God is happy to operate in us both the willing and the working for His good pleasure so that we may live a happy Christian life by rejoicing in the Lord, and He is happy to have a man of God who lives God and lives out God in order to gain God by being one with God. Amen!
Our God has a good pleasure; He is not a God who demands things from us but rather, He is a speaking God who reveals Himself and tells us what His good pleasure is.
From the very first chapter in the Bible we see that God delights in certain things, and we do well to know these things so that we may be those who live a life for the fulfilment of God’s heart’s desire.
He was happy when the earth was created because He knew that His kingdom would come on earth. He was happy when man in His image and likeness was created, for He knew that this man would express Him and represent Him.
God is happy with the incarnation of the Lord Jesus Christ, for this One is the mingling of God and man who fulfills the heart’s desire of God.
God was happy when Christ was baptised, for He fulfilled all righteousness and obeyed God to the uttermost, living not in Himself but through death and resurrection.
Christ chose the will of God and did the will of God, not His own will.
According to Isa. 7, He ate curds and honey all the days of His life so that He may refuse the evil and choose the good; He ate butter and honey to know how to choose the good and reject the evil.
How can we know how to discern and choose the good and well-pleasing will of God?
Sometimes for us to choose God’s will is not an easy thing to do; He may want us to go somewhere and say something that goes against our natural being.
But praise the Lord, there is a power that helps us choose against our will. The Lord had to choose to die on the cross.
He chose God’s perfect will. How did He do it? It was by eating butter and honey.
This is to be interpreted spiritually, for butter signifies the richest grace and honey the sweetest love.
Because the Lord enjoyed the riches grace and the sweetest love as He was in continua fellowship with the Father, this gave Him the power to choose God’s will, and He chose the good and perfect will of the Father.
Similarly, every day we need to enjoy the Lord as our heavenly butter and the heavenly honey, the sweetest love and the riches grace.
When we consecrate ourselves to Him by opening to Him and enjoying Him, we will enjoy Him and live because of Him; this will enable us to choose the good and perfect will of the Father in all things, thus making us well-pleasing to God.
God is Happy to Operate in us both the Willing and the Working for His Good Pleasure so that we may Live a Happy Christian Life
The good pleasure of God is related to us and our Christian life and church life are according to God’s good pleasure.
Phil. 2:13 says that God is happy to operate in us both the willing and the working for His good pleasure.
If we feel that we’re not willing to go along with God, we should simply pray, Dear Lord Jesus, operate in me the willing and the working for Your good pleasure! May Your will be dispensed into my will so that I would be willing to go along with You for Your good pleasure.
When we are in the realm of God’s heart’s desire and when this is our primary thing, this makes God happy, and we will also live a happy life.
The Christian life with the supply of the Body life (Phil. 1:19) is a happy life. Our inward joy is an indication that we are living and walking according to God’s good pleasure.
Before we were regenerated, before we got saved by the Lord initially, we may have been a popular person in our circle of friends, but we were miserable; after we got saved, we became happy, but we were quite unpopular with our former circle of friends.
When Christ comes into us and we enjoy Him as our life-supply, our life is a happy life.
We have inward joy, for we enjoy the Lord as our real treasure and our everything.
People may have a lot of possessions outwardly and go on a lot of holidays, but they are still not happy, for real peace, joy, and rest can be found only in the Lord.
Paul, however, was in prison when he wrote the book of Philippians, but he encouraged the believers to rejoice in the Lord!
Since the book of Philippians, written by Paul in prison (1:13; 4:22), is concerned with the experience and enjoyment of Christ, which issue in joy, it is a book filled with joy and rejoicing (1:4, 18, 25; 2:2, 17-18, 28-29; 3:1; 4:1, 4).
No matter where we are, no matter how much we have or not have outwardly, we can inwardly rejoice in the Lord, for our real joy is inward.
And we can be a channel of life to others so that Christ can flow through us for their joy of the faith.
May we be those who rejoice in the Lord and live a happy Christian life with the supply of the Body for the fulfillment of God’s good pleasure!
It is God who operates in us both the willing and the working so that we may live a happy Christian life, a life in the fulfillment of God’s heart’s desire.
How can we be happy? No matter the outward circumstances, our sufferings, our lacks, our troubles, and our trials, we can be happy in the Lord because we have the very God working within us both the willing and the working for His good pleasure.
As we cooperate with the Lord for Him to work in us both the willing and the working, we sense His good pleasure, we register His happiness, and we are also happy.
Our inward joy is an indication that we’re living and walking according to God’s good pleasure. It is God’s good pleasure to have many sons who allow Him to work in them and cooperate with Him for His good pleasure.
When we love the Lord, enjoy Him, and experience Him, our enjoyment of the Lord becomes the content of the church life.
The content of the church life depends on the enjoyment of Christ; the more we enjoy and experience Christ, the more we build up the church intrinsically, for the Christ we enjoy and experience becomes the constituent of the church life.
Lord Jesus, we open to You: operate in us both the willing and the working for Your good pleasure so that we may live a happy Christian life! May Your will be dispensed into our will so that we would be willing to go along with You for You to bring in what delights You in us. We take You as our life and life supply. You are our rest, our peace, and our joy. We rejoice in You, Lord, for You are the One operating in us both the willing and the working for Your good pleasure. We simply say Amen, Lord, do in us according to Your good pleasure. May Your good pleasure become our good pleasure, and may Your will be done in our life for Your heart’s desire.
God is Happy to have a Man of God who Lives God to Gain God by being One with God
God delights in Christ, the One who expresses and represents Him in full, the One who lived a life for the fulfillment of God’s desire.
God is happy when we as His people live Christ; He is happy to have men of God who live God and gain God by being one with God!
God is happy to have a man of God (Psa. 90, title; Deut. 33:1; Ezra 3:2) who lives God and lives out God in order to gain God by being one with God (2 Tim. 3:16-17; 1 Tim. 6:11-12; Phil. 3:8, 14).
The Lord Jesus – Jesus of Nazareth – is the standard pattern of a man of God who lived out God (see John 6:57; 5:19, 30; 10:30).
Jesus didn’t seek His own glory but the glory of the Father; He didn’t come to do His own will but the will of the Father (John 5:19, 30; 6:38; 7:18).
God is happy when Christ is lived out of us; He wants us to live Christ before our family, before the world, and before the saints.
For us to live Christ is to be one with Him; it is for us to eat Christ and live because of Him, being men of God with the breath of God who live God and are one with God.
2 Tim. 3:17 speaks of being a man of God who is complete, fully equipped for every good work; the way to be such a man of God is by enjoying God in His word as His breathing, for all Scripture is God-breathed (v. 16).
When we breathe in God’s word, we spontaneously live God. When we pray over the word of God for ten or fifteen minutes in the morning, we will be filled with God and we will live God.
God is happy when we are men of God who live God to gain God by being one with God. The Lord Jesus was a pattern to us in this matter; He was sent by the living Father, and He lived because of the Father (John 6:57).
Whatever the Father did, that’s what the Son also did; when the Father said something, the Son also spoke.
Christ even said that He can do nothing of Himself, but that He and the Father are one. The Father delighted in this One, for He lived out God.
No matter how much we try to do for God and to represent Him, unless we live God and gain God by being one with God, we cannot touch His heart.
We can live Christ because we have the divine life in us; besides the human life that we received through our birth from our parents, we also have the divine life we received through regeneration.
We can now live by the divine life by denying our own will and doing God’s will.
However, many times we live in ourselves and we seek our own will and glory; whenever someone works with us or we are put together with someone to do something together, there are problems, for we seek our own will and glory.
There is peace in the family and in the church if we have the grace to put aside our own will and glory and live by the divine life.
May we come to the Lord in His word, breathe Him in through musing on His Word, and may we learn to put aside our own will and glory to seek the will and glory of God!
May we come to the Word of God by means of all prayer and petition to inhale God and be filled with God, and may we exercise to speak the word of God to others to infuse them with God, thus exhaling Him to others.
When we take Christ as our crucified life for His manifestation as the resurrection life, we will experience Him as the indwelling and enabling power of resurrection to deny our will and our glory (Phil. 3:10; 2 Cor. 4:5-7; Rom. 14:7-9).
He is such a One lives in us; the One who denied Himself and didn’t seek His own will and glory lives in us, and we can simply cooperate with Him in our daily living.
Lord Jesus, we want to be men of God who live God and live out God in order to gain God by being one with God for God’s good pleasure! Amen, Lord, may our life and work on earth make You happy. Make us willing to lay aside our will, even as You did when You were on this earth. Grant us the grace to live on earth not seeking our own glory. Lord Jesus, be the grace within us that we may put aside our will and glory and seek Your will and Your glory. We take You as our crucified life for Your manifestation as the resurrection life so that we may live Christ and not seek our own will and glory. Amen, Lord, we come to You in your word to breathe You in, be filled with You, live You out, and dispense You into others!
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. 426-428, 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:
– It is God’s intent and pleasure / That His Christ may live in me; / Nothing as an outward practise, / But Christ working inwardly. / It is God’s intent and pleasure / That His Christ be formed in me; / Not the outward forms to follow, / But Christ growing inwardly. (Hymns #538)
– O let us rejoice in the Lord evermore, / Though all things around us be trying, / Though floods of affliction like sea billows roar, / It’s better to sing than be sighing. / Then rejoice evermore, rejoice evermore, / It is better to sing than be sighing: / It is better to live than be dying; / So let us rejoice evermore. (Hymns #717)
– Now within the Lord’s recov’ry, we’re so glad to find the way / To experience the Triune God and live by Him today— / Get into the mingled spirit, and within the spirit stay; / Yes, mingling is the way. (Hymns #1199)
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