God intends to be man’s pleasure, man’s possession, and man’s inheritance – this is why He presented Himself to man in the beginning as the tree of life! But because man has lost his inheritance (which is God Himself) and his family (which is the Triune God and the family of God), man needs to be recovered, restored, and returned to his inheritance!
Even more, in the Old Testament we see that sometimes the people of God would have to sell their possession and even their whole land so that they may survive(due to different reasons); also, some of the people of Israel would sell themselves as slaves so that they may have food to eat and a roof above their head. According to the type in Lev. 25 we see that the jubilee has two main blessings. The first is that all those who have lost their inheritance may be returned to their possession (Lev. 25:9-13).
God intended to be man’s possession (Psa. 16:5, 90:1), but man lost God because of man’s fall (Eph. 2:12). However, God’s jubilee brings man back to God as his inheritance (see Acts 26:18, Eph. 1:14).
The second blessing of the jubilee is that those who have sold themselves as slaves are freed from their slavery (Lev. 25:39-41)! Praise the Lord, there was a year called the year of jubilee, when the people would return to their possession and to their family! Today, in the New Testament age, we are in that year – the year of the jubilee!
In the New Testament the Lord Jesus is the jubilee and He brought in the jubilee! Now the whole age of grace, the age of the New Testament, we are in the year of the jubilee! In the jubilee, all things are pleasant and satisfying to our heart, and we are free from any anxiety, we are at ease, we are excited and exultant!
The trumpet has been blown, we have been freed by believing into the Lord Jesus, and now we have returned to God as our inheritance and to the church as our divine family! Praise the Lord! Here we enjoy the Lord and we are even “besides ourselves with joy”!
When a slave is freed, he is beside himself with joy! When the Lord freed the Israelites from Egypt and then closed the parted waters of the Red Sea over the Egyptians, the people of Israel were besides themselves with joy!
Today we have been freed and released, and we are enjoying God in Christ as our inheritance – we need to enjoy Him to such an extent that, at least inside, we are in ecstasy! The age of the jubilee is the age of ecstasy – we enjoy Christ as our possession and inheritance in the church life to such an extent that we are leaping for joy!
Our whole Christian life, as we enjoy the Lord daily and moment by moment, is an age of ecstasy – we are filled with joy within!
Brother Watchman Nee once said, “If, as a Christian, you have never reached the point of being beside yourself, you are not up to the standard” If we, as believers in the Lord, have never reached such a point where we are besides ourselves with joy and ecstasy before the Lord – even of being “crazy” in love and joy for God – this shows that we do not have a sufficient enjoyment of God!
We need to enjoy the Lord more and more every day until inwardly we are ecstatic before the Lord, filled with Him, and fully entering into the possession of our inheritance! “If there is no joy in us, we cannot be beside ourselves, but if we are always enjoying God, we will reach a point where we cannot help bu be beside ourselves” (Bro. Witness Lee in, The Jubilee). Wow, amen!
[enjoyment from brother Witness Lee’s book, The Jubilee, and the life-study of the Gospel of Luke; article introduced via A-Godman. Read this portion in Spanish via, ¡La era del jubileo es la era del éxtasis – llegamos a la exultación máxima al disfrutar al Señor!]
Lord, thank You for proclaiming the jubilee! We are now in the age of grace, the age of the jubilee! Keep us enjoying You more and more each day! We want to be Christians up to the standard – those who are filled with the enjoyment of God! Fill us with more of God, more of the divine enjoyment, so that we may be in ecstasy enjoying You! Amen, Lord, we want to enter fully into the age of the jubilee, enjoying our inheritance! Praise the Lord!
