The only living that can ascend to God to satisfy Him is the God-man living of Jesus Christ; we can lay our hands on Christ as our burnt offering through the proper prayer to be joined to Him as one so that Christ may live in us and repeat in us the life of the burnt offering. Amen!
Christ, the first God-man, embodied God and lived the life of a God-man; He had a God-man living.
The only life that is pleasing to God is the life that is a repetition of the life of Christ on the earth.
When we corporately live the God-man life, a repetition of the life of Christ when He was on earth, the Lord will gain the reality of the Body of Christ, and He can return to rapture His bride.
We need to have a life that experiences Christ in His experiences as the burnt offering (Lev. 1:9; John 8:29; 2 Cor. 5:9).
As believers in Christ, we do not live a life according to the motto, “What Would Jesus Do?” and therefore try to live as He did.
Rather, we realize that the only One who can satisfy God by His living is Jesus Christ, and this One lives in us.
We can and should experience Christ in His experiences as the burnt offering.
He lived a life of the burnt offering, continually putting Himself aside and living in the Father, with the Father, for the Father, and unto the Father; His life and living were most pleasing and satisfying to God.
In ourselves, we do not have such a life. In and by ourselves, no matter how moral, ethical, and kind we are, we cannot live a life that satisfies God.
The only One who can have a God-man living for God’s satisfaction is Christ. We need to let Christ live in us.
We need to lay our hands on Christ and be identified with Him so that we may experience Him in His experiences as the burnt offering.
Only Christ can live 24/7 for God. We may live for God on and off, here and there, but not constantly.
But praise the Lord, there is One who lives in us, and our life can be the repetition of the life that Christ lived on the earth!
We are here to let Him live in us by being identified with Him so that He and us, we and Him, would have the same life and the same living.
When we lay our hands on Christ through proper prayer, we are identified with Him, and He can live in us the same kind of life that He lived while on the earth.
Such a life and such a living is absolutely satisfying to the Father, for it is the God-man living He desires to obtain in and among His people.
Christ lived a Life that is Absolutely for God and for His Satisfaction, and He is our Life to Enable us to have such a Life Today
The burnt offering in Lev. 1:3 and Num. 28:2-3 typifies Christ in His living a life that is absolutely for God and for God’s satisfaction (John 5:30; 6:38; 8:29; Heb. 10:5-10).
Furthermore, it typifies Christ in His being the life in us enabling us as God’s people also to have such a living today.
This is the key to living a God-man life; for us to have a God-man living we need to take Christ as our burnt offering.
The burnt offering is the first offering presented to God, and it is the offering that was to be offered both in the morning and in the evening.
The burnt offering is continuous, for the fire on the burnt offering altar could not go out.
Christ is the reality of the burnt offering, and this qualifies Him to be the sin offering.
Christ came through incarnation to replace all the offerings and be the reality of all the offerings; He was absolute for God, and this qualified Him to be the real burnt offering.
He was fully one with God; in our case, there are so many things that can break our oneness with God.
We may even be in a meeting, enjoying the Lord with the saints, but a look from someone or the atmosphere being too cold or too hot can take us out of our union with the Lord.
We may have a great time with the Lord in the morning, but the contortion on the face of our roommate or spouse causes our oneness with the Lord to be broken.
The Lord Jesus lived the life of the burnt offering; in everything He did, said, acted, and worked, He was fully one with God.
He was the eldest among at least eight children, and many things must have happened as He grew up; in all these things, He lived a God-man life on earth.
His oneness with the Father was never broken.
And He is in us to be our life. He is our life to enable us to live the life of the burnt offering today.
We can experience Christ in His experiences as the burnt offering and we are enabled to live Christ, even have the same kind of living that Christ did when He was on the earth.
The burnt offering typifies Christ not mainly in His redeeming man from sin but in His living a life that is perfect and absolutely for God and for His satisfaction.
He lived such a life when He was on earth, and He came in us to live the same kind of life in us; He is our life today to enable us to have the God-man living, a living that satisfies God (2 Cor. 5:15; Gal. 2:19-20).
His living as the burnt offering was God’s food so that God may enjoy it and be satisfied (Num. 28:2), and our living the life of the burnt offering is also food for God to be satisfied.
The matter of the burnt offering is a weighty matter, for it affects our daily living.
The Hebrew word translated as “burnt offering” literally means “that which goes up”, denoting something that ascends to God to satisfy Him (Lev. 1:3, 10, 14).
What can satisfy God? It is not our best behaviour, our work for God, or our efforts to please Him; the only thing that can ascend to God from earth is the God-man living of Jesus Christ.
He is the unique person to live a life absolutely for God (John 6:38). His living was a satisfying fragrance to God, just as the fragrance of the burnt offering was satisfying to God.
The Hebrew words translated as “satisfying fragrance” (Lev. 1:9) literally mean “savour of rest or satisfaction”.
The living of Jesus, the God-man living of the first God-man, was a satisfying fragrance to God, bringing Him satisfaction, peace, and rest.
God enjoyed seeing Jesus living on earth, and He was full of rest and satisfaction.
When we experience Christ in His experiences as the burnt offering, God is satisfied and at rest, for He sees Jesus living again in the many members of His Body.
Lord Jesus, we want to live the life of a God-man by taking Christ as our burnt offering. May we experience Christ in His experiences as the burnt offering so that our living may be a repetition of the life Christ lived on the earth. Amen, Lord Jesus, Your life and living were absolutely for God and for God’s satisfaction. We want to live the same kind of life today. We turn to You and we take You as our life. Enable us to live the life of a burnt offering today. Live in us today, Lord. Grant us the experiences we need for us to live the life of a burnt offering, a life fully for God and for His satisfaction. We praise You, dear Lord, for being the unique person who lived a life that is absolutely for God. Thank You for coming into us to enable us to live a life for God and for His satisfaction. Amen, Lord, may we experience Christ in His experiences as the burnt offering today so that our life may be a repetition of the life Christ had when He was on the earth!
Lay our Hands on Christ as the Burnt Offering through Prayer to be One with Him so that He may Live in us the Life of the Burnt Offering
It is wonderful to see the Lord Jesus’ God-man living in the Gospels; His living was so sweet, so aromatic, and so pleasant, for He lived one with the Father to express God in everything.
How can we have such a living today so that we may live a God-man life that satisfies the Father?
God confirmed at least twice that Christ is His beloved and that He is pleased with Him, for He was satisfied and happy with Christ and His living.
But what about us, how can we have such a life and a living?
It is not by trying harder. It is not by striving to please God and obey Him according to what the Bible says.
We need to take Christ as our burnt offering. This means that we need to lay our hands on Him as the burnt offering.
In the Old Testament, the offerer laid his hands on the burnt offering to be identified with it, and then the animal to be offered was offered to God completely.
The laying on of hands in the Bible signifies identification, not substitution or exchange.
God doesn’t want to exchange our poor, weak, sinful life with Christ’s perfect, strong, divine life; He wants us to be one with Christ.
We need to lay our hands on Christ as the burnt offering through prayer so that we may be one with Him; the result of this is that Christ will live in us the life of the burnt offering.
By laying our hands on Christ as our burnt offering through the proper prayer, we are joined to Him, and He and we become one (1 Cor. 6:17).
Day by day we need to realize that our life cannot meet God’s standard nor can it satisfy Him, no matter how much we try to improve it.
We simply need to lay our hands on Christ as the burnt offering through the proper prayer so that we may be one with Christ in our daily living.
When we do this, Christ will live in us, and He will repeat in us the life He lived on earth, the life of the burnt offering (Gal. 2:20).
We have been crucified with Christ and it is no longer we who live but it is Christ who lives in us, and the life we now live in the flesh we live in the identification with Christ, in our organic union with Him, so that He may live in us the life of the burnt offering.
In ourselves we are utterly unqualified and hopeless, for our flesh is the dwelling place of Satan, our self is the embodiment of Satan, and our natural man is full of life and energy to fulfil the desires of Satan.
But we can exercise our spirit and lay our hands on Christ to be identified with Him.
When we lay our hands on Christ as the burnt offering, we are one with Him; in such a union, all our weaknesses, defects, and faults are taken on by Him (2 Cor. 5:21; Gal. 2:20).
He takes all our weak points and defects, and He infuses us with what He is.
What a marvellous organic union we have with the Lord!
He and we are one, and we and Him are fully one in spirit; in such an identification, His virtues become ours and our defects are taken by Him.
Him who did not know sin, God made sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.
It is unbelievable: He had no sin, but He was made sin on our behalf, for we were identified with Him and He identified Himself with us.
We are sin, we are full of sin, and we’re a sin-producing factory; by coming to the Lord and laying our hands on Him, we’re identified with Him and all our sins, defects, weaknesses, and failures become His.
And He gives all that He is to us, making us righteous before God, even making us the righteousness of God in Him.
He takes all our weaknesses and He infuses all that He is into us so that Christ may live in us the life of the burnt offering, the God-man living.
In this way, Christ has a way to repeat His living in us for God’s satisfaction.
May we learn to have the proper prayer to identify ourselves with Him in our daily life.
When others say things to us, when our spouse mistreats us, or when we miss the bus, we can simply turn to the Lord and take Him as our burnt offering.
We can give Him all our weaknesses, defects, failures, and sins; He is willing to bear them all for us.
As we open to Him and pray to lay our hands on Christ, He has a way to enable us to live the life of a God-man, the life of the burnt offering, thus repeating in us the life He lived when He was on earth.
Lord Jesus, we lay our hands on You; we take You as our burnt offering. We are not qualified to express God nor can we live the life of a God-man, but we are joined to You by faith. Amen, Lord, we give You all our defects, weaknesses, and faults. We receive Your rich infusion of all that You are. Infuse us with Your virtues, Your rich life, and all that You are and have accomplished. We make ourselves one with You by faith and we want to live one spirit with You. Live in us today. We keep our old man and the self on the cross and we want to live Christ by faith. Repeat in us the living that You had when You were on the earth. We want to live the life of the burnt offering, a life that satisfies God. Amen, Lord Jesus, we want to live in the organic union with You in spirit so that You may live in us and we may live Christ.
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Inspiration for this article/sharing comes from the Word of God, the enjoyment in the ministry, a sharing by brother Ricky Acosta in the message for this week, and portions from, Life-study of Leviticus (msgs. 3-5, 8-9) by Witness Lee, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, An Overview of the Central Burden and Present Truth of the Lord’s Recovery Before His Appearing (2023 July Semiannual Training), week 5, entitled, The God-man Living.
- Similar sharing on this topic:
– Laying our hands on the head of the offering, a portion from, Life-Study of Leviticus, Chapter 17, by Witness Lee.
– 7 Ways to Gain Christ as Your Enjoyment Every Day, article via, Holding to Truth in Love.
– The burnt offering Christ for God’s satisfaction – a portion from, Life-Study of Leviticus, Chapter 8.
– Touchstones of God’s economy – Leviticus (1), article via, Affirmation and Critique.
– Our burnt offering – a hymn via, Hymnal.net.
– Offering Christ to God as our burnt offering according to our experiences of Him, a portion from, Life-Study of Leviticus, Chapter 9, by Witness Lee.
– The Rebuilding of the Altar of God— the Altar of Burnt Offering, a sharing by brother R. S.
– Experiencing Christ as the Burnt Offering (Part 1), via, Living to Him. - Hymns on this topic:
– Live Thyself, Lord Jesus, through me, / For my very life art Thou; / Thee I take to all my problems / As the full solution now. / Live Thyself, Lord Jesus, through me, / In all things Thy will be done; / I but a transparent vessel / To make visible the Son. / Consecrated is Thy temple, / Purged from every stain and sin; / May Thy flame of glory now be / Manifested from within. / Let the earth in solemn wonder / See my body willingly / Offered as Thy slave obedient, / Energized alone by Thee. (Hymns #403 stanzas 1-2)
– As we eat Thyself, Lord Jesus, / Consecrated we become; / By Thy wondrous life within us, / Thy obedience is our own. / No more need we strive and struggle, / Consecrated try to be; / Consecration dwells within us— / Now our part to eat of Thee. (Hymns #1138 stanza 3)
– Oh, what a life! Oh, what a peace! / The Christ who’s all within me lives. / With Him I have been crucified; / This glorious fact to me He gives. / Now it’s no longer I that live, / But Christ the Lord within me lives. (Hymns #499 stanza 1)
About aGodMan
Life-study of Leviticus, pp. 27-28, by Witness Lee
The only thing that can ascend from earth to satisfy God is the God-man living of Jesus Christ, the only One who was absolutely for God and for God’s satisfaction.
We need to take Christ as our burnt offering and lay our hands on Him to be identified with Him.
He in us is the life that enables us to live the life of a burnt offering so that our living may be a repetition of the living of Jesus.
May our daily aspiration be to live for God and for His satisfaction.
Only the Christ in us can live this life.
So, we must take Christ as our burnt offering, be one with Him and live the life He lived on Earth.
We and Jesus, and He and we, need to become one.
All our defects & weaknesses must become His so that His divine attributes may become our virtues.
Once we realise & accept that we are unqualified & hopeless, we can be fully immersed in Christ so that He repeats in us the life He lived on Earth.
Amen Brother, thank the Lord You lived the God-man life on earth.
The God-man living is a life of Christ as the burnt offering – one who pleases God, who satisfies Him as one who is without blemish living to Him.
It is also to enable us to live such a life – being acceptable to God by our union with Him through the proper prayer.
Only when we lay our hands on Him, are identified with Him, can we gain the honour of being well-pleasing to Him. Amen!
Oh hallelujah for the burnt offering we love you Lord we take you as our burnt offering, reproduce this life in us 🙏🏼
Amen! Christ lived absolutely for God, suffered, died, resurrected, and ascended up to God in acceptance, like the fragrance of rest and satisfaction that ascended to God through the sacrifice and burning of the burnt offering, all to satisfy God.
We identify with Him like the Israelites identified with the burnt offering of the Old Testament.
Now, Christ can repeat His living in us. He satisfied God by His absolute living, and He lives in us to replicate His absolute living for God, in us, for God’s satisfaction.
Lev. 1:3, footnote 1 on, “burnt offering”, Recovery Version Bible
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Dear Lord Jesus, You are our only all sufficient offering of any kind! Praise You forever!
Thank you Lord we can take you as our burnt offering
This is interesting, my dear brother, but wonder, what is a proper prayer?
Isaiah 1:11 tells us how God is wearied of the burnt offerings. The problem is this: if we make a habit of “proper prayer” or laying hands on Christ, without truly realizing and appreciating His suffering and complete sacrifice, we are no better than these Jews of old who routinely, even diligently sent animals to the fire, without much gratefulness.Hence God’s weariness and dissatisfaction.
Isaiah 1:18 then invites these same ones to come and reason together with God, hinting at the relationship He is longing for, and promise…though our sins be as crimson, they will be white as snow. So, here is the question: Will laying hands on Christ increase our relationship, our gratefulness? Or Will it become another duty? Will it become a work, heaven forbid, or a replacement for time and fellowship with Him?
I truly appreciate your addressing this dilemma: how to become the living sacrifice that pleases God. I fully agree with you that only Christ Jesus can fulfill it. But maybe, just maybe, it is meant to remain our dilemma, that we not become too comfortable with this, our view of Calvary.
May the Lord have a way to unveil us to see that Christ is the reality of the burnt offering, and He is in us as such a One. If we realize we’re one with Him and He is one with us, if we keep in fellowship with Him throughout the day, we will experience Christ and we will live absolutely for God. This is something spontaneous and not deliberate, but we initiate it by contacting the Lord and remaining in touch with Him, even walking according to the Spirit.
May the Lord save us from any religious duty and keep us focused on the wonderful person of Christ! And may we aspire like Paul to know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death…