As believers in Christ, we need to contact the Lord, enjoy the Lord, and deal with many things so that we may labour on Christ to obtain a surplus of Christ to bring to the meetings of the church for the worship of God and the nourishing of the saints for the building up of the church. Amen!
This week we come to the topic of, The Surplus of the Produce of the Good Land and the Corporate Worship of God the Father in Truthfulness.
First, we need to learn to labour on Christ as the reality of the good land so that we may have a surplus of Christ, something extra of Christ that fills our hands when we come to the meetings of the church.
When we bring the surplus of Christ to the meetings of the church, we exhibit Christ for Him to be shown forth, expressed, and exhibited, and we also worship the Father in spirit and truthfulness.
May we be those who go on with the Lord little by little, day by day, having deeper experiences of Christ until we habitually labour on Christ daily, no matter what happened, so that we may not only gain a portion of Christ but have a surplus of Christ.
May we have deeper and deeper experiences of Christ for the Lord to gain in us what He is after and for the Father to gain something precious of Christ for His satisfaction in our worship of Him in spirit and in truthfulness.
The people of Israel in the Old Testament were delivered out of Egypt by God’s mighty hand, and they ate the Passover just before coming out of Egypt.
The Passover lamb with all the items of the Passover enabled them to come out of Egypt and march as the armies of God.
Through the wilderness, they had to depend on the Lord for their daily manna, the bread that rained on them from heaven, and also for meat and water.
The Lord was their rich supply, but they did not need to labour much in the wilderness, for God simply provided everything for them.
However, when they entered into the good land, each one of them was allotted a portion, house by house and tribe by tribe, and now they had to labour on the good land to obtain its rich produced.
The good land was rich and bountiful, but unless the people of Israel laboured on it, they did not have any food to eat.
Some of them were negligent and lazy, and they did not labour on their allotted portion; therefore, they had no food to eat, so they had to sell their portion and even themselves as slaves so that they could continue to live.
What the Lord wants today is to gain us as those who constantly labour on Christ as the good land to not only obtain the riches of Christ we need for our daily living but even more, have a portion of Christ, a surplus of Christ, to bring to the meetings of the church for the Father’s satisfaction as we worship Him and for the saints’ supply in our fellowship together.
Gaining and Putting Aside a Surplus of Christ for the Purpose of Worshipping God
Deut. 16:16-17 gives us a principle of how to have our church meetings; we are to come regularly before God together with the saints, and when we come together, we need to not come empty-handed but rather, bring a portion of Christ to worship God.
Three times a year all the Israelite males had to appear before Jehovah their God in the place which He will choose to bring as each is able to give, according to the blessing of Jehovah their God which He has given them.
They were not to go before God empty-handed; rather, they had to labour on the good land, obtain its rich produce, and bring a portion – the surplus, the tenth of the rich produce – to God for His enjoyment with His people.
The people put aside at least three portions of one-tenth of the produce they obtained from the good land not for their own living but for the purpose of worshipping God.
When they came together, the had this surplus put aside to bring to God for His enjoyment with His people.
Similarly today, we as believers in Christ need to bring the surplus of the produce of the good land, a surplus of Christ, by first labouring on Christ as the good land and obtaining a good portion of Him.
We need to gain Christ by labouring on Christ day by day, and we need to put aside or store up a surplus of Christ for the purpose of worshipping God.
The way to have the surplus of Christ is to labour on Christ.
If we are lazy and do not contact the Lord day by day, we will not have a surplus; rather, we will be like a beggar, asking others to give us something to eat from their portion of Christ.
May we be diligent and industrious to labour on the land that God has allotted to us so that we may have much produce of Christ.
Our Christ is unsearchably rich (Eph. 3:8), and the gospel we have received is the riches of Christ as the gospel. Amen!
May we have a surplus, like the children of Israel did, a surplus of Christ that is produced by our labouring on Christ to bring to the meetings of the church for the purpose of exhibiting Christ (Deut. 12:5-15,17-18, 20-22, 26-27; 14:22-23; 15:19-20; 16:16-17).
Today we live in the age of grace, and the salvation we receive from God is by grace through faith; we don’t have to do anything outwardly to receive Christ – we simply need to believe.
In a sense, God doesn’t put requirements on us in this age, but He tells us in His word that, if we’re faithful to contact Him, enjoy Him, deny the self, take up our cross, lose our soul-life, and experience Christ, we will gain something of Christ.
But if we don’t do these things, if we don’t labour on Christ today, God will not force us; however, though we are saved, we remain poor and have no surplus of Christ to bring to God for the worship of God. Oh, Lord Jesus!
Just as the children of Israel who entered into the good land and had to labour on the land to produce some riches both for themselves and for the worship of God, so we need today to labour on Christ by contacting Him and enjoying Him throughout the day so that we may gain some riches of Christ both for our Christian life and for our worship of God and supplying the saints.
The people of Israel offered Canaan’s produce to God and enjoyed it with God.
We also need to labour on Christ, obtain a rich produce of Christ, and have a surplus of Christ to bring to the meetings of the church for the corporate enjoyment of Christ as our worship to God. Amen!
Lord Jesus, thank You for bringing us into the enjoyment of the all-inclusive Christ as our portion! We want to be those who are daily labouring on Christ to gain the riches of Christ and even have a surplus of Christ to bring to God for our worship of God. Amen, Lord Jesus, we want to be diligent and industrious to labour on the all-inclusive Christ so that we may gain much produce of Christ and have a rich surplus of Christ! Oh Lord, we come to You again and again. We want to contact You by exercising our spirit day by day. We do not want to be lazy Christians who lack in the riches of Christ. We give ourselves to You today to gain more of Christ. Make Your home in our heart a little more today. Fill us with Yourself today. Keep us in touch with You in our spirit today. We want to gain more of Christ today. We want to gain more of the riches of Christ until we have a rich surplus of Christ to bring to the meetings of the church for our worship of the Father and the saints’ supply and enjoyment!
Gain and Bring the Surplus of Christ to the Meetings to Worship God Corporately
When some Christians hear that we need to “labour on Christ” they think that, since it is the age of grace and God does everything for us and in us, we don’t need to do anything, for our efforts are not pleasing to Him.
It is true that we live in the age of grace, and we cannot deny that God provides everything for us.
He provides the sunshine, the rain, the wind, the air, and everything needed for our crops to grow. However, unless there is cooperation from our side to labour on Christ to gain Him day by day, we will not have much of the riches of Christ.
We still have to till the ground, sow the seed, pick out the weeds, tend the plants, and take care of so many things in order to have a good crop and a rich harvest.
We can’t bring down the rain from heaven nor can we cause the sun to shine, but we can labour on our side to gain something of Christ.
What is it to labour on Christ to gain Christ and have a surplus of Christ?
To labour on Christ is to exercise our spirit to contact the Lord and experience Him each day in every situation and in all circumstances.
This means that we need to wake up a little earlier in the morning to just spend time with the Lord and enjoy Him (Psa. 5:3; Mark 1:35; Hosea 6:3; Psa. 63:1; 143:8; Prov. 4:18).
We need to take some time every morning to contact the Lord, pray, open to Him, and enjoy Him in His word.
Then, throughout the day, we need to continue to contact the Lord by exercising our spirit so that we may enjoy Him and experience Him.
This is our labour; our labour is not doing outward works but to contact the Lord by exercising our spirit in all situations and in every kind of environment so that we may gain Christ.
We also need to deal with many enemies, for we need to deny the self (Matt. 16:24-26), lose our soul-life (Mark 8:34-38), and by the Spirit put to death the practices of the flesh (Rom. 8:13).
There are also many things in our environment that we need to deal with, and there are many problems that we need to deal with in our family, at work, and in the situations we’re in.
In all things, in all circumstances, we need to labour on Christ to gain Christ and have a rich surplus of Christ to bring to the meetings of the church to worship God corporately.
When we are faithful to labour on Christ day by day in this way, we will gain a rich produce of Christ and, when we come to the meetings of the church, there will be something of Christ, a surplus of Christ, that we can bring forth for the saints’ enjoyment and the corporate worship of the Father.
When we come to the meetings of the church we need to have our hands full of Christ, full of the riches of Christ.
If we day and night labour on Christ in this way, gaining Him and experiencing Him, we will have something of Him, a surplus of Christ, to offer to God for His satisfaction and for the saints’ supply.
For example, we may come to the Lord’s Table meeting and, instead of only singing hymn after hymn, we will exercise our spirit to utter worship to the Father and offer Him something of the Christ have enjoyed and experienced.
When we come to worship God in a corporate way, we must bring the Christ whom we have experienced (Eph. 3:17-18; Col. 1:27; 3:3-4, 11).
We cannot and we should not come to the meetings of the church empty-handed; rather, we need to bring a rich produce of Christ, the surplus of Christ, to offer to God and lay before the saints for their enjoyment.
May the Lord save us from having a routine church life in which we call hymns, declare the stanzas, and move on to another hymn, or maybe wait for a more mature saint to share something or utter a prayer.
May we all labour on Christ to gain Christ and bring the surplus of Christ to the meetings of the church for our corporate worship of God and for the saints’ enjoyment and supply.
May we be open vessels to the Lord, opening to Him from deep within in all situations and circumstances of our daily living, so that He may work Himself into us a little more every day.
And may we exercise our spirit to partake of the riches of Christ and let Him enlighten us, fill us, and add Himself to us so that we gain something of Him and have a surplus of Christ to bring to the meetings for the corporate worship of God.
Lord Jesus, we want to enjoy You today. We want to learn to contact You by exercising our spirit in all situations and in all things, even in every kind of environment, so that we can experience Christ. Amen, Lord Jesus, teach us to labour on You by contacting You, enjoying You, and reading the word of God with the exercise of our spirit. We want to be those who exercise their spirit to contact the Lord throughout the day. We want to follow You in spirit by denying the self, losing our soul-life, and putting to death the practices of the flesh. We open to You, Lord, to gain more of Your riches today. We want to gain the riches of Christ so that we may be filled with Christ and have a surplus of Christ to bring to the meetings of the church for the corporate worship of God! Amen, Lord, may our hands be filled with Christ when we come to the meetings of the church so that we may offer something of Christ to the Father for His satisfaction and lay before the saints for their supply and nourishment!
Read and enjoy this article in the Romanian language – citiți acest articol în limba română via, Să obținem un surplus din Cristos și să-l aducem la adunări pentru a ne închina lui Dumnezeu în mod corporativ.
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 Ron Kangas in the message for this week, and portions from, Collected Works of Witness Lee, 1964, vol. 4, “Serving in the Meetings and in the Gospel,” ch. 5, 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 11, entitled, The Surplus of the Produce of the Good Land and the Corporate Worship of God the Father in Truthfulness.
- Similar articles on this topic:
– Christ as the reality of the wave offering and the heave offering, a portion from, Christ as the Content of the Church and the Church as the Expression of Christ, Chapter 4, by Witness Lee.
– We Serve as Priests in New Jerusalem, via, New Jerusalem blog.
– Our Need to Exhibit Christ in the Church and to a Have a Surplus of Christ for the Corporate Worship of God Our Father, a message by brother Ron K.
– What Is the Church according to the Bible? More via, Bibles for America blog.
– Meeting by bringing the surplus of the good land as an offering to God, a portion from, The Ground of the Church and the Meetings of the Church, Chapter 3, by Witness Lee.
– Testimonies Regarding the Lord’s Move to Europe #8, via, Living to Him.
– If we faithfully labor on the all-inclusive Christ… – a portion via Living to Him instagram.
– Whene’er we meet with Christ endued – a hymn via, Hymnal.net. - Hymns on this topic:
– Laboring on Jesus, the good land so real, / Plowing and planting and watering the field. / He yields the produce of reality, / God reaps a harvest of Jesus in me. / O Jesus! You’re God’s good land / For me to labor on! / I’ll bit by bit possess You / Until the whole is won! / With Canaan is God’s purpose, / The labor He will bless; / Lord Jesus, here I gain Yourself, / Your Person to possess. (Hymns #1168 stanza 1 and chorus)
– Laboring on the good land, laboring in the morning, / Laboring through the noontime to the early eve, / Laboring for a harvest, reaping all the produce, / Coming to the meeting, bringing in the sheaves. / Bringing in the sheaves, bringing in the sheaves, / Here we are rejoicing, bringing in the sheaves! / Bringing in the sheaves, bringing in the sheaves, / Here we are rejoicing, bringing in the sheaves! (Hymns #1167 stanza 1 and chorus)
– We on Christ, as land, must labor, / Harvest Him for all our fare; / Tasting Him to overflowing, / Christ with others we may share. / Holding Christ, as members growing, / Each his function must observe; / Christ receiving, Christ partaking, / To His Body Christ we serve. (Hymns #912 stanzas 3-4)
About aGodMan
Collected Works of Witness Lee, 1964, vol. 4, “Serving in the Meetings and in the Gospel,” pp. 77-78
We cannot come before God empty-handed; our hands need to be filled with a surplus of Christ to offer to God for His satisfaction and to the saints for their supply.
Therefore, we need to rise up a bit earlier every morning to enjoy the Lord, contact the Lord throughout the day, and deal with many things so that we may labor on Christ.
In this way we will gain a surplus to bring to the meetings of the church for the building up of the church.
Amen dear Lord make us early risers and labourers!
This week my dear brother is a week of experiencing more of Christ to give His surplus to the church in the meetings.
Amen!!!
After being brought into Christ we need to labour on Christ, which is to experience Christ and live Christ by spending a little time with Christ in the morning, by praying and exercising our spirit and by dealing with all the enemies and by preaching the gospel.
The Surplus of the Produce of the Good Land and the Corporate Worship of God the Father in Truthfulness.
Praise the Lord! 😃🙌🙋🏼
https://youtu.be/eXTbu5UI9kE?si=9pU554vTypmoHLht
Amen, Lord keep us in prayer. Yes, brother, we have to rise up early and labour in Christ.
We labour to pray and contact the Lord and we labour to exercise our spirit throughout the day.
We do this so that we might prepare the ground to sow the seed and reap the harvest.
In this way, we do not come to the meetings empty-handed.
We need to see the need to labour on Christ and for Christ.
Otherwise, we will lack a surplus of Christ to share with others.
Day by day, we must faithfully contact the Lord, be in the Word, pray and exercise our spirit all day long.
Moreover, we must deal with the many enemies who seek to frustrate our enjoyment & experience of Jesus: the flesh, the self, the environment, family, friends, relatives, neighbours, colleagues, classmates & roommates can all be problems that we must deal with.
As the children of Israel needed to till the ground of the good land to bring a surplus of the rich produce to the appointed feasts of the place of God’s choosing,
we today need to labour on Christ, to live Christ and gain a rich surplus of Christ to worship God.
As we rise up early in the morning to contact the Lord, pray read His word and contact Him throughout the day as we face situations involving those around us we can gain a surplus of Christ with which we can worship God!
6/3/24 The Surplus of the Produce of the Good Land and the Corporate Worship of God the Father in Truthfulness (Week 11, Day 1)
After the people of Israel came into Canaan, they needed to labor on the good land. The sunshine, rain, air, and soil are all gifts from God. However, the one thing that God could not give them was their labor. They could not have said, “God is gracious, merciful, and good. Since everything is of Him, there is no need for us to labor. Since He has given us the sunshine, rain, air, and soil, He will also give us the labor.” God did not labor for them. They themselves needed to labor on the good land. This signifies that although God has given us all things as gifts, we still need to cooperate to labor on Christ.
Many Christians say, “Praise the Lord, God’s grace is sufficient. Everything is of Him, and we can do nothing. Therefore, I can simply rest.” Thus, many believers do not spend time with the Lord, read the Bible, or watch in prayer; that is, they do not labor on Christ. Those in Israel who wrongly depended on God’s graciousness and did not labor had no harvest. This does not mean that the land was poor or that they lacked rain, sunshine, or air. It simply means that they were short of labor.
The people of Israel had all the gifts and the good land to live in, but they were sloppy, lazy, and idle and did not labor on God’s gifts. We have Christ and are in Christ. However, even though we have all the items of Christ, we must still daily exercise our spirit to labor on Christ by praying, contacting Him, and reading the Bible so that Christ may grow in us and we may sow Him into others. If day after day and week after week we do not take the time to labor on Christ, we will be rich in our inheritance but poor in our harvest. Those who do not labor on the good land will be spiritually poor, having no produce of Christ to live on.
In addition, the people of Israel needed to worship God with the tithe, the tenth part, the first, top, and best portion of all their produce of the good land. They were to use the surplus of their produce of the good land as the sacrifices and offerings with which to worship God. Anyone who did not labor on the land did not have a harvest, and when it was time to go to the feast, they went with empty hands, having no surplus of the produce of the good land to offer to God.
Deuteronomy 16:16 and 17 say, “Three times a year all your males shall appear before Jehovah your God in the place which He will choose… And they shall not appear before Jehovah empty-handed; each man shall give as he is able to give, according to the blessing of Jehovah your God, which He has given you.”
In the Old Testament, there were three main annual feasts ~ the Passover, the Pentecost, and the Feast of Tabernacles, in which the Israelites came together to worship God with the surplus of the riches of the good land. The surplus that everyone brought to the gathering was firstly offered to God. Then, the remaining surplus is shared to the poor and the needy (Deut. 15:11).
The good land typifies the All-inclusive Christ; the surplus also typifies Christ, Whom we need to labor in order to gain an overflow of His riches. On the one hand, we need to labor on Christ for us to enjoy and be fed. On the other hand, we also need to labor more in order to have a rich surplus to bring to our meetings with the saints so that they too would enjoy and be fed. This is our way of worshipping God.
We Christians can worship God only with our surplus of Christ. Whenever we come together with the saints to worship God, we must bring something of Christ as an offering to God. This is the only way to worship Him. Those who are sloppy and idle and do not labor on Christ have no experience of Him to offer. They come to the meetings in spiritual poverty and look to others to give them something.
Because the lazy saints had not labored on Christ, they are in “spiritual hunger”, such that, when they come to the meetings, they are just like “spiritual beggars”, relying on the surplus of the other saints for them to enjoy and be fed. The kind of meetings that God has ordained for us in order to worship Him is for all of us, not to come empty-handed, but to bring a rich surplus to be enjoyed by God and by all the saints.
HWMRW11D1
“𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘚𝘶𝘳𝘱𝘭𝘶𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘗𝘳𝘰𝘥𝘶𝘤𝘦 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘎𝘰𝘰𝘥 𝘓𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘊𝘰𝘳𝘱𝘰𝘳𝘢𝘵𝘦 𝘞𝘰𝘳𝘴𝘩𝘪𝘱 𝘰𝘧 𝘎𝘰𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘍𝘢𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘪𝘯 𝘛𝘳𝘶𝘵𝘩𝘧𝘶𝘭𝘯𝘦𝘴𝘴”
Yes we want to labor on the good land, Jesus Christ so that we can possess all the rich supply of the good land to give Him back the surplus. This is the way to worship Him in spirit and truthfulness.
To give is to be blessed more.
Praise the Lord!
[HWMR-Week 11 Day 1]
Listen to the audio version of this article via,
Youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdxbK3dy42M
Rumble:
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Oh brother,
The CHRISTIAN LIFE is the Triune God in Christ being Life to us by His shining in our hearts. What a mercy that we were once in whom the god of this age has blinded.
But praise the Lord,
Out of darkness light has shined. God shining in our heart results in the illumination of the knowledge of the glory of God.
His shining issues in the enlightenment that causes us to know the glory of God subjectively and experientially.
Then the more He shines in our hearts the more we will shine on others so that they may have the knowledge of the glory of God and we bear fruit of light that consists in all goodness and righteousness and truth, the triune God Himself.
Oh this is the Christian life.
Amen brother, ‘ Let us exhibit Christ’!
Amen. Lord, we want to cooperate with You to labor on You that we may have a rich produce, a surplus to share with God and others! 🙏💖
Day by day we must rise up early to spend some time with the Lord; this is our labor. HWMR – W11D1