God is Happy when we Eat Christ and Live because of Him, Abide in Christ and Remain in our Spirit

God is happy when we eat Christ as our spiritual food so that we may live because of Him, when we are daily strengthened into the inner man so that Christ may make His home in our heart through faith, and when we abide in the Lord by remaining in our spirit and paying attention to our spirit.

Hallelujah, we as people of God can make God happy!

And when God is happy, we are happy, for He lives in us, and He is happy in us; His happiness brings us into real happiness.

For example, if we look at the apostle Paul as he was writing the book of Philippians, he was one who made God happy, so he himself was happy.

He never complained about how terrible the prison was, how limited he was, and how horrible the living conditions were.

Rather, from prison, he encouraged the Phillipian believers to rejoice in the Lord always, and he again said, rejoice! It was safe for him to tell them to rejoice in the Lord, and we all need to be reminded to rejoice in the Lord always.

No matter what our circumstances are, no matter what is our condition and situation, we need to rejoice in the Lord.

Our joy is not in what we can see or find around us, and our joy is not in what we can make or produce; our joy is in the Lord, for He Himself is our joy.

The reason we can be happy in the Lord is that it is God who operates in us both the willing and the working for His good pleasure.

We simply say Amen to His inner working, and we learn to accept what He is doing in us and around us, and we are happy people.

And if we feel that it is too hard for us to accept, if we feel that we can’t take it, we simply to ask the Lord to operate in us the willing and the working; He is willing to do it, and He is happy to make us willing.

God is happy to have us as believers in Christ to be men of God who live God and express God, those who gain God by being one with God. He gained Christ as being such a One; Christ as a man lived God, did not do His own will nor did He seek His own glory, and manifested God in everything.

Now we can take Christ as our crucified life and live because of Him; we can live Christ for His manifestation as the resurrection life.

In ourselves we don’t have the ability or willingness to set aside our will and our glory, however willing we think we are; but the Lord in us can do it.

Only Christ within us can live a crucified life by the power of resurrection.

When we open to Him, pray and allow Him to shine on us, we will realize that we are just like Him, a grain of wheat that has to go through death so that the power of resurrection would be manifested through us.

We are not a lifeless stone: we are full of the divine life within, but death has to operate in us and around us so that the resurrection life may be manifested.

God is Happy when we Eat Christ as our Spiritual Food to Live Because of Him

Christ the Son of God was incarnated and lived a life by enjoying the Father in His Word, and He lived because of the Fathers; so we who eat Christ in His word, we will also live because of Him (John 6:57).

God is happy when we eat Christ as our spiritual food in order to live because of Him.

What does it mean that we eat Christ? How can we live because of Christ? To eat Christ is to eat His words by exercising our spirit to both pray-read and muse upon His words so that His words become the gladness and joy of our heart (Jer. 15:16; Psa. 119:115-116; Josh. 1:8-9).

When we exercise our spirit in coming to the Word of God to pray, pray-read, and muse on the word of God, we will be inwardly nourished with the divine element, and we can live because of the Christ who has been infused into us.

Christ lived because of the Father, and when we eat Him as our spiritual food in His word, we live because of Christ. Christ’s words are spirit and life; when we take His words by means of all prayer and petition and pray them back to the Lord, these words become our spiritual food (John 6:63; Eph. 6:17).

The Lord Jesus reminded us in Matt. 4:4 that man doesn’t live on bread alone but on every word that proceeds out through the mouth of God; we live on the word that the Lord speaks to us in a present and instant way as we enjoy Him in His word.

As we eat Christ in His word, we live because of Him; this makes God happy, for He sees the reproduction of Christ on earth.

To live by Christ is one thing, but to live because of Christ is something else; we can walk by means of a cane that helps us walk, but this is different from walking because of the food that we ate and which strengthens us to walk.

Christ is not like a “cane” that “helps us live and walk”; He is the very food we eat, we partake of, we enjoy, we digest, we assimilate, and we live because of.

Christ wants to become the supplying factor of our living, sot hat we eat Him and live because of Him.

And a very good way for us to do this is to come to the word of God and muse on it; when we take God’s word and pray it to God, speak with it, sing it, declare it, ponder on it, and make it our own, we are nourished by God in His word.

When we eat the word of God, we will declare with Jeremiah that we found the words of God and ate them, and they became the joy and rejoicing of our heart.

How much inner joy and gladness we have depends on how much we have actually eaten God’s words.

God is happy when we come to His word to eat Christ as our spiritual food to live because of Him.

When we do this, when we eat the Lord in His word day by day, we make God happy, for we live because of Him to express Him for the Father’s satisfaction.

To live because of Christ means that the energizing element of Christ becomes the supplying factor for us to live Christ. Only Christ can express Himself; only Christ can live Christ.

So we need to eat Christ, take Him as the supplying factor for our life and living, and we will live Christ, thus making God happy.

Lord Jesus, we come to You in Your word to eat You as our spiritual food and live because of You. Amen, Lord, Your words are spirit and life; we come to eat You in Your word so that we may have Your instant and present speaking. Infuse us with Yourself as we remain before You in Your words. May we find Your words and eat them, and may Your words become the joy and rejoicing of our heart. Amen, Lord, may the energizing element of Christ become the supplying factor for us to live Christ! We exercise our spirit to pray-read and muse upon the Word of God so that we may be infused with Your element and live because of You for the Father to be satisfied!

God is Happy when we’re Daily Strengthened into our Inner Man so that Christ may make His Home in our Hearts through Faith

Eph. 3:16-17 expresses Paul’s prayer for our inner and subjective experience of Christ; God is happy when we’re daily strengthened into our inner man so that Christ may make His home in our hearts through faith.

It makes God happy to strengthen us into our inner man, so we need to ask Him day by day, Father, strengthen me through Your Spirit into the inner man so that Christ may make His home in my heart through faith!

We need to build up a habit of praying Eph. 3:16-18 day by day; it is not merely by understanding this portion or agreeing with it that we experience it, but it is by our praying it to the Lord.

We need to ask the Father God day by day to strengthen us with power through His Spirit into the inner man, to blast us out of our old man and energize us into our inner man!

When our inner man is strong by the power through the Spirit, Christ can make His home in our heart through faith.

We need to daily pray this, for God is happy to do it in us. Our cooperation with God’s move and operation is simply to say Amen and give Him the consent.

We need to ask the Lord to strengthen us with power into the inner man so that Christ can spread into all the parts of our heart – our mind, emotion, will, and conscience – and settle down in our heart.

Amen, God is happy when we are daily strengthened into our inner man so that Christ may make His home in our hearts through faith.

Our inner man is our regenerated spirit, which has God’s life as its life (John 3:6; Rom. 8:10); we need to be strengthened by the Lord into the inner man so that Christ may spread and saturate our mind, our will, and our emotion, making Himself at home in all our heart.

When Christ settles down in our heart, making our heart His home, God is happy and we are happy.

May we bring this to the Lord in prayer and cooperate with Him to make God happy.

We are here not for doctrines or outward practices; we are here to experience being inwardly strengthened so that Christ may make His home in our hearts.

It’s not about staying away from worldly entertainments, shopping, sports, and other things; it is about the result of our being strengthened with power through the Spirit into the inner man so that Christ make His home in our heart.

When Christ makes His home in our heart through faith, we are built together into a dwelling place of God in spirit; this is for God’s good pleasure. It is good to open to the Lord again and again and tell Him,

Father, thank You for our regenerated spirit where Christ dwells. Strengthen us according to the riches of Your glory, through Your powerful Spirit, into our inner man. Amen, Lord, may our inner man be strengthened with power through the Spirit so that Christ may make His home in our hearts through faith. Lord Jesus, spread from our spirit and settle down in all the inward parts of our heart. Make Your home in our whole inner being so that we may be filled with You unto Your full expression. Amen, Lord, make Your home deep down in our heart!

God is Happy when we Abide in Christ by Remaining in our Spirit and Paying Attention to our Spirit

The Lord Jesus told us in John 15:4, Abide in Me…and Paul said in Rom. 8:6, The mind set on the spirit is life and peace.

The way we abide in the Lord is by setting our mind on our spirit. Christ is in our spirit; He is the life-giving Spirit dwelling in our regenerated spirit.

The good pleasure of God is Christ, the One who lives in our spirit. So God is happy when we abide in Christ by remaining in our spirit.

God wants us to be persons in the spirit; we shouldn’t live in the soul, which is just an organ – we should live in the mingled spirit.

God is happy when we remain in our spirit and pay attention to our spirit.

When the Lord Jesus said, “Abide in Me” (John 15:4), this wonderful “Me” is in our spirit, and when we’re in Him by being in our spirit, the Father is satisfied.

It is of God that we are in Christ Jesus (1 Cor. 1:30); we are in Christ and Christ is in us, but we need to abide in Him so that He abides in us.

We need to continue to remain in Him; He is in us, but we need to remain in Him, continue with Him.

When we are in Him by being in our spirit, in us the ruler of this world has nothing – no ground, no chance, no hope, and no possibility in anything (John 14:30; cf. 12:31-32).

When we are in Christ by being in our spirit, when we abide in the Lord, the evil one has no ground in us.

We need to pray simple prayers to the Lord throughout the day, asking Him, Lord, keep me in my spirit. Preserve in my spirit. Keep me abiding in You!

We need to ask the Lord to practice abiding in the Lord so that realize that our new man is our new person; we need to be before the Lord concerning our living and walking in spirit and not in the soul.

Our desire is to live, walk, act, and speak in the spirit, not in the soul; we want to live by the inner man, abiding in this wonderful Christ who lives in us.

No matter what comes our way, whether good or bad, right or wrong, we want to be in our spirit; Christ lives in our spirit, and when we abide in Him, we can overcome anything.

The problem is that many times we move out of our spirit; we are so much in our soul.

May we learn to set our mind on our spirit, pay attention to our spirit, and remain in our spirit so that we may abide in Christ.

God is happy when we remain in our spirit, for our spirit is our home, our country, our dwelling place.

May we learn to daily turn to our spirit, remain in our spirit, and pay attention to our spirit.

Even when we go through physical sufferings and we don’t know why or what is going on, may we learn to turn to our spirit so that we may gain God.

No matter how bad we may feel, no matter the outward circumstances, may we learn to be in our spirit and pay attention to our spirit.

Lord Jesus, keep us in our mingled spirit. Keep us abiding in You so that You may abide in us. Amen, Lord, we may not understand the sufferings we go through and we may not like the environment we’re in, but we turn to You. We want to pay attention to our spirit and remain in our spirit. May we remain in our spirit today. We take our spirit as our home and our dwelling place. Keep us here, Lord, one with You, so that we may live in spirit a life for God’s satisfaction. Hallelujah, when we are in our spirit, the ruler of this world has no ground, no chance in anything, and no hope or possibility in anything in us!

References and Hymns on this Topic

• Sources of inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, a message by bro. Ed Marks on this topic, and portions from, Collected Works of Witness Lee, 1978, vol. 2, “Life Messages, Volume 1,” pp. 446-455, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Meeting God’s Need and Present needs in the Lord’s Recovery, week 2, God’s Good Pleasure.
• Recommended further reading:
  – Let us eat Jesus every day, / Eating His flesh in such a way / That in the trials great or small / He as a Man will be our all. / Eat, eat more of Jesus! / Eat, eat more of Jesus! / Why should we undernourished be / When we have His humanity? (Hymns #1146)
  – Make home in my heart, O Lord Jesus, / Make home in my heart, I pray; / That we may be filled with Your fullness, / Make home in my heart today. / Into my heart, into my heart, / Spread into my heart, Lord Jesus; / Make home today and have Your way / In all of my heart, Lord Jesus. (Hymns #1134)
  – Now He must have our cooperation. / We must set our mind upon the Son. / We must turn away from all that leads astray, / Till our mind is set on Him each day. / Lord, our human spirit now contains You. / Still Your purpose in us You would do; / If our wandering mind would leave old thoughts behind, / Then Your life and peace in it we’ll find. (Hymns #1193)