God wants us to be God-men who have a Mingled Living of a God-man by Abiding in Christ

When we as believers in Christ abide in Christ, we live the grafted life, and our living is a mingled living of a God-man, for Christ is our life and we are His living, He’s our content and we are His expression, and He lives in us as we express Him by abiding in Him. Hallelujah!

Our God is not only almighty, omnipotent and omniscient; He in His economy wants to be related to man, that is, He wants to be one with man and make man one with Him.

God created man in His image and according to His likeness, and He put a spirit in man.

Now man seeks after God, and there’s a deeper seeking, yearning, and hunger for something of God in man.

When a man hears the gospel, when faith is infused into man, he touches the reality of his human life.

The mystery of the human life is that God wants to enter into man and be man’s life and content so that man and God, God and man, would become one in every possible way.

We are not satisfied and content until we and God are fully one. When man believes into God, something marvellous happens: God “branches out” and man is grafted into God.

Jesus Christ was cut on the cross and we are cut and open by repenting and believing into the Lord; these two cuts “kiss” each other and grafting takes place.

We do not realize what happens to us at the time of regeneration, but when we believe into the Lord Jesus, we are put into Him, grafted into Him and brought into an organic union with Him.

And our entire Christian life is a life in this organic union.

By default, however, we still live in our old life, according to our old man, and in the old creation; we still live in the self, in the flesh, and in the natural man.

But we are daily learning to turn to our spirit; we are learning to take Christ as life and feed upon Jesus!

And as we believe into the Lord, receive Him, eat Him as the bread of life, and drink Him as the water of life in our intimate, personal, affectionate time with Him, we abide in the Lord.

The Lord wants us just to abide. He already put us here; He put us in Christ, for it is of God that we are in Christ Jesus (1 Cor. 1:30).

We are in Christ, grafted into Him, and we simply need to abide in Him by contacting the Lord every day.

As we abide in the Lord, we are branches in the vine and we are part of the tree of life.

The result is that we simply express Christ, for by eating Christ, drinking Christ, and partaking of Christ, we are filled and saturated with Him and we just overflow with Him to express Him.

And corporately, we become the church as the organic Body of Christ. Hallelujah!

God wants us to be God-men who have a Mingled Living of a God-man by Abiding in Christ

Some Christians think that God wants us to be like angels, serving God, being pure, and being only with God and for God, not being touched or involved with all these worldly things.

But God has no intention that we human beings would stop being men; He doesn’t need more “spirits” but He needs God-men!

What God is after is God-men, those who are “grafted” into God and in whom He is grafted.

Our concept, however, is that we need to improve ourselves; we may think we’re alright, we’re not that bad, but we need to improve here and there.

We may think that we don’t sin that much and we don’t have that many defects, but we’re aware of some flaws, so we want to improve ourselves.

Even after becoming a believer, we may think that we will become better over time, and we want to improve ourselves to be better than before.

And it may seem that this kind of improvement may work for a little, but in the end, we realize that we’re not improving but rather, there’s no way to improve ourselves.

God is not after an improved human being; He doesn’t want man to work hard to improve himself.

God is not after man trying to please God by doing what the Bible says man should do, neither is He after man trying his best to express God through his patience, kindness, and meekness.

What God is after is a God-man; He wants men filled with God, men who have been grafted into Christ and who enjoy Christ.

Such ones don’t live in their natural life nor do they live an improved life; they are crucified with Christ and it is Christ who lives in them, and they have a mingled living of a God-man by abiding in Christ (Gal. 2:20).

God wants us to be filled with Him as rivers of living water until the living water flows out from us to others (John 4:14, 24).

The whole Bible speaks not of many doing his best to improve himself but of God’s desire that man would receive God, man would enjoy God, and man would be filled with God to express God and represent God.

God wants that the divine life would be added to the human life so that the divine life would be grafted into the human life and the human life in the divine life, so that there would be two lives becoming one life.

Such a mingled life, the divine life and human life mingled together, issues in a mingled living of a God-man.

The highest standard of living for a Christian is not doing the right thing and doing good works; it is the mingled living of a God-man.

This is what is in God’s heart and what He is working to obtain: He wants to work Himself into us to the extent that He becomes us and we become Him!

He wants to work Himself into us and make us completely identical with Him in life, nature, and image so that we have mingled living of a God-man on earth.

When others see us, they see God, but they see God expressed through our humanity.

This is the pinnacle, and this is much higher than just being good or doing good.

It is so sad, however, to see that many saved ones, many genuine believers, are not clear about what is the real Christian life!

They think that to be a Christian means to have a good behaviour and glorify God, and we should not do things that displease God.

But the real meaning of glorifying God is to be filled with God so that we express God not in and by our natural life but by His divine life!

We shouldn’t think that being humble and patient, and doing good works is to glorify God; it is easy to do these things in ourselves, expressing ourselves.

As we abide in the Lord, there is a dispensing of God into us; this dispensing of life from the tree of life into us as branches flow out through us, and we live the mingled life of a God-man spontaneously.

The tree of life is dispensing life into us, and we live a grafted life, a mingled life.

To abide in Christ as the vine is to take Him as our dwelling place, which is the highest and fullest experience of God; to dwell in Christ is to have our living in Christ, taking Him as our everything (Psa. 90:1; 91:1, 9).

The Lord is our dwelling place, and He also dwells in us; we dwell in Him and He dwells in us.

This is the grafted life, a mingling of two lives, a dwelling place of two persons, and even an incorporation of God and man.

And the result is the mingled life of a God-man, a man expressing God by abiding in Christ so that Christ may live through him.

Lord Jesus, we want to abide in You. We open to receive the divine dispensing of life from the tree of life. Hallelujah, we are God-men, men born of God who have the divine life and nature! We simply want to abide in You and take You as our dwelling place, even as You abide in us and take us as Your dwelling place. Save us from trying to improve ourselves. We do not want to improve our behaviour or perfect ourselves; we simply come to be filled with You! We open to absorb all Your riches and we allow You to work Yourself into us. Fill us with Yourself. Amen, Lord, fill us to the brim! Fill us to the overflowing so that we may have the mingled living of a God-man! Yes, Lord, live through us today. Live in us and be expressed through us as we abide in You and You in us!

When we Enjoy Christ as the Tree of Life and Live a Grafted Life, Christ is our Life and we are His Living

The truth in the Bible is so high and deep, but the application and experience is so simple.

The highest revelation in the Bible is that God desires to be one with man in an organic way.

He wants man to be grafted into God, and He wants to be grafted into man so that the divine life and the human life are mingled together and there is the mingled living of a God-man life. This is amazing!

However, if we look at our condition, we may not be that proper. Yes, we did repent, we believed into the Lord, and we called on His name; now we have the holy breath in us (John 20:22).

We have God grafted in our being, and we have been grafted in Christ.

On His side, Jesus Christ came as the embodiment of the Triune God, and He became a life-giving Spirit in His resurrection to impart all the riches of God into our being (1 Cor. 15:45; 2 Cor. 3:17).

As such a Spirit, He is constantly dispensing all that He is, He has, and He has attained and obtained into our being.

We now have a grafted life, for we are joined to the Lord as one spirit (1 Cor. 6:17).

Our Christian life is not a matter of improvement or cultivation, both of which produce temporary results.

Our Christian life is a life of enjoying Christ as the tree of life and living a grafted life so that Christ becomes our life and we become His living.

The Christian life is living the mingled life of a God-man, that is, living in the mingled spirit so that Christ can be expressed through us.

He has come into us and He was “installed” in us as the “heavenly electricity”, ready to operate and do everything in us and for us.

We simply need to “switch Him on” by calling on His name and contacting Him again and again, and He will operate in us and do everything in us.

The life-giving Spirit is in our spirit, ready and available to impart life to every part of our being.

He has even become a law, the law of the Spirit of life (Rom. 8:2) to deliver us from the law of sin and of death as we contact the Lord in spirit and abide in Him. Amen!

May we switch Him on by turning to Him, contacting Him, and abiding in Him.

We shouldn’t care merely for right or wrong; we should care only for enjoying Christ as the tree of life.

However, we should not take the excuse of not caring for right and wrong, good and evil, to indulge in the freedom of the flesh under the cloak of “life”.

We shouldn’t just do whatever we want to do, even indulge in the lusts of the flesh, all in the name of life.

Rather, as we enjoy Christ as the tree of life, we need to eat Him and allow His death and resurrection to operate in us.

When we are joined to Him organically, when we remain in this organic union with the Lord, the life of the tree of life is dispensed into us, and this life is a crucified and resurrected life.

The more we eat Christ as the tree of life, the more we experience being crucified and resurrected with Christ.

Also, as we eat Christ as the tree of life, we will express the uplifted humanity of Jesus.

By being grafted into Christ, our humanity will be strengthened and uplifted for us to live in a Jesusly human life, that is, live the mingled life of a God-man.

We are not here to become some kind of an angelic being; we are here to be proper human beings as Jesus was.

For us to stay grafted in the tree of life, we need to abide in the Lord and let Him abide in us by His word abiding in us (John 15:7-8).

We need to allow His word to abide in us and we must abide in His love.

Abiding in the Lord causes us to be joined to Christ and to all the saints as the fellow branches, and we together are the corporate Christ to spread and dispense Christ everywhere.

This will make the tree of life prevailing all over this earth to consummate this age and bring in the New Jerusalem.

Lord Jesus, thank You for coming into us to be our very life and make us Your living, Your corporate expression. Thank You for being the life-giving Spirit mingled with our spirit to dispense all the riches of God into our being. Amen, Lord, You are our content and we are Your expression. We give ourselves to love You and we allow Your word to abide in us. We just want to abide in You, Lord, so that we may partake of You as the tree of life. Dispense more of Your life into us, in all the parts of our inner being. May we experience and enjoy Your crucified and resurrected life so that anything of the natural man would be put to death. Uplift and resurrect our humanity as we abide in You. Oh Lord, may we become the increase of Christ as the tree of life wherever we are so that the tree of life will spread all over the earth!

References and Hymns on this Topic

• Sources of inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, a sharing by brother James Lee in the message, and portions from, Collected Works of Witness Lee, 1990, vol. 3, “A Deeper Study of the Divine Dispensing“, chs. 5 and 13, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Taking the Way of Enjoying Christ as the Tree of Life (2022 Memorial Day Weekend Conference), week 4, entitled, Grafted into Christ to Become Part of the Tree of Life.
• Hymns on this topic:
  – This the secret of the holy, / Not our holiness, but Him; / O Lord! empty us and fill us, / With Thy fulness to the brim. / This the balm for pain and sickness, / Just to all our strength to die, / And to find His life and fulness, / All our being’s need supply. (Hymns #482)
  – Then came Jesus Christ as the tree of life, / Satisfying all that God required. / He redeemed the earth, giving man new birth, / And became the food that man desired. / Jesus, Jesus, / Jesus Christ is really good to eat. / Jesus, Jesus, / He is real drink and real meat. (Hymns #1144)
  – Not to “go in” is the secret. / But that I’m “already in”! / That I ne’er may leave I’d ask Thee. / Not how I may get within. / I am in, already in Thee! / What a place to which I’m brought! / There’s no need for prayer or struggling, / God Himself the work has wrought. (Hymns #561)