Living the Life of a God-man According to the Lord’s Model by Living in the Spirit

The disciples of Christ who followed Him throughout His ministry on earth were discipled by Him through His living, words, and actions. Later, after the Lord died and resurrected, He returned to them as the life-giving Spirit and came into them by breathing Himself into them; now the Spirit of life guides all of Christ’s disciples into all the reality of what Christ is and has done (John 16:13; 20:22).

All that the Father is and has is the Son’s, and the Son has expressed the Father and lived by the Father in all His human living; now the Spirit comes to guide us into all the reality and make real to us what Christ is, has, and has done as an expression of the Father.

Today we as the disciples of Christ need to allow the Lord to disciple us through His human living and as the Spirit so that we may enter into the new revival which will end this age and bring the Lord back.

Today we want to see the pattern of the Lord Jesus as the first God-man in His living of a God-man life in many aspects, and how we can enter into such a living by having our whole being in our spirit and living in the spirit. Here are some aspects of the Lord’s living of a God-man life on earth as revealed in the Gospels.

Christ was Baptized: According to His Flesh, He was Good only for Death and Burial

At the commencement of His ministry, the Lord Jesus as the first God-man was baptized to fulfill all righteousness, recognizing that according to His flesh (His humanity, see John 1:14; Rom. 1:3; 8:3), He was good for nothing but death and burial (Matt. 3:15-17).

Instead of starting off “big” since He was the Messiah, the Lord Jesus made critical statement right at the beginning of His ministry: He chose not to live in His natural life but admit that, according to His flesh (human nature), He was good only for death and burial.

The Lord stood in the position of a man for our sake as those who are being discipled, and as a Man – even though He was sinless (Heb. 4:15) and only in the likeness of the flesh of sin (Rom. 8:3) – He made a declaration that He will live and work in dependence from God and by having His flesh terminated so that He would live the divine life in His humanity.

The Lord’s baptism was to fulfill all righteousness – it had to do with the consummated righteousness as representative of eternity, so what He did was something of eternity. Following in the Lord’s steps, we should not stand in our natural life but be one with the indwelling God-man to live by the divine life.

Through baptism we have put on Christ (Gal. 3:27), and He is our living; through our baptism we declare that we would not live by ourselves as the source by rather we would allow ourselves to be voluntarily terminated so that He would live in us. This is the basis for our participating in the God-man living.

Lord Jesus, we declare that, according to the flesh, we are good for nothing except death and burial. Lord, we declare that we do not want to live by our natural life and in our natural man but we allow ourselves to be voluntarily terminated so that You would live and work in us. Keep us in the reality of our baptism, one with You in spirit and allowing You to live in us day by day.

Learning from Christ to Take God as the Source and Spend Intimate Time with God

In the miracle of feeding the five thousand people with five loaves and two fish, the Lord Jesus trained His disciples to learn from Him (Matt. 11:29). He didn’t just multiply the bread and the fish – He first took them, looked up to the heaven, blessed them, and gave them to His disciples to give them to the people (Matt. 14:19).

The Lord’s looking up to heaven to bless the five loaves and the two fish indicates that He realized He’s not the source of the blessing but the Father, the One who sent Him. Sometimes we as believers may seem to “know everything” and “teach everyone”, thinking that we can have some accomplishment or contribution….but the Lord looked to the heaven first and then blessed the food.

The Lord realized He’s not the source; He was the sent One, and the Father is the source of blessing. Everything about our God-man living comes out of another source, not from us; we need to see the vision in our mingled spirit of wisdom and revelation, and from there the Lord has an opportunity to initiate something just as the Father initiated it in Him. Our disposition in the God-man living should be a dependence on the Lord and a looking to Him for everything.

After the Lord multiplied the fish and the bread, He didn’t remain in the issue of the miracle with the crowds but went away from them to be with the Father on the mountain in prayer, as He did many times before (Matt. 14:22-23; Luke 6:12).

As such a One, the Lord draws us not to stay in the enjoyment of any success as a result of His blessing but to come and spend time with Him. He wants us to come to Him, kiss Him, be drawn to Him, and spend private time with Him again and again (Song of Songs 1:1-4).

And just as the Lord did, our spending time with the Lord is not merely for ourselves but also for those around us so that we first enter into the divine and mystical realm and then shepherd others into the same realm, for them to enjoy the Lord as the real blessing and food.

Lord Jesus, we look to You as the source of blessing. Everything we are and have is from You. We do not trust in ourselves or what we can do for You but trust in Your blessing. Lord, draw us to spend more time with You intimately and privately. May we be fully brought into the divine and mystical realm of the Spirit with our spirit and shepherd others also into this realm for the corporate living of the God-man life!

Praying to Execute God’s Will for His Economy in Faith with No Doubting

In Matt. 21:21-22 and Mark 11:22-24 we see how the Lord taught His disciples to pray to execute God’s will for His economy, having faith in God without any doubting. The nature of the Lord as a Man of prayer in His God-man living was expressed here. We should have faith without doubting as we ask in oneness with the Lord, and we will receive what we have asked for.

The Lord Jesus as so one with the Father in His living that He knew exactly that the Father would grant Him what He asks for. We need to learn from the Lord in this respect in our God-man living to be so one with Him when we pray something out of Him as the source we would realize that we already have the answer!

Because we are so joined to the Lord, everything we ever need and want we already have! Then, our prayer becomes a praise because we realize that He has given us what we asked for, and our asking was in oneness with Him and out of Him.

Living a Life of Contacting God, Living in God’s Presence, and Contacting People to Minister God into them

The Lord Jesus lived a life of contacting God (Mark 1:35; Luke 5:16; 6:12; 9:28; Heb. 7:25), living in the presence of God without ceasing (Acts 10:38; John 8:29; 16:32), and of contacting people to minister God into them and bring them into the jubilee of God’s New Testament economy (Luke 4:18-19; Heb. 8:2; cf. Gen. 14:18; Acts 6:4).

Everything the Lord did issued out of His life of contacting the Father, being in the Father’s presence, speaking to the Father and speaking the Father’s words, and doing the Father’s will. We need to have an enlarged contact with God until this contact is continuous, and in this contact with Him we will have the capacity to live with Him, and out from this we will contact others and care for them to bring God into them.

This is the priesthood: in contacting Him we have the holy priesthood, in living with Him continually we have the experience of contacting Him in the mingling of God with man, and in going out to contact others to minister Christ to them we have the royal priesthood.

The God-man living comes out of seeing the vision of God’s economy, the high peak of the divine revelation, and issues in shepherding others; these are three aspects of one thing, and they are to bring in the new revival!

In Christ Satan had NOTHING!

Christ was a man in whom Satan, the ruler of this world, had nothing – no ground, no chance, no hope, no possibility in anything (see John 14:30). Wow, what a God-man! This One has been pneumatized – He became the life-giving Spirit to be the realm for us to have our God-man living.

When we touch the Lord in and through our mingled spirit, we live in a realm in which Satan has nothing and in which Satan cannot touch us! Christ is the reality of our city of refuge (Num. 35; Joshua 20), and when we’re in Him, Satan has nothing on us and cannot touch us!

Living the Life of a God-man According to the Lord’s Model by Living in the Spirit

Besides the Lord Jesus there have been many other patterns in history of believers who live a God-man life; the Apostle Paul encouraged the saints and his co-workers to learn from him and follow him as a pattern, even as he followed the Lord and learned from Him (1 Cor. 4:17; Heb. 13:7; Phil. 3:17; 1 Tim. 4:12).

How can we live the life of a God-man according to the Lord’s pattern? The only way for us to live the life of a God-man according to the Lord’s model is to set our entire being on our mingled spirit and live, walk, and have our whole being according to the mingled spirit.

How can we live the God-man life? Only by being in spirit. The Spirit Himself is with our spirit to impart life to all the parts of our inner being, and we can walk according to the spirit, set our mind on the spirit, and be one spirit with the Lord (see Rom. 8:2, 4, 6, 16; 1 Cor. 6:17).

Practically, we are in our spirit by calling on the name of the Lord to enjoy His riches (Rom. 10:12) and by pray-reading His word to take the Lord in as Spirit (Eph. 6:17-18). In our daily living we should be those who call on the name of the Lord, take the Lord in as the Spirit in His word in a living way, always rejoice, always give thanks, always praise, and always stir our spirit into flame (1 Thes. 5:16-20; 2 Tim. 1:6).

May our living in spirit not be merely something we admire or is an episodic experience but something that characterizes our daily life! We are called into this kind of living, and as we practice setting our being on the spirit and walking, living, and having our being according to the spirit, we will live the life of a God-man and a corporate model of the God-man living will appear on the earth.

Living in our mingled spirit is the territory lying before us for us to explore and experience so that we would contribute to the appearance of the new revival!

Lord Jesus, we set our entire being on our mingled spirit. We want to live the life of a God-man according to Your model by walking, living, and having our being according to our mingled spirit. Lord, we want our living to contribute to the appearance of a corporate model of a God-man living for the bringing in of the new revival. Keep us calling on Your name, taking the word in as the Spirit, always rejoicing and giving thanks, praising, and stirring up our spirit into flame so that we may live and walk according to our spirit!

References and Hymns on this Topic

• Inspiration: the Word of God, my Christian experience, the brothers’ sharing in the message for this week, and portions from, The God-man Living, msgs. 10, 14, 16 (by Witness Lee), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, The Need for a New Revival, week 3 / msg 3, Living the Life of a God-man (1) Being Discipled to Live the Life of a God-man to Be Today’s Overcomers for a New Revival.
• All Bible verses are taken from, Holy Bible Recovery Version.
• Hymns on this topic to strengthen this burden:
  # Lord, when by baptism we confess / Our oneness in Thy death, / Oh, by Thy mercy and Thy grace, / May Thou reveal its worth. / We’re baptized unto Thy dear name, / No more our own are we; / Thy steps we’d follow, for Thee live, / And e’er be one with Thee. (Hymns #937)
  # Pray to touch the throne of God / By the hand of living faith; / Exercise authority / Over all the pow’r of death. (Hymns #783)
  # Minding just the spirit is God’s saving way, / Minding just the spirit, Christ we will display; / Minding just the spirit, we can overcome, / Minding just the spirit, we the race may run. (Hymns #593)