We labor on Christ by exercising our spirit to contact the Lord and being one with Him in every situation; the way to labor on Christ is to exercise our spirit to experience Christ in all situations and circumstances so that we gain more of Christ day by day.
When we thus labor on Christ and enjoy Him, experience Him, and gain Him little by little, day by day, we will have a surplus of Christ to bring to the church meetings.
For this to take place, however, we need to allow the word of God as the sword of the Spirit to divide our spirit from our soul.
Many times we think we’re in spirit but actually, we’re in our mind, emotion, or will; the word of God is living and operative, even sharper than a two-edged sword, and is able to divide our spirit from our soul.
When we pray and read the word of God with the exercise of our spirit, the Lord has a way to expose what is of the soul and bring us into our mingled spirit.
We are tripartite beings, and the spirit is the innermost part of our being, hidden deep inside our soul, while the soul is hidden deep inside the body.
When the spirit is divided from the soul by the living and operating word of God, we will realize how much we still live in our soul, and we will learn to exercise our spirit to be one with the Lord in spirit.
Throughout the day we need to pay attention to the things we are doing, be involved with the use of our human faculties in the responsibilities we need to carry out, and the soul is very much involved in what we need to do every day.
Many times our experience is that we have a time with the Lord in the morning and we enjoy Him, are supplied, and are nourished, but then we do this and that, take care of our responsibilities or are at work, and we forget about the Lord until we have a lunch break.
Then, at lunch break, we take the word of God, pray over some verses, and come back to the Lord, and then we take yet another break from the Lord until we finish work.
This is not normal – this is not a normal Christian life.
There has to be the breaking of the outer man, and the Word as a sword separates the soul from the spirit so that we live in two realms at the same time.
Outwardly, we are doing things in the physical realm according to the best of our ability, but inwardly we live one spirit with the Lord.
This doesn’t mean that we have two personalities living in two different realms; rather, it means that we are proper human beings who do this and that, but in all things, they contact the Lord and are one spirit with Him.
This requires much learning and many experiences of failing to exercise our spirit and contact the Lord, to the point that we are desperate to live in the mingled spirit, for it is in spirit that we can labor on Christ, gain Christ, and have a surplus of Christ for the satisfaction of God the Father and the supply of the saints.
We Labor on Christ by Exercising our Spirit to Contact God and Experience Christ Daily
What does it mean to labor on Christ? We have been allotted a portion of the all-inclusive Christ (Col. 1:12) and we have been rooted in Christ as the good land, but how can we labor on Christ?
To labor on Christ is to exercise our spirit to contact the Lord and to be one with the Lord in every situation.
In general, our experience is that of failure in this matter, but we can learn very much from our failures.
The way for us to labor on Christ is to exercise our spirit to contact the Spirit, who is the reality of the all-inclusive Christ as the good land (Gal. 3:14).
In the church life this expression, exercising our spirit, is very common and familiar; however, we need to come to the Lord and ask Him to show us what does this mean and how can we exercise our spirit. We may even ask the Lord,
Lord, help me to know where I am and what I need. Show me, dear Lord, how much do I exercise my spirit. Even today, Lord, how much did I exercise my spirit? Keep me contacting You again and again, in all situations, through exercising my spirit!
And we may even ask the Lord to show us what kind of spirit we have. We all have a human spirit, and when this spirit is regenerated, the regenerated spirit is life (Rom. 8:10).
Our human spirit is zoe life, the divine life, for we are joined to the Lord in spirit to be one spirit with Him (1 Cor. 6:17). This is wonderful!
But when our spirit is released, when our spirit flows out, what kind of spirit do we have? Our spirit is enveloped in our soul, so when it comes out, it flows through our soul.
To illustrate this, there is a spring of pure water flowing from the mountains, but as it flows through the various rocks and riverbeds, it gets mixed with the substances contained in these, and it becomes unclean and undrinkable; it is still water, but it is not pure.
When some believers exercise their spirit and pray, you can sense anger in their prayer, or maybe we can sense jealousy.
Because they did not deal with their soul beforehand, when their spirit flows out, it is not pure. We need to learn to exercise our spirit so that we can labor on Christ and gain Christ.
Our spirit is not of cowardice, full of fear, but of power, of love, and of sober-mindedness (2 Tim. 1:7).
God didn’t give us a spirit that is full of fear but a spirit that is full of power.
We need to ask the Lord, therefore, to strengthen us with power through the Spirit into the inner man so that Christ may make His home in our heart (Eph. 3:16-21).
We all need to be strengthened in our spirit so that our spirit would be our real person, while the soul is just the organ for the spirit to be expressed.
For this to happen, we need to pray a lot, for our inner man needs to be strengthened with power by God through His Spirit according to the riches of His glory.
The prayer of all prayers is that we would pray to the Father of glory to strengthen us with power through His Spirit into the inner man so that Christ may make His home in our heart through faith, and we would be filled unto all the fullness of God, being rooted and grounded in love with all the saints.
In our labor on Christ, strength is required; therefore, we need to ask the Father to strengthen us and make our spirit strong so that we may be those exercising our spirit to contact the Lord day by day.
We shouldn’t make a pseud-consecration in which we promise the Lord to do this or that for Him; these are promises we can’t keep, and the Lord knows we can’t do it.
The Lord wants to train us to labor on Christ by exercising our spirit.
Father of glory, strengthen us through Your Spirit into the inner man, according to the riches of Your glory, so that Christ may make His home in our heart through faith! Amen, Lord, strengthen us into the inner man so that our spirit would be strong and full of power, love, and sober-mindedness! Make our spirit strong today so that we may be able to labor on Christ and gain Christ. Amen, Lord, we want to exercise our spirit to contact God the Spirit, the reality of the all-inclusive Christ as the good land! Amen, Lord, make us those who are strong in spirit to labor on the all-inclusive Christ!
Laboring on Christ is Learning to Exercise our Spirit to Experience Christ in our Daily Life
We need to learn to exercise our spirit in our daily life.
The matter of the exercising of our spirit is one of the items of the Lord’s recovery; this has been very much neglected in today’s Christianity, where the gift, intelligence, and talents are very much appreciated.
To use our mind in worshipping God and in serving God is like using our legs in playing basketball instead of using our hands.
We need to be trained in a proper way in the Lord’s service in the church life to primarily use our spirit and exercise our spirit instead of primarily using our emotion, will, or mind.
Even in our daily life, in our family life, and in taking care of the daily responsibilities, we need to learn how to exercise our spirit to experience Christ.
By default, we either react to things or do things in ourselves.
We may be at the red light behind six cars, and the cars before us don’t move fast enough when the green light comes on so we have to wait again for another red light for two minutes or so; we may be quite upset in ourselves, but we could also take this time to contact the Lord.
Contacting the Lord is something we are learning to do in all the daily situations – throughout the day, in all circumstances and in all situations, we need to learn to contact the Lord.
Rom. 8:4-6 tells us that we need to walk according to the spirit and set our mind on our spirit, and our mind will be life, and the righteous requirement of the law is fulfilled in us.
May we learn how to exercise according to the deepest feeling in our spirit, not merely react according to our natural man.
We must learn how to discern our spirit and how to exercise our spirit to experience Christ in our daily life. Laboring on Christ is learning to exercise our spirit in such a way that we experience Christ and gain Him. This is what it means to labor on Christ.
Most times we don’t know what to pray for, what do we need, and what is going on; we simply need to open to the Lord and contact Him, and He will supply us and produce Himself in us.
The Lord as the life-giving Spirit is in our spirit, and He knows all things; He is praying for us according to God, and He is interceding for us right now.
Christ knows what we need and He knows our situation; He is all-inclusive, and He can meet all our needs.
On our part, however, we need to labor on Christ by exercising our spirit to contact the Lord and experience Him in our daily life.
We need to inwardly exercise our spirit to contact the Lord. God has given to us a spirit of power, and we can ask the Lord to make our spirit strong so that we may live in our spirit.
We simply need to believe that God gave us a spirit of power; though we may not feel it, we believe it.
The more we exercise our spirit and develop it in our daily living by contacting the Lord, the more we experience of Christ, and we will bring something of Christ to the church as a surplus.
On one hand, we need to worship God in spirit by exercising our spirit to experience Him; on the other hand, we need to worship God in truthfulness, by bringing something of the Christ we have enjoyed and experienced to God for His satisfaction.
When we come together in the church meetings, we need to bring something of the Christ we experienced and enjoyed for His satisfaction; our church meetings should be an exhibition of Christ.
When the people of Israel came together three times a year to Jerusalem to worship God, they brought their surplus and there was a rich feast, a rich exhibition of the produce of the land.
Similarly, when we Christians come together, the Christian meeting becomes an exhibition of the riches of Christ, for we all exercise our spirit to exhibit Christ.
We all need how to exercise our spirit to minister Christ, apply Christ, and share Christ with others.
On one hand, we labor on Christ by exercising our spirit to experience Him in our daily situations; on the other hand, we bring something of the Christ we enjoyed and experienced to the meeting to minister to others.
May we be saved from being poor or empty-handed when we come to the meeting; may we have a rich surplus of Christ so that we worship God in spirit and truthfulness, bringing the rich Christ to God and to the saints for our mutual enjoyment in love.
Amen, may we learn to labor on Christ, walk in Christ, live by Christ, and have many experiences of Christ, so that we may be rich in Christ and with Christ when we come together with the saints, to minister Christ to others and offer Christ to God.
We labor on Christ as the good land by exercising our heart to have faith in the Lord and to love the Lord and by exercising our spirit to contact the Lord and to receive the dispensing of the all-inclusive life-giving Spirit, the reality of Christ as the good land (2 Cor. 3:16; 13:14; Gal. 3:14).
May we press on to labor on Christ by exercising our spirit to experience Christ in all the situations of our daily life, so that we may have something of Christ to bring to the church for the building up and for the worship of God!
Lord Jesus, we want to learn how to discern our spirit and to exercise it all the time. We want to be those who labor on Christ by exercising our spirit to experience Christ in all the daily situations of our living. Amen, Lord Jesus, You know what we really need and where we are; we open to You and we seek to be one spirit with You. Teach us to exercise our spirit and contact You. Keep us in our spirit today. Keep us contacting You throughout the day so that we may gain more of Christ. Dear Lord Jesus, keep us learning to exercise our spirit in situation after situation so that something of Christ may be added to us. Amen, Lord, may there be a surplus of Christ, a rich harvest of Christ, that we can bring to the church meetings to exhibit Christ, worship the Father in truthfulness, and minister to the saints for their nourishment and satisfaction!
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Sources of inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, a message given by Ron Kangas on this topic, and portions from, Collected Works of Witness Lee, 1964, vol. 4, “Serving in the Meetings and in the Gospel,” chs. 1-2, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Meeting God’s Need and Present needs in the Lord’s Recovery, week 5, entitled, Our Need to Walk in Newness of Life, to Serve in Newness of Spirit, and to Be Renewed in Our Inner Man Day by Day.
- Hymns on this topic:
– Laboring on Jesus this practical way— / Praying His Word in the spirit each day, / Foll’wing His living anointing within, / Built up with others, the church life to win. / Laboring on Jesus yields reality, / Meetings of fullness for all men to see; / There God and man are indeed satisfied, / And there God’s presence cannot be denied. (Hymns #1168)
– We on Christ, as land, must labor, / Harvest Him for all our fare; / Tasting Him to overflowing, / Christ with others we may share. (Hymns #912)
– Whene’er we meet with Christ endued, / The surplus of His plenitude / We offer unto God as food, / And thus exhibit Christ. / Let us exhibit Christ, / Let us exhibit Christ; / We’ll bring His surplus to the church / And thus exhibit Christ. (Hymns #864)
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