Glorify God and Release His Divine Life by being Conformed to the Death of Christ

For us to be conformed to Christ’s death (Phil. 3:10) is for us to take Christ’s death as the mold of our life; the more we are conformed to the death of Christ, the more we glorify the Father.

The apostle Paul was a pattern to us in the matter of experiencing and enjoying Christ.

Even at the end of his journey on earth, when he was so mature in the Lord, he still pursued Christ, desiring to gain Christ and be found in Christ.

Even more, he considered everything else as a loss on account of Christ. He considered all things that were gain to him before as being a loss on account of Christ.

He did gain Christ for a very long time, he experienced and enjoyed Christ, and he ministered so much concerning the all-inclusive Christ, but he still wanted to gain Christ and experience Him.

Paul aspired to be found in Christ by all men, and he wanted to know Christ, the power of His resurrection, the fellowship of His sufferings, and being conformed to His death.

Being conformed to the death of Christ means that we’re put in the mold of the death of Christ.

Christ’s death is a mold, and we all have been put in this mold.

Just as a mother bakes a cake and puts the dough in the mold, then puts it in the oven, and the cake takes the shape of the mold, so we are put in the mold of Christ’s death, and we need to take the shape of the death of Christ in our daily life.

We are now in the “oven” of our daily experiences, the “all things” that are arranged by God for our good.

God is sovereign to arrange all things, persons, situations, and matters, so that we may be conformed to the death of Christ.

On our side, we need to know Christ and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death.

May we give ourselves to know Christ more, to know the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, so that we may be conformed to His death.

In God’s economy, we are not here to do something for God or to “praise God” with our good works; we are here to simply turn to the Lord, touch Him in spirit, and let Him gain more ground in our being.

We simply want to enjoy the Lord and let Him make His home in our heart through faith.

As He makes His home in our heart, we are being conformed to the death of Christ, and the divine life of Christ can flow out of us.

When the outer man is broken, the content within can flow out; when we are conformed to the death of Christ in our experience, the divine life in our spirit can flow out to supply others.

Death operates in us, but life in them.

Our Life should be Conformed to the Death of Christ as we are Dying to our Human Life to Live the Divine life

For us to be conformed to the death of Christ is for us to take the death of Christ as the mold of our life (Phil. 3:10).

We need not only to understand this or agree with it but tell the Lord in prayer concerning this.

We can simply tell Him, Lord, may we all take Your death as the mold of our life.

We want to be the Lord’s bride, His counterpart, even the same as He is, for Him to return and marry us as the one who matches Him.

How can we be conformed to the image of Christ to be His Shulammite?

It is by coming to Him again and again and allowing Him to conform us to the death of Christ.

Our life should be conformed to the death of Christ as we are dying to our human life to live the divine life.

We need to enter into the actual application of the Lord’s living in our living.

When we look at the way the Lord lived, we see that He lived a crucified life.

All He cared about was to live a life to do the Father’s will and to be pleasing to the Father.

And the Father called Him, My Beloved Son, Listen to Him.

We need to learn from the Lord Jesus to live a crucified life, dying to our human life so that we may live the divine life.

Christ’s death is a mold to which we are conformed in much the same way that dough is put into a cake mold and conformed to it.

God has put us, the believers in Christ, into the mold of Christ’s death, and day by day God is molding us to conform us to this death.

We should not be ignorant of the fact that we who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death (Rom. 6:3).

We have been buried therefore with Christ through baptism in His death, in order that just as Christ was raised from the dead, so we also might walk in newness of life (v. 4). Amen!

The form of Christ’s death bears no indication or trace of the natural man, the old man, or the self.

As we participate in the death of Christ, His death will shape us, conform us, to the form of His death.

This means that, in our daily living, the death of Christ is shaping us by dealing with our natural life, our old man, and our self.

In Christ’s death, our natural man with the natural life, the old man, and the self are continually being put to death.

The more we allow the Lord to conform us to the death of Christ, the more our natural man, natural life, the old man, and the self are put to death.

The result is that we will no longer bear the image of ourselves but the image of Christ, for we are conformed to the image of Christ and we are conformed to the death of Christ.

May we see that God put us in Christ and into His death as the mold for us to be conformed to the death of Christ.

May we keep turning to the Lord day by day so that we may deny our natural life under the crucifixion of Christ and live by the divine life.

We really need to pray and practice Matt. 16:24, asking the Lord to make it so real to us.

Our life should be conformed to the mold of Christ’s death by our dying to our human life in order to live the divine life (Gal. 2:20; 2 Cor. 4:10-11).

When we put to death our natural life, we will have the consciousness that we have another life, the divine life, within us.

When we deny the natural life and turn to our spirit, on the negative side the old man is put to death, and on the positive side the divine life will be released (John 10:10; 1 John 5:11-12).

May we be those who daily choose to deny the self and turn to the spirit so that we may no longer live in our natural life but by the divine life for the release of the divine life.

Lord Jesus, thank You for placing us in the mold of the death of Christ so that we may be conformed to the death of Christ in our daily life. We choose to deny the self, Lord, and turn to You. Amen, Lord, we turn to our spirit right now. We do not want to live in and by our natural man but in and by the divine life. Lord, we take Your death as the mold of our life. We want You to live in us and be expressed through us. We don’t want to be the ones who do things, say things, and live; live in us today. We deny our natural life and we want to live by the divine life. May we be those who live in the mold of Christ’s death so that we may be conformed to the death of Christ in our daily living for Christ to live in us and for the divine life to flow out. Thank You, Lord, the divine life is in us, and this life can be expressed in our daily life!

The only way to Glorify God is to be Conformed to the Death of Christ

The Christian life is a life of freedom, on the one hand, and it is also a life of being conformed to the death of Christ, on the other hand.

On the positive side, we enjoy a wonderful, glorious freedom in Jesus Christ, for we have been delivered from the bondage of sin and death. How glorious!

On the negative side, we make the choice to know Christ, the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death.

We believers in Christ are in the mold of Christ’s death; when we live a crucified life in Christ, the natural man is killed, the old man is crucified, and the self is nullified (2 Cor. 4:16; Rom. 6:6; Matt. 16:24).

This is our experience many times; it may not be our experience constantly but in many instances, this is the reality.

And we want this to happen in our experience again and again until we are conformed to the death of Christ.

The only way we can deny the self, crucify our old man, and put to death our natural man is by remaining in the mold of Christ’s death.

The Lord, on His side, is shepherding us and lovingly bringing us into situations and things that cause the stripping and consuming of the outer man.

He is bringing us little by little into the experience of these matters so that we may put to death our natural life, crucify the old man, and nullify the self.

On our side, we need to allow our circumstances to press us into this mold so that our daily life would be molded into the form of Christ’s death (Rom. 8:28-29).

We all have circumstances in our family life, our job situation, our church life, and whatever it may be; we need to allow the Lord to press us into this mold through our circumstances.

Sadly to say, however, our situation is that, when difficult things come our way, we resist them, we try to escape them, or we want to change the situation.

There may be some things that happen to us which are so unpleasant, causing us much suffering; many times we want to look into how can we change the situation, we complain about it, and we want to escape it.

But may we realize little by little that all these circumstances are our oven where we are pressed into the mold of Christ’s death.

Many times we do not get any benefit from the circumstances we’re in because we are complaining or we are quick to change the situation.

But if we allow these circumstances to press us, our daily life will be molded into the death of Christ.

We need to realize that the only way to glorify God is to be conformed to the death of Christ, for the more we were conformed to Christ’s death, the more we glorify the Father (John 12:28; 13:31).

Christians talk a lot about glorifying God, and they speak of miracles and doing great works for God and in His name to “glorify God.”

However, according to the Lord Jesus in John 12 and 13, the way to glorify the Father is to go to death so that the resurrection life may come in and be manifested.

The Son of Man is glorified and the Father is glorified in Him because Christ did not take the way of being enthroned as the King of Israel but chose to go to death, even to die as the grain of wheat, so that God may be glorified.

God is glorified in the life and living which bears the image of Christ and the imprint of the death of Christ.

When we put off our natural man, deny the self, and lose our soul life, we live by the divine life, and God is glorified.

May the Lord have mercy on us so that we would be those who follow the Lord to die to the self and live to God.

May He grant us to see that all things work for good to help us be conformed to the death of Christ so that the life of Christ may be manifested in us.

May the Lord gain us to be the God-men of today who are conformed to the death of Christ and live in resurrection to be constituted as the Lord’s overcomers who close this age and bring in the age of the kingdom.

May we realize that the meaning of being a Christian is dying to live, dying to the self to live by the divine life.

May the Lord bring us all into the reality of Phil. 3:10, and may we be fully open to the Lord in prayer, offering Him many prayers of cooperation, Amening His word, retroactive thanks and Amen, and much repentance for resisting Him in our experience.

On one hand, we have the high peak of the divine revelation and the God-man living, even the way of shepherding others according to God so that a new revival would come in.

On the other hand, the Lord put each one of us in a particular environment of sufferings to help us be conformed to the death of Christ so that God may be glorified, His life would be manifested, and He would flow out of the depths of our being in resurrection for the building up of the Body.

Lord Jesus, gain us to be Your bride. We are here living for Your appearing. Prepare us for Your return. We give ourselves to You, dear Lord, to be conformed to the death of Christ in our daily living. Grant us the grace to realize that all things work together for good so that we may be conformed to the death of Christ. May we allow our circumstances to press us into the mold of Christ’s death so that it would be no longer us who live but Christ who lives in us. Amen, Lord, we open to You. We say Amen to You and to the environment You assigned to us. Have Your way, Lord, to press us in the mold of Christ’s death so that God may be glorified. Amen, Lord, may You gain all the glory as we die to live and live to die. We say Amen to Your word. Do this in us. Gain this in all Your saints. Gain a corporate God-man living among us as we die to the self, the natural man, and the flesh, and live in resurrection for God to be manifested in 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 Ray M. in the message for this week, and portions from, Collected Works of Witness Lee, 1993, vol. 1, “God’s Salvation in Life,” ch. 3, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Knowing, Experiencing, and Enjoying Christ as Revealed in Philippians (2023 Memorial Day Weekend Conference), week 5, entitled, Knowing the Fellowship of Christ’s Sufferings and Being Conformed to His Death.
• Hymns on this topic:
  – If we die we’ll live with Christ, / If we suffer we shall reign; / Only thus the prize of glory / Can the conqueror attain. / Oh, how sweet, on that glad morning / Should the Master say to thee, / “Yes, my child, thou didst go with me / All the way to Calvary.” (Hymns #481 stanza 3)
  – O the joy of having nothing and being nothing, seeing nothing / But a living Christ in glory, / And being careful for nothing but His interests down here. / Whom have I in heaven but Thee? / And there is none upon the earth that I desire beside Thee. / O the joy of having nothing and being nothing, seeing nothing / But a living Christ in glory, / And being careful for nothing but His interests down here. (Song on, O the joy of having nothing)
  – 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)