In the midst of the situations that limit us and press us, we may experience Christ as the grain of wheat by contacting the Lord moment by moment; we can experience the incarnated and crucified Christ to be grains of wheat full of life today. Amen!
The first thing we experience of the all-inclusive Christ when we enter the good land is Him as the wheat.
How can we experience Christ as the wheat, and where can we see this in the Bible?
Deut. 8 says that the good land is a land of wheat, and John 12:24 speaks of the grain of wheat.
God is very wise. He did not just inspire people to write the Bible; He breathed Himself out through His word, and the Bible is composed by God and written by Him through many men to express His wisdom.
We can experience the incarnated and crucified Christ today in order to be like Him, a grain of wheat that falls into the ground and dies to bear much fruit.
When the Lord Jesus was incarnated, the divine life was hidden, concealed, within the shell of HIs humanity.
Throughout His life and living on earth, He desired to release and impart the divine life in Him, but He was limited by His humanity.
He yearned to be baptized with the baptism of His death so that He may cast the fire of the divine life on earth, but He had to wait until His crucifixion for this to be possible (Luke 12:50).
When others sought the Lord, even coming from far away to hear HIm and meet Him, the Lord realized that it was the time for Him to be glorified.
To be glorified, however, does not mean that He was to be glorified outwardly, in front of men, put up on a throne and crowned as king.
To be glorified, in the Lord’s eyes and in God’s plan, was for the Lord to go through death and resurrection in order for the divine life within Him to be released and imparted into many believers in Christ for Him to gain an increase, a reproduction, of Himself.
Just as a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, and seemingly nothing happens for a while, so the Lord went through death and was buried, and seemingly nothing happened for a while.
Through His death, the human shell was broken, and His divine life was released.
Then, in His resurrection, the released divine life from within the shell of His humanity was imparted into all those who believe into the Lord Jesus to regenerate them and make them the many sons of God and the many reproductions of Christ.
Now that is glorification! Just as a seed is glorified when it bears fruit, so Christ was glorified when He went through death and entered into resurrection.
Today we are in the process of enjoying and experiencing the incarnated and crucified Christ, the reality of the grain of wheat, for us to also be grains full of life to minister life to others and to be gathered into the Lord’s barn when He returns.
In the Midst of Situations that Limit us, we may Experience the Incarnated and Crucified Christ
How we thank and praise the Lord for showing us how to experience Him as the grain of wheat, even as a land of wheat!
He is our all-inclusive land, and as such, He is a land of wheat.
This means that, in the midst of situations that limit us and press us, we may experience Christ as the grain of wheat; we may experience the incarnated and crucified Christ.
Many times we are in situations that limit us and press us.
When we’re at work, we cannot just express ourselves and do what we want; we are very much limited.
Even at home, with our spouse, where we have full freedom to express ourselves and do what we desire, we realize that the Lord is limiting us.
The husband is crucifying the wife and the wife is crucifying the husband.
In the beginning of the marriage life, in the honeymoon especially, the husband loves the wife so much and the wife loves the husband very much. He thinks she is his princess and she thinks he is her hero.
But not long after, the husband limits the wife and the wife limits the husband, and the husband wants to crucify the wife and the wife wants to put her husband to death.
Of course, we speak of this not in the physical realm but in the psychological realm.
We need to realize that, even in the midst of situations that limit us and in living with people that limit us and crucify us, we may experience the incarnated and crucified Christ, the reality of the grain of wheat (John 12:23-24).
We need to see the vision of the incarnated, crucified, and buried Christ as the grain of wheat.
Then, whenever we’re suppressed or confined, when we’re restricted and limited in so many ways, we can contact the Lord and experience Him as the grain of wheat.
We may even exclaim in frustration and with tears,
Lord, You are the infinite God who became a finite man. You are the limited Jesus, for You were incarnated and then crucified and buried. I take You as the reality of the grain of wheat. I thank You and I praise You. Thank You for this situation which You have sovereignly arranged for me to enjoy You as the wheat Christ. Live in me today. Make me willing to go through limitations. Make me satisfied with this situation. I take You and I apply You!
Everything works together for good for us, even the limitations and restrictions in our environment and in our marriage life, because we love God and are called according to His purpose (Rom. 8:28).
When we contact the Lord in our limiting and constricting circumstances, we will realize that He is the infinite God who became a finite man, and that there is power in Him to bear any kind of limitation (Phil. 4:13).
We may think that a powerful Christian is one who can never be confined or limited by anything, for he breaks through in all things like a superman. It is wrong to think this way.
A victorious and overcoming Christian is one who has often remained in a limited and pressing situation to experience the Lord as the infinite God who became a finite man.
He remains in the prison, in the dungeon, and in the cage, for within him there’s One who has the power to bear the situation and be satisfied with the limitation.
The One in him is the limited Christ, the incarnated and crucified Christ, and he experiences Him day by day.
Christ our life is within us as a grain of wheat to live the life of the incarnated and crucified Christ (Col. 1:27; 3:4).
We may sometimes talk about the cage of our marriage life.
There are many positive and wonderful aspects of our marriage life, but one of the negative aspects is the fact that marriage is like a cage, limiting us and restricting us in many ways.
Our wife limits us, our husband limits us, our relatives limit us and our children limit us.
Limitation leads to crucifixion.
In our marriage life, we need to live a crucified life by experiencing the incarnated and crucified Christ.
It is easy for us to say that Christ is our life, but it is not easy to die with Christ.
Paul said that we are being delivered to death always for Jesus’ sake (2 Cor. 4:11).
We are daily being delivered to death by those around us and by the circumstances we’re in, for the sake of the Lord, for the sake of the expression of the Christ who lives in us.
If we want to really live out Jesus, we need to be limited and restricted, even as He was.
If we contact the Lord, we will experience Him as a grain of wheat, and in Him we will be content with our situation (Phil. 4:11-12).
The hardest thing is to be contented, especially when you’re in a limited situation with much restriction.
But we can take Christ as our life. As wheat, Christ is our life to make us willing to be limited, willing to die, willing to be buried, willing to be nothing; this is the experience of Christ as wheat (John 12:24-25).
We can experience Him as such a One, and He lives right inside of us. Our being crucified is not only once for all; it is a daily matter.
The more we ask the Lord to deliver us from limitation and restriction, the more these remain, for we need to experience the incarnated and crucified Christ in our limiting and restricting situations.
Lord Jesus, we love You and we take You as our life. In the midst of situations that limit us and press us, we want to experience the incarnated and crucified Christ. Amen, Lord, live in us today. Thank You for Your sovereignty in our situations and in our marriage life. We look to You, Lord, and we want to contact You again and again so that we may experience You as the limited Christ. Oh Lord, cause us to realize that the One who is the infinite God becoming the finite man lives in us, and in Him there’s the power to bear any kind of limitation! Hallelujah, Christ our life is within us as a grain of wheat to live the life of the incarnated and crucified Christ in us! Amen, Lord, we come to You to contact You again and again in all our situations. In You we are content with our situation, for You make us willing to be limited, willing to die, willing to be buried, and willing to be nothing!
We are Grains of Wheat Full of Life to be Gathered in the Lord’s Barn by Rapture
Another reference to the grain of wheat by the Lord Jesus is in different verses referring to His judgment and rapture of the believers and unbelievers.
In Matt. 3:12 we are told that the Lord Jesus will separate the wheat from the chaff and will gather the wheat into His barn.
He will thoroughly clean His threshing floor and will gather His wheat into the barn (we believers are the wheat), but the chaff He will burn up with unquenchable fire.
First, Christ is the unique grain of wheat, and then, through His death and resurrection, we became His reproduction and duplication, and now we are the many grains of wheat.
The Lord treasures the grains of wheat so much that, when He returns to judge, He will rapture them to Himself in the heavens.
If today we experience the incarnated and crucified Christ in the midst of our limiting and pressing situations, we are grains of wheat that will be gathered by the Lord through rapture.
On one hand, we live in limiting and pressing situations, and we are daily being delivered unto death for the sake of Christ.
We may even think that we can’t last that long, for these limiting situations and pressing matters have been with us for such a long time.
But in the midst of all these, we contact the Lord and enjoy the incarnated and crucified Christ.
On the other hand, as we are produced to be the grains of wheat, the Lord treasures this and is ready to rapture us to Himself in heaven.
How can we know we are the grains of wheat?
All the children of God are the grains of wheat, and we need to experience the incarnated and crucified Christ in order to eat Him as the wheat, grow Him as the wheat, and become the grains of wheat.
All those who are baptised through water into the Spirit are grains of wheat.
We need to first be born of God and then baptized in the water and of the Spirit (John 3:5).
First, we’re baptized through water, and then, we’re baptized in the Spirit. In this way we become children of God – those regenerated with His life to be bona-fide children of God.
We become wheat of life, those who will be gathered into the Lord’s barn.
The chaff, however, like the tares in Matt. 13:24-30, are without life.
The Lord will baptise them with fire by putting them into the lake of fire.
In Matt. 3:12 the chaff refers to the unrepentant Jews, and the tares in Matt. 13 refer to the nominal Christians.
Both will suffer the same end – perdition in the lake of fire.
But thank and praise the Lord, we believers in Christ are the wheat of life that will be taken into the Lord’s barn at His return!
If we realize we’re sinful, fallen, and lost, and we truly believe into the Lord Jesus, believing that He’s the Son of God incarnated to be a man, that He died on the cross for our sins, that He was resurrected physically and spiritually, and that He’s now the life-giving Spirit dwelling in us to be our life and everything, we are the wheat of life.
Day by day we need to realize we’re full of life, for the Lord is in us as our life.
In all our situations we can turn to Him and experience the incarnated and crucified Christ to be the grains of wheat, full of life, the reproduction of Christ to be His living and expression on the earth. Hallelujah!
Lord Jesus, we believe into You. We realize that we are sinful, fallen, and lost, so we believe into the Lord Jesus Christ! We believe that the Lord Jesus is the Son of God incarnated to be a man. We believe that He died on the cross for our sins and then was resurrected both physically and spiritually. Amen, Lord, we believe that Christ came into us as the life-giving Spirit to be mingled with our spirit and dwell in our spirit. We believe that You are in us as our life and our everything. Hallelujah, we are grains of wheat, the reproduction of Christ as the one grain, to be gathered into the Lord’s barn through rapture. Amen, Lord, today we want to experience the incarnated and crucified Christ so that, even in the midst of our limiting and restricting situations, we would be grains of wheat full of life for the Lord’s expression, increase, and manifestation!
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, 1977, vol. 1, “The Kernel of the Bible,” pp. 220-221, 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.
- Similar articles on this topic:
– How Knowing Christ as the Grain of Wheat Can Change Your Life, via, Holding to Truth in Love.
– Flee and Pursue Podcast #99 – Baptism (1), via, AgeTurners.
– The grain of wheat, a portion from, Lesson Book, Level 2: The Triune God—The Triune God and the Person and Work of Christ, Chapter 17, by Witness Lee.
– 3 Wonderful Things That Happened in the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, via, Bibles for America Blog.
– The Lord, the seed of life, has sown, a hymn via, Hymnal.net.
– The sign of a grain of wheat, a portion from, The Fulfillment of the Tabernacle and the Offerings in the Writings of John, Chapter 32, by Witness Lee.
– Changing our Concepts and Habits to Take the God-Ordained Way (Part 1), via, Living to Him.
– The Ministry Bearing the Mark of Death and Resurrection (5), via, Shepherding Words.
– Death and resurrection, a portion from, The Experience of Christ, Chapter 16, by Witness Lee. - Hymns on this topic:
– If I’d know Christ’s risen power. / I must ever love the Cross; / Life from death alone arises; / There’s no gain except by loss. / If no death, no life, / If no death, no life; / Life from death alone arises; / If no death, no life. (Hymns #631 stanza 1 and chorus)
– Jesus is now the land of wheat— / Incarnate, crucified. / But resurrection life is He / By barley signified. / He is a land of figs and vines— / Blood of the grape, the cheering wine. / With such supplies He satisfies— / Christ our land! (Hymns #1164 stanza 2)
– Once Thou wast the only grain, Lord, / Falling to the earth to die, / That thru death and resurrection / Thou in life may multiply. / We were brought forth in Thy nature / And the many grains became; / As one loaf we all are blended, / All Thy fulness to proclaim. (Hymns #203 stanza 3)
About aGodMan
John 12:23, footnote 1, Recovery Version Bible
Collected Works of Witness Lee, 1977, vol. 1, “The Kernel of the Bible,” pp. 220-221
In the midst of our limiting and constricting situations, we can contact and enjoy the incarnated and crucified Christ we the grain of wheat so that we ourselves become grains of wheat full of life.
In the marriage life especially there is much crucifying and limiting.
May we come to the Lord again and again to experience Him as our life and be made willing to be crucified with Him.
Amen! May there be much wheat in our experience!
Amen Lord keep us looking to you, thank you we can be those growing the wheat!
Amen for the wheat that is the incarnated Jesus growing from the experience of our limitations.
We cannot flee the cage of married life!
After a period of time some little birds are born into this cage!
We simply have to be limited and restricted!
We have a wheat field in our Christian life, all our restrictions and limitations enable us to grow wheat, this wheat is the incarnated Jesus growing in the midst of our limitations!
Life cannot grow without limitation, for limitation leads to crucifixion.
Limitation & crucifixion is the only way for Christ to become wheat in us.
Only those who have wheat within are the living children of God.
I’m afraid the unrepentant Jews, the nominal Christians and the unbelieving Gentiles are all destined for the lake of fire.
Dear brother, to enjoy and experience Christ as the land of wheat, is to contact Him in all our limiting and restricting circumstances – in married life, home life and even church life.
As those who possess this wheat life – Christ Himself as the wheat indwelling us as the Spirit, the Lord will gather us at His coming.
Today, we must be crucified and buried to grow in life amidst our situations arranged by the Lord so that would be raptured by Him.
Not only the Lord Jesus as the reality of the wheat, we too as those who believed into the Lord and indwelt by the Spirit are certainly the wheat.
But how we need to grow the wheat, even grow as the wheat. Hallelujah for limitation and crucifixion! These afford us the conditions for us to grow.
John 12:23-24 And Jesus answered them, saying, The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Truly, truly, I say to you, Unless the wheat falls ground and grain of into the dies, it abides alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.
Praise the Lord!😃🙌🙋🏽
Listen to the audio version of this article via
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Amen. In all our limiting and pressing situations, may we come to the Lord and enjoy Him as the grain of wheat.
A Land of Wheat and Barley (Week 3, Day 3)
“The Wheat in Deuteronomy 8:8a Typifies the Incarnated, Crucified, and Buried Christ” (Part 3) – In the Midst of Situations that Limit Us and Press Us, We May Experience Christ as the Grain of Wheat
The divine glory of God, which was concealed in the shell of humanity of the incarnated Christ, was released through His death and resurrection, as typified by the grain of wheat that fell on the ground and died and bore many grains, in John 12:24. For the grain of wheat to fall on the ground was for Christ to come down from heaven to be incarnated as a man on earth, and for Christ to be glorified was for Him to be resurrected so that His divine life would be released from within the shell of His humanity and be imparted into His many believers, His many fruits, the many grains of wheat (1Pet 1:3).
We need to eat Christ, as the wheat, which typifies His being incarnated, His being limited and restricted, and His being crucified. To eat Christ, as the Wheat, is to labor on His Word in order for us to experience Him, in His being incarnated, in His being limited and restricted, and in His being crucified. In this way, the divine life will be released from within our regenerated spirit to flow out into our soul.
The more we eat Christ and experience Him as the Wheat, the more the divine life grows in us, causing our soul to be gradually transformed into the image of Christ. Only when our soul is fully saturated with the divine life shall we arrive at the glorification of our body, the final stage of our salvation.
Today we need to experience Christ in His experience of being limited and crucified. Paul refers to this experience in 2 Corinthians 4:11, where he says, “We…are always being delivered unto death for Jesus’ sake.” To be delivered unto death is to be slaughtered in our natural being so that the divine element, the divine life, will be released from within us.
God is sovereign to arrange our environment and to put us in the place where we are in today. Our marriage life, our family life, and our work life are the best places for us to experience Christ, as the Wheat, where we can experience the cage of limitation and restriction. By remaining in the cage and allowing ourselves to be limited and restricted, gradually our natural being is being slaughtered, and the divine life is gradually being released. This is to grow in the divine life by the breaking of the self.
Matthew 3:12 tells us that the Lord Jesus will separate the wheat from the chaff and gather the wheat into His barn: “He will thoroughly cleanse His threshing floor and will gather His wheat into His barn, but He will burn the chaff with unquenchable fire.” Christ is the Baptizer to make us grains of wheat and then to gather us into His barn (Mat 13:30b, 43).
Those typified by wheat have life within; they are the living children of God. Lord Jesus will baptize them in the Holy Spirit (Mat 3:11) and gather them into His barn in heaven by rapture. Those typified by the chaff are without life. The Lord will baptize them in fire, putting them into the lake of fire.
The text for today is from the book of John, chapter 12 verses 23-24.
In this passage, Jesus speaks about how the time has come for him to be glorified as the Son of Man. He then uses a metaphor of a grain of wheat falling into the ground and dying in order to produce much fruit. This means that Jesus needed to die and be resurrected so that his divine life could be released and bring forth many believers in resurrection.
The reading for today talks about how limitation always leads to crucifixion. It says that husbands and wives not only limit each other but also crucify each other. Every husband has crucified his wife at some point. However, being crucified can actually be good because it helps us grow like wheat. The more we are limited and crucified, the more we can grow spiritually.
To eat Christ as wheat, we must first grow it within ourselves by being limited and going through difficult times (crucifixion). If we are not willing to go through these things, then there will be no spiritual growth or “wheat” within us.
Overall, this text is talking about how limitations and difficulties can actually help us grow spiritually if we embrace them instead of trying to avoid them. Just like a grain of wheat needs to fall into the ground and die before it can bear fruit, we too need to go through tough times in order to become stronger spiritually.
(HWMRW3D3) Enjoyment 😊
The very Christ who indwells me is the incarnated One. In a sense, He is still incarnated today, for the indwelling Christ is willing to be limited, caged, in us. When I saw this vision of the limited Christ, I began to worship Him, saying, “O Lord, thank You for my wife, for all my children, for all the churches, and for all the elders. How I thank You, Lord, for my cage.” Such a prayer causes wheat to begin to grow immediately. I can testify that I have a wheat field in my Christian life. How I thank the Lord for my wife, my children, my in-laws, my grandchildren, the churches, and the elders. All of these produce the environment that enables me to grow wheat…This wheat is the incarnated Jesus growing in the midst of our limitations.
Lord, truly thank you for all my family, neighbors, friends, daughters; to my dear brothers; elders, to the brothers of the work and for my precious saints