We as believers in Christ are not God’s hired servants but His enjoying sons, and we can continually enjoy God as our possession until eternity. We were once prodigal sons, but we have returned to the Father, who is waiting for us eagerly.
The proclamation of the jubilee in Luke 4 governs the central thought of the entire Gospel of Luke, and the parable of the prodigal son in Luke 15 is an excellent illustration of the jubilee.
The central thought of the gospel of Luke is governed by the proclamation of the jubilee, and in chapter 15 we see an illustration of our experience as prodigal sons.
This parable is such an apt description of the returning to the jubilee and the enjoyment of the jubilee.
The prodigal son left his father’s house, and he ended up selling his possession and even himself. He asked his father for his share of the inheritance, and took his money and went to a far away country where he squandered everything.
And because he had no more money, he eventually sold himself and joined himself to one of the people in that country, working for him to feed his pigs… And he was so hungry that even the pig’s food looked good to him.
He squandered wastefully everything that he received from the father by having an extravagant living, and he lived dissolutely, spending everything he had.
Then, when he got to feed the pigs and desired to eat their food, he came to his senses and realised that even the servants in his father’s house have enough food to eat, so he will return and ask for forgiveness from his father, and then will request to be one of his father’s servants.
But while he was a long way off, the father saw him and ran to him, being moved with compassion, and fell on his neck and kissed him affectionately.
The son tried to recite his prepared speech with a heartfelt apology, but the father seemed to hear nothing of that – rather, the father commanded his servants to quickly bring the best robe, put a ring on his finger, put sandals on his feet, and slaughter the fattened calf, for his son was dead and now lives again, he was lost and has been found.
Nothing made the father so happy than to see the prodigal son return home, for the father was eagerly waiting for him and received him with open arms.
This is truly our story before we were saved, and sometimes it still is our story after we are saved, for we still go away from the Lord and live in an unsanctified way, wasting what He has given us by His grace.
But praise the Lord, the Spirit is working in us to sweep within our heart so that we may come to our senses, return to the Father, ask for forgiveness, and remain in the Father’s house. Here in the Father’s house we enjoy the jubilee.
Returning to the Lord as Prodigal Sons to Enjoy the Jubilee, Christ as our Possession
Adam was just like the prodigal son – he had everything, and even God Himself was his inheritance and enjoyment. But he disobeyed God and sold his possession, and he was enslaved to sin and lost his inheritance.
Now we as his descendants are born as slaves to sin in the world; but when we hear the gospel, we enter into the jubilee.
Just as one day the prodigal son returned to his possession and his father’s house, so we one day heard the gospel and entered into the jubilee. By believing into the Lord and receiving Him into us, we were returned to God as our possession and we were delivered from the slavery of sin.
In redemption God is our possession for our enjoyment, and for us to be saved is for us to return to God, our inheritance, and come back to God to enjoy Him anew as our possession (see Eph. 1:13-14).
After we were saved, the Spirit of God is in us as the pledge, the guarantee, the proof, and the security of our inheritance.
By believing into the Lord we have returned to God as our possession, and we have received the Spirit as the pledge, the sample, the guarantee that God is our inheritance for our enjoyment for eternity.
The Spirit within us is the foretaste, the guarantee of the full taste of God as our inheritance. Whenever we exercise our spirit to contact the Lord and pray read His word, we enjoy a foretaste of the full taste of God.
Hallelujah, when we were saved we were not only redeemed from sin and rescued from the world, but we have gained and obtained God! Now that we have God, we have everything!
Without God, we have nothing, but when we have God and enjoy God as the Spirit in our spirit, we have the jubilee!
Through believing into Christ we have returned to our Father’s house, to the church as the house of God, our real and genuine spiritual family.
Here the Father pours out on us everything that He has prepared for us, that is, Christ is the reality of the fattened calf to be our feast with the saints! Here, in God’s family, the believers in Christ are our brothers and sisters who love to enjoy God with us.
In the church life we enjoy God as our possession, and we are surrounded by our family members, our loved ones. When we have God, we have everything, but if we lose God, we have nothing and we even are nothing.
How we thank and praise the Lord for redeeming us, saving us, and bringing us back to God as our inheritance and to the church as our family! How we thank Him that He has saved us from the world and has brought us to Himself to enjoy Christ as the reality of the jubilee!
He is happy – and we are happy, for we are returned to our family and to our divinely assigned portion, and He is everything to us! And whenever we exercise our spirit, we enjoy the Spirit as a foretaste, a sample, of the full taste of the jubilee! Praise the Lord!
Thank You Lord for bringing us back to Yourself as our divinely appointed inheritance. Thank You for giving us the Spirit as the pledge of our inheritance. Thank You Father for welcoming back home in God, in God’s house, where we can enjoy Christ as the reality of the jubilee together with our real spiritual family, the church. Hallelujah, we can now exercise our spirit and have a foretaste of God, a sample of the full taste of God as our inheritance! Teach us Lord how to enjoy You as our jubilee and how to live a daily life in the jubilee in the church life!
Living in the Jubilee by Continually Enjoying God as our Possession and Portion
When we believed into the Lord Jesus, we entered into the jubilee, and God has become our portion in Christ.
However, many times we are unhappy – we’re like the lights that, even though they are installed into the building and there’s plenty of electricity, they don’t shine because no one turns on the switch.
Many Christians are unhappy and are not enjoying the jubilee because they don’t “turn on the switch” by taking God as their portion.
Yes, Christ is our blessed portion of enjoyment, but we need to cooperate with Him and work out our own salvation, for it is God who operates in us both the willing and the working, according to His good pleasure (Phil. 2:12-16).
We have all the riches available to enjoy, we have God within us, but we may still be alienated from the life of God in our experience because we don’t turn on the switch.
If we don’t love the Lord with all our heart and we don’t exercise our spirit to contact Him deeply, we may be in a darkened condition, and the blessed portion of the jubilee may not be ours at this time. Oh Lord Jesus!
When we exercise our spirit to contact the Lord and we turn our heart to Him to love Him, we enjoy the Lord Jesus in the Father’s house, and everything is pleasant and satisfying (Luke 15:20, 24).
We don’t need to sow or labor to reap…we simply need to eat and enjoy what God has prepared for us.
God has already prepared Christ, the all-inclusive One as the reality of the good land with all the supply needed for our spiritual life – so we need to just enjoy Him!
We shouldn’t try to make penance by asking the Lord to receive us as His hired servants, that we will do anything for Him and in His name….we should simply be the enjoying sons of God, those who continually enjoy God as their possession!
We have entered the age of jubilee when we were born again, and now we need to continue to live in the jubilee by continually enjoying God as our possession and our portion.
We give thanks to the Father who has qualified us for a share of the allotted portion of the saints in the light (Col. 1:12), and we meet with the saints to enjoy the all-inclusive Christ as our God-allotted portion.
Hallelujah, God has become our blessed portion in Christ, and we have a hope in this world, for God is our portion!
And praise the Lord, we know the way to “turn on the switch” for us to enjoy the riches of God in the jubilee – we can exercise our spirit and turn our heart to the Lord so that we may take God as our portion and continually enjoy Him as our inheritance!
Lord Jesus, may we continually live in the jubilee by enjoying God as our possession and our portion. Thank You Lord for becoming our blessed portion in Christ. Thank You for giving us a way to contact You and enjoy all Your riches. Amen, Lord, keep us coming to You and feasting with all the saints in the jubilee church life! May our entire Christian life be a life of jubilee, and may the church life be filled with the enjoyment of Jubilee Jesus! May we all learn to turn to our spirit, exercise our spirit, and love the Lord, so that we may take God as our portion in the jubilee!
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message by Minoru Chen for this week, and portions from, Collected Works of Witness Lee, 1984, vol. 4, “The Jubilee,” pp. 19-22, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Crystallization-Study of Leviticus (2), week 10, The Jubilee (1).
- Hymns on this topic:
# In this portion we have God, / Whom we lost thru Adam’s fall; / By the shedding of Thy blood, / God becomes our all in all. / In this portion all we have- / Life and peace, redemption sure; / All that God has planned and willed, / In this portion we secure. (Hymns #223)
# Once as prodigals we wandered, / In our folly, far from Thee; / But Thy grace, o’er sin abounding, / Rescued us from misery. / Clothed in garments of salvation / At Thy table is our place; / We rejoice, and Thou rejoicest, / In the riches of Thy grace. (Hymns #43)
# Jesus, Jesus our Redeemer / Has restored the family, / Brothers, sisters we are here now / In God’s house eternally. / No more strangers from His love— / Now His children ere to be. / We proclaim the year of our Lord, / Hallelujah Jubilee. (Song on, Jesus our Redeemer has become our Jubilee)
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