Being Freed from all Distractions and Brought back to Christ Himself to Enjoy Him

As believers in Christ and children of God, we need to be freed from all distractions and brought back to Christ Himself so that we may enjoy, experience, and know Him in a fresh, new, and living way. Amen!

This week we come to a new morning revival based on the 2023 spring ITERO with the general title, Knowing, Experiencing, and Living the All-inclusive Christ for the Genuine Church Life.

This week, the first week, we are on, Being Brought Back to Christ Himself for the Genuine Church Life.

This is not something that is doctrinal or of knowledge but of experience and enjoyment.

In Philippians, Paul testified that he knew Christ by vision and revelation, and he experienced Christ.

But to what extent do we know, enjoy, and experience Christ in His all-inclusiveness?

To what extent do we experience Christ in a fresh way, forgetting all the things behind so that we may stretch forward to gain Christ in a new and living way every day?

Christ is all-inclusive, and to God He is everything. but what about us, what about our experience of Christ?

Wherever we are, we need to experience Christ and live Christ so that we may have the genuine church life.

May the Lord speak to each one of us and lead us as the Spirit into the subjective knowledge, enjoyment, and experience of Christ so that the genuine church life would be manifested on the earth.

For this to happen, the first thing we need to do is to be brought back to Christ.

There are so many other things that we need to take care of and pay attention to, but our focus should be on Christ.

We need to be brought back to Christ Himself for the genuine church life.

We need to pay attention to Christ, focus on Christ, and do everything with enjoying, experiencing, and subjectively knowing Christ in our experience.

It is easy to be distracted from Christ; it is easy to focus on good things, and necessary things, but lose focus on Christ.

God is focused on Christ, and the entire economy of God has Christ as its centrality and universality.

God doesn’t want us to do this or that for Him; primarily, He wants us to enjoy Christ, experience Christ, gain Christ, be found in Christ, and know Christ subjectively.

This Christ is the all-inclusive Christ, and we need to be brought back to Christ from anything else.

May the Lord have mercy on us to simplify us and purify us so that we may come to Christ again and again, enjoy Christ, partake of Christ, experience Christ, and do everything in Christ and one with Christ.

As long as we are in Christ and Christ is in us, as long as we are one with Christ and Christ is one with us, all other things will be taken care of.

Being Freed from all Distractions and Brought Back to Christ Himself to Enjoy and Experience Him

We, believers in Christ and children of God, need to be freed from all distractions and brought back to Christ Himself (Eph. 3:8, 14-18; Col. 3:10-11).

We need this more and more. We may think we are OK, but when the Lord shines on us, we realize that there are so many other things, situations, and persons that distract us from the enjoyment of Christ.

A distraction is something or someone that preoccupies us and makes it impossible for us to concentrate on Christ, the most wonderful and important One.

Almost anything other than Christ can be used by the enemy to distract us from Christ.

We may want to do something for the Lord, for example preaching the gospel, and even such a good activity can distract us from Christ.

In Rev. 2 the Lord speaks to the messenger of the church in Ephesus and says that He knows his work, his labor, and his endurance and that he cannot bear or tolerate evil men, those who call themselves apostles and are not.

He had endurance, he bore so many things because of the Lord’s name, and he has not grown weary.

But the Lord had one thing against him: he left his first love. Oh Lord.

In the church life we may do so many good things and take care of so many practical matters, and we may bear many things for the Lord.

But how about our focus, is Christ still our first love? The Lord knows our real situation, our real condition.

God wants Christ to be the center of all things and to have the first place in all things so that Christ may be all and in all (Col. 1:15-18).

Starting from the morning, we need to contact the Lord and give Him the first place in all things.

May the Lord save us from merely being Christians in name but being empty on the inside.

May we not lose our standing as a local church before the Lord by our losing the focus from Christ to other things and by losing our first love for the Lord.

May we open to the Lord and be freed from all distractions, anything that would hinder us from enjoying the Lord, so that we may allow Him to work Himself into us for the building up of the church.

Christ is the center of God’s economy and of all things, and He must have the first place in all things in us and in the church life.

Christ is wonderful; He is the wonder of the entire universe, and every item of what Christ is, is wonderful (Isa. 9:6; Judg. 13:18; Eph. 3:8).

His name is wonderful. He is the most wonderful One. And He is so wonderful to us in our experience when we enjoy Him and experience Him in our daily life.

God’s will is that Christ be everything to us and be wrought into us to be our life and everything (Eph. 3:17).

This is what God desires. He wants the all-inclusive Christ, the One who is the centrality and universality of God’s economy, to be wrought into us and become our life and everything.

John Nelson Darby has this quote, O the joy of having nothing, seeing nothing and being nothing but a living Christ in glory, and being careful for nothing but His interests down here on earth.

This is our aspiration, that Christ would become our everything and that we would care for nothing except His interest on the earth.

If we are freed from all distractions and brought back to Christ Himself, taking Him as our life and everything, we will become the church as the testimony of Jesus, and we will live a genuine church life.

But if we do not focus on Christ and do not love Him with the first love, though we may do many outward things that seem to be so good, our church life may be void of Christ, and the Lord may remove our lampstand.

If we really desire for Christ, the all-inclusive One, to be everything to us, we need to realize that we are nothing and can do nothing apart from Him.

May we not be afraid of allowing Christ to do what He wants to do in us. It is only the enemy who is afraid of Christ and what He does.

Even when go through things that are difficult and life-changing, we can simply trust in the Lord and allow Him to do in us what He wants to do.

We are so happy to inwardly experience Christ, enjoy Him, and minister Him more, because He is in charge, He is working Himself into us, and He is making His home in our heart.

Lord Jesus, free us from all distractions and bring us back to Christ Himself! May we see that Christ is the center of all things and may we give Him the first place in all things! Amen, Lord Jesus Christ, become our all and in all! We want to enjoy You as the most wonderful One! You are so wonderful, so rich, and so full of enjoyment. Deliver us from anything that distracts us from enjoying You. May we be brought back to the enjoyment and experience of Christ in our daily life. Amen, Lord, may Christ be everything to us in our daily life. May Christ be wrought into us as our life and everything! We love You, Lord Jesus, and we focus on You. You are our center. May You become everything to us so that we may want nothing but Christ and focus on nothing but His interest on the earth! Amen, Lord Jesus, may we be freed from all distractions and brought back to Christ Himself!

Turn away from all Distractions to Christ to Know, Enjoy, Experience, and Express Christ

One of the reasons the apostle Paul wrote his Epistles was that he was clear that so many good things became a distraction from Christ, and the believers were distracted from the enjoyment of Christ.

Even good things such as doctrines, ethics, morality, teachings, and culture are distractions from Christ (Phil. 3:4-8).

It is the same with us today; our direction as Christians should be Christ, and our focus should be only Christ, but many times we focus on things other than Christ.

Many believers today are for many good things other than Christ.

They may have Christ in name, but Christ is very distant from their daily life and experience.

We can check with our experience concerning this: do we daily enjoy and experience Christ, and is He the all-inclusive One to us?

We all need to pray to see the vision of Christ being our life and everything to us in our daily life.

We need to receive new mercy and grace from the Lord so that we may be able to drop all that replaces Christ – even the good things – and simply stretch forward to lay hold of Christ and gain Him in a fresh, new, and living way (Phil. 3:7-8, 13).

Anything that distracts us from Christ, even good things such as doctrines, ethics, morality, teachings, and culture, are versus Christ (1 Cor. 7:35).

We may be doing something that is necessary by nature, and it is a good thing, but it may distract us from Christ, so it is versus Christ.

The way we are devoting ourselves to that thing is by being preoccupied with it inwardly, so we’re distracted from being one with the Lord and experiencing Him. Oh Lord!

If we cannot enjoy and experience Christ in doing what we are doing for Him or for the church, that thing distracts us from Christ and is versus Christ.

May we turn away from all distractions to Christ, and may we give ourselves to know, enjoy, experience, and express Christ!

Anything that distracts us from Christ is versus Christ; as soon as we see that something or someone distracts us from Christ, we need to simply turn to the Lord and turn away from any distractions to just enjoy Him!

The enemy needs to be exposed and hit hard; he’s very clever, he knows what interests us and what we’re burdened about, and how responsible we are to do things entrusted to us, so he uses these things to distract us from Christ.

We may say that we do this or that for the Lord, but when the Lord shines on us and the distractions are exposed, we will be freed from all distractions to turn to the Lord and enjoy Him, experience Him, and be constituted with Him.

May we never say that we do this or that for the Lord, and in doing so we allow ourselves to be distracted from enjoying and experiencing Christ.

May we let the Lord shine on anything that replaces Him in us.

When we turn away from all distractions and turn to Christ, we will be brought back to Christ Himself so that we may know Christ, experience Christ, enjoy Christ, express Christ, and be constituted with Christ (Gal. 2:20; 4:19; Phil. 3:9-10).

We need to drop not only the bad things or evil things but even the good things that distract us from the Lord.

What we need is not things or activities to do, but to enjoy and experience Christ as the new, fresh, up-to-date, and present all-inclusive One!

May we not be content with what we have and with where we are but be willing to drop anything that we have attained to in the past and holds us back, retaining nothing in our hands but focusing on gaining Christ more!

May we open and come to the Lord with empty hands, looking to Him for a new experience of Him as the living One!

Lord Jesus, thank You for showing us something about Your excellency and Your eternal purpose. You want to be everything to us. Lord, expose us in Your light and in Your presence. Show us where we are and what we are. Expose anything that distracts us from enjoying Christ. Make us willing to drop anything that distracts us from the enjoyment of the present, living, up-to-date Christ. Save us from being content with where we are and what we have. Amen, Lord Jesus, we simply open ourselves to You and come to You with empty hands, looking unto You for a new experience of Christ as the living One. We turn away from all distractions and turn to Christ to be brought back to Christ! Amen, Lord, may we be freed from all distractions and come back to enjoying Christ, experiencing Christ, expressing Christ, knowing Christ, and being constituted with Christ!

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, 1964, vol. 2, pp. 81-87, 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 1, entitled, Being Brought Back to Christ Himself for the Genuine Church Life.
• Similar reading on this topic:
  – Converted from everything to Christ Himself, a portion from, A Young Man in God’s Plan, Chapter 3, by Witness Lee.
  – How to See, Experience, and Enjoy Christ as Our Good Land Today, via, Bibles for America blog.
  – Church, City Full of Christ to Express Christ, article via, New Jerusalem blog.
  – Losing the enjoyment of Christ, a portion from, The Experience of Christ, Chapter 3, by Witness Lee.
  – My Positive Experiences Meeting in the Local Churches, article at, Living to Him.
  – Discovering the Indwelling Christ as the Spirit by Calling on Him, article at, Holding to Truth.
  – The central message of Genesis, the Hearing of Faith newsletter.
• Hymns on this topic:
  – We have seen Christ is reality: / But it’s not sufficient just to see: / He in our experience must be / Everything to us. / We in prayer behold Him face to face, / In the Word and meetings know His grace; / But in daily life, in every place, / What is He to us? / Hallelujah! By His light we see / Oh, how real, how full our Lord will be / If we’ll only turn to Him at every time, / in every day, / Every thing, in every way and— / Be specific for reality! / And be done with generality! / If we’ll just apply Him, we will see / He’s everything to us. (Hymns #1178 stanza 1)
  – Oh, what a life! Oh, what a peace! / The Christ who’s all within me lives. / With Him I have been crucified; / This glorious fact to me He gives. / Now it’s no longer I that live, / But Christ the Lord within me lives. (Hymns #499 stanza 1)
  – All things are vanity of vanities, / Christ, the reality all things to fill; / Though everything we may enjoy and own, / If we’re devoid of Christ we’re empty still. / Christ is our real God, our real Lord, / Christ is our real life, our real light; / Christ is our real food, our real drink, / Our real clothing, and our real might. (Hymns #496 stanzas 3-4)