from Egypt and bring them into the good land, He called the good land “a good and spacious land, to a land flowing with milk and honey” (Exo. 3:8).

The land of Canaan is a land flowing with milk and honey (see Exo. 3:8, 17; 33:3; Lev. 20:24; Num. 13:27; 14:8; Deut. 6:3; 26:9, 15; 27:3; Josh. 5:6). Wow!

Yes, there are many other things there, such as wheat, barley, pomegranates, olives, cattle, mountains, rivers, etc. but the outstanding characteristic or feature of the good land is that it is flowing with milk and honey.

This is mentioned at least 18-20 times in the Old Testament.

We need to dive into the spiritual significance of the good land being a land flowing with milk and honey and see how this applies to our Christian life and church life.

The land of Canaan is a type of the all-inclusive Christ; the fact that this land is flowing with milk and honey means that our rich, all-inclusive Christ, is flowing with milk and honey for our enjoyment today.

Milk and honey are very particular items; they belong not merely to the vegetable life nor to the animal life but they are produced out of the mingling of these two lives.

Honey is produced from the flowers with the help of a little animal, the bee.

Milk is produced from the grass with the help of the cows, the sheep, and the other cattle that produce milk.

It is interesting, however, that the Holy Spirit arranges them in the Word in a particular way.

In Deut. 8:8 the honey is put together with the vegetable life, for it is listed among the wheat, the barley, the vines, the fig trees, the pomegranate, the olive trees, and the honey.

In Deut. 32:14 the Holy Spirit puts the milk with the animals: the cattle, the flock, the milk, and the butter.

We may not know why this is so, but it seems that the honey is mostly related to plant life while the butter is mostly related to the animal life.

Both milk and honey are a product of the mingling and cooperation of animal life with vegetable life, and both are good, rich, and sweet.

Milk is a product of both animal life and vegetable life, but it belongs mainly to the animal life; it is produced from grazing in the pasture (vegetable life) by the cattle and the flock (animal life).

We all love to drink the milk, which is very healthy for the human body and its development, and honey is so sweet, even the sweetest.

Our Christ as the reality of the good land is the all-inclusive One flowing with milk and honey.

When we enjoy Him as the wheat, the barley, the pomegranates, the olives, and the cattle, we will have a sense of how rich, how good, and how sweet He is.

He is not only this or that: He is so rich, so good, and so sweet!

When we enjoy Christ as the One crucified, resurrected, ascended, flowing, and nourishing us, we have the deep sense that He is so rich and so sweet.

How sweet and how good our Lord is!

Paul tasted Him as such a One, for he preached the riches of Christ as the gospel.

And we can testify that, when we come to the Lord to enjoy Him, He is not small or limited in what He gives to us and what He is to us: He is a spacious land, full of riches, and so sweet and so good!

Our Christ is flowing with milk and honey, and we can enjoy Him.

On one hand, He is experienced by us in many ways and in many situations and in many aspects, and we have a fine and balanced experience of Christ.

On the other hand, He is a land flowing with milk and honey, full of goodness, full of sweetness, and full of riches.

Especially as we come together with the saints and enjoy Him corporately, we can all testify how good, how rich, and how sweet He is.

May we see, know, enjoy and experience Christ as such a One in our daily life, and may we bring the sweetness, richness, and goodness of Christ to the meetings of the church to share with the saints for the building up of the church!

Lord Jesus, we want to enjoy You as a spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey! Amen, Lord, we come to You today. We turn our heart to You and we exercise our spirit to partake of Your riches. You are so rich! You are so good! You are so sweet! We give up all other things and we do not partake of the things in the world because You are so good and so sweet. Oh, how we love to come to spend time with You in Your word so that we may enjoy Your riches and Your goodness! How we love to come and meet with the saints to corporately enjoy the all-inclusive Christ flowing with milk and honey! Praise the Lord, Christ is so sweet, so good, and so rich! Amen, Lord, keep us enjoying Your sweetness, Your goodness, and Your riches. May we all be partakers, enjoyers, of the all-inclusive Christ as the good land flowing with milk and honey.

Bringing the Rich and Sweet Christ we Enjoyed to the Meetings for a Rich Exhibition of Christ

Just as all the people of Israel had to go, take the land, settle in the land, labour on the land, enjoy the riches of the land, and gather together to enjoy a feast with the Lord, so we in the church life need to do the same spiritually.

It is not only some of the saints who should enjoy the riches, goodness, and sweetness of Christ, while the others are languishing in the land.

We all need to come to the Lord, enjoy Him, and partake of His riches, His sweetness, and His goodness, enjoying Him as a land flowing with milk and honey.

We need to enjoy Him to such an extent that we have an overflow, a surplus, an extra portion that we can bring to the meetings of the church.

Before coming to the meeting, we should prepare ourselves for the meetings with something of the sweetness and goodness of Christ we have enjoyed and experienced.

When we come together, each one has a portion of Christ to share with others, and we need to bring the Christ we have enjoyed and experienced to the meeting of the church for a rich exhibition of Christ (1 Cor. 14:26).

Daily, we need to experience Christ and enjoy Him in His word, and we need to fellowship with Him in prayer.

In this way, we labour on Christ and obtain some of the riches of Christ.

Then, when we come to the meeting, we shouldn’t wait for an inspiration or the “moving of the Spirit”; rather, we should exercise our spirit and use our trained mind to function in the meeting!

There must be milk and honey under our tongue, ready to drip and be dispensed to the saints for their nourishment and enjoyment.

May we learn to not only enjoy the Lord as the rich and sweet one but also prepare something of what we have enjoyed to share with others in the meetings of the church for the building up of the church.

To do this, we need to use both our exercised spirit and our trained mind.

Our spirit needs to be used because everything we do and say should be in spirit.

Our mind, however, also needs to be used, for it needs to be trained, renewed, and saturated with the Lord as the word.

In this way, when we enjoy Christ personally and then bring Him to the church meetings, we can share something of the goodness, richness, and sweetness of Christ, and the saints can be edified, supplied, and nourished.

This builds up the church.

If we all partake of the riches of Christ and enjoy Him as a land flowing with milk and honey, we will have something of the Christ we enjoyed and experienced that is ready to overflow and supply others.

When we all learn to do this, when we all not only personally enjoy and experience Christ as the good land but also corporately function by sharing the riches of Christ we have enjoyed one with another, the meetings will be full of the riches of Christ.

The meetings will be a rich exhibition of the riches of Christ.

Each meeting will be a mutual enjoyment of Christ shared by all the saints before God and with God for the building up of the saints and the church.

May this be our reality and experience today in the church life.

May we be those who function in this way, bringing the riches of Christ we have enjoyed and experienced to the meetings of the church for the corporate enjoyment of Christ and the worship of God with all the saints.

Dear Lord Jesus, we love You! We come forward to You to enjoy You and partake of Your riches. Oh, Lord, You are so rich, so sweet, and so good! All our needs, You meet. All our desires You exceed. We love to be in Your presence to enjoy You and partake of what You are. Keep us in the enjoyment of Your riches today. Keep our being open to You, always in fellowship with You, so that we may be infused with Your riches. Amen, Lord, dispense Yourself into us a little more today. Keep dispensing Your goodness, Your riches, and Your sweetness into us. We want to be filled with You to overflowing so that we may have a rich portion of Christ to bring to the meetings of the church! Amen, Lord, may our meetings be a rich exhibition of the Christ we enjoy and experience. Release the portion of all the saints in the meetings. May our meetings be a mutual enjoyment of Christ for the building up of the saints and of the church!

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 the brothers in the message for this week, and portions from, Collected Works of Witness Lee, 1961-1962, vol. 4, “The All-inclusive Christ,” ch. 6, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Knowing, Experiencing, and Living the All-inclusive Christ for the Genuine Church Life (2023 spring ITERO), week 7, entitled, Laboring on the all-inclusive Christ – “a Land flowing with Milk and Honey” – and Bringing the Surplus of the Riches of Christ to the Meetings of the Church for an Exhibition of Christ and the Corporate Worship of God.
• Similar articles on this topic:
  – The Purpose of God’s Calling – To Bring God’s Chosen People into the Good Land, via, Living to Him.
  – Christ is Everything, article by Ron Kangas in, Affirmation and Critique.
  – The way to enjoy Christ as grace, a portion from, Autobiography of a Person in the Spirit, An, Chapter 10, by Witness Lee.
  – Do You Know How to Experience the Unlimited Christ? Read more via, Bibles for America blog.
  – Eat and Be Satisfied, article at, New Jerusalem blog.
  – The Power that Enables Us to Choose the Will of God, article at, Holding to Truth in Love.
• Hymns on this topic:
  – O what a rich, abundant Christ: / Our pomegranate true, / The olive tree whose oil is now / Anointing us anew. / Rich milk and honey He doth bring, / Sweet, satisfying, nourishing. / Our Christ is such; He is so much! / What a Christ! (Hymns #1164 stanza 3)
  – We’re in the land, we’re in the land! / O Hallelujah! In the land! / Christ is the land, Christ is the land, / O praise the Lord, He is the land! / He is the milk and honey, too; / The grain, the oil, the wine so new. / We’re in the land! We’re in the land! / O Hallelujah! In the land! (Hymns #1165 stanza 1 and chorus)
  – If you have Christ, you have all joys; / Without this Christ, only pains; / Where there is Christ there morning is; / Where He is not, night remains. / He is so rich, He is so full, / He can fulfill all your needs! / He is so good, He is so sweet, / All your desire He exceeds! (Hymns #1025 stanza 4 and chorus)