God desires that all His people be Nazarites, those who are sanctified and separated absolutely and ultimately to God; these are for nothing other than God, and they abstain from earthly enjoyment or pleasure because they are for God’s satisfaction.
Who can be such a one? Who can be absolutely for God, seeking nothing else but God’s pleasure and enjoyment, and being separated unto God? Only the Lord Jesus can; among the human race and all throughout the ages, the unique Nazarite is the Lord Jesus.
All the real Nazarites take Christ as their person and life, and they allow Christ to live in them. A Nazarite is a type of Christ in His living absolutely for God in His humanity; such a One, such a Christ, is now in our mingled spirit, and we can take Him as our everything to let Him live in us the life of a Nazarite.
We need to learn Christ subjectively and experientially according to the actual condition of the life of Jesus as recorded in the Gospels.
On one hand Christ as the real Nazarite is in our spirit, and on the other, His living on earth and His work was a pattern recorded in the Bible for us to read, enjoy, partake of, and imitate by allowing Christ to live in us.
We need to live the life of a Nazarite by eating Jesus; when we eat Him, we live because of Him, just as He enjoyed the Father and lived because of the Father (John 6:57).
But if we merely try to make a vow and do our best to keep it, we will fail, and we will fail miserably. Only the Lord can be a Nazarite, and only by being one with Him can we also be the Nazarites of today, those who are sanctified and separated absolutely to God, those who have no earthly enjoyment and pleasure but take God as their enjoyment.
Like the Lord Jesus, we need to “eat butter and honey” all the days of our life until we are able to choose the good and reject the evil (Isa. 7:14-15).
We need to enjoy the Lord as the richest grace and the sweetest love, and we will be enabled to choose the good and perfect will of God and reject anything from the evil one.
It is very interesting to read and observe the Lord’s life: He didn’t behave according to His feeling, concept, or opinion, neither did He do things or go places because it was the right thing to do; rather, He did everything according to the Father, in fellowship with the Father, and in oneness with the Father.
The reason we can choose the will of God (which may not be easy or pleasant for us) is because we enjoy the Lord as the richest grace and the sweetest love.
God Desires that all His People be Nazarites Sanctified and Separated Absolutely to God
God doesn’t want to gain a group of special people, “special forces”, “the elite”, who are strong and brave and can do anything for Him; He wants to gain Nazarites.
God wants that all His people would be sanctified and separated absolutely to God and ultimately to God. He wants a group of people who would be for nothing other than God, caring for nothing other than His satisfaction – the testimony of Jesus (see Num. 6:1-2; Psa. 73:25-26; Rev. 1:2, 9-13; 19:10; cf. Num. 2:2).
We may be like the Psalmist in Psa. 73, being perplexed at how the evil ones seem to be prospering, having no problems, and thriving in doing evil, while we pursuers of Christ may be suffering, lacking, and not in a good condition; this may be our perplexity until we enter into the sanctuary of God (vv. 25-26).
We cannot understand the real situation and we can’t get the explanation to our problems until we come to the Lord in His sanctuary, which is our mingled spirit and the church; in the church we get the answer to all our questions.
When we contact the Lord we will realise that we have nothing and no one in heaven or earth but the Lord, and we desire no other one but Him.
Therefore, we will “set up our tent facing the Tent of Meeting”, that is, we will focus on Christ and the church, and all our being, our family life, and our church life will be focused on Christ and the church.
God wants us as His people to be clean, righteous, and faithful; He wants us to love Him with all of our heart, mind, emotion, will, and even with all our physical strength (Mark 12:30).
He wants to be our first love and unique love; He wants that we would have no other beside Him but that we love Him absolutely.
And even when we love Him absolutely, we may still not be absolutely and ultimately for Him, so we need to give ourselves to Him to be the Nazarites of today, those who are sanctified and separated absolutely to God.
The matter of being a Nazarite is a test of our absoluteness; when we take the vow of a Nazarite, we must be absolutely, utterly, and ultimately for God.
This means that, on the negative side, we need to separate ourselves unto the Lord, and on the positive side, we need to be sanctified unto Him.
On the negative side, we need to separate ourselves from the worldly people and not put ourselves in worldly situations and environments; on the positive side, we need to sanctify ourselves, giving ourselves to the Lord to be saturated with His holy element and nature.
There’s a difference between the priests and the Nazarites; the priests are such by birth, being ordained by God out of His initiation, and the Nazarites are such by their initiation, their vow to God to be sanctified and separated absolutely to Him.
On one hand we have been chosen and appointed by God to be His priests; our being priests is His initiation and ordaining. On the other hand, we need to respond to the Lord as we see His economy and heart’s desire, and we need to offer ourselves willingly to Him for His purpose.
In the church life today we are here both out of God’s initiation and also out of our initiation – both are needed.
Lord Jesus, it is Your desire that all Your people would be Nazarites, those separated and sanctified absolutely to God. We give ourselves to You, Lord, to be today’s Nazarites, those who are absolutely separated from the world to be saturated with Your holy element and nature. Amen, Lord, work Yourself into us and sanctify us until we are for nothing other than God and for nothing other than His satisfaction – the testimony of Jesus! We offer ourselves willingly to You for Your purpose, for Your move in this age today.
A Nazarite Abstains from Earthly Enjoyment and Pleasure and Enjoys God to be for His Satisfaction
According to Num. 6:3-4, a Nazarite needs to abstain from wine and anything related to its source; this signifies that we as today’s Nazarites need to abstain from all kinds of earthly enjoyment and pleasure (see Psa. 105:15; Eccl. 10:19).
To abstain from all kinds of wine and produce of grapes is to abstain from all kinds of earthly enjoyment and pleasure. A Nazarite is not here on earth for his pleasure and enjoyment but for God’s satisfaction.
We as the Nazarites of today should be careful of anything earthly that makes us happy, for earthly pleasure leads to lustful conduct and to a lustful intention. Having earthly enjoyment and pleasure defiles us.
If we are to be absolute for God and His satisfaction, we need to be altogether separated from anything of earthly pleasures; this shows the absoluteness of the Nazarite.
In this age today we may not be encouraged to sin but we are definitely encouraged to just enjoy the world; the world with its many aspects offers so many things for man to enjoy, and once we are caught up in the earthly enjoyment, we are defiled and thus disqualified from being a Nazarite.
We need to live in the world, use the things of the world, and have our living here on earth, but we should not have earthly enjoyment and pleasure but seek to enjoy God and be for His satisfaction.
For example, when we come together with the saints to enjoy the Lord, we are here for the Lord’s enjoyment, and we enjoy Him with the saints; the more we enjoy the Lord with the saints and in private in our personal time with Him, the more He becomes our enjoyment, our pleasure, and our entertainment and joy.
The apostle Paul pursued Christ toward the goal for the prize to which God in Christ Jesus called him upward; his goal was to enjoy God, and the prize was the fullest enjoyment and gaining of Christ.
This should our aspiration and seeking today – to enjoy God, gain God, and be filled with God, so that we may enter into the fullest enjoyment and gaining of God.
On one hand we need to separate ourselves from earthly pleasure, and on the other, we need to enjoy God.
A Nazarite is altogether separated from anything of earthly pleasure (see Luke 2:46-49; 2 Cor. 6:14—7:1; James 4:4; 1 John 2:15). Friendship with the world is enmity with God; whoever determines to be a friend of the world is constituted an enemy of God.
We want to be God’s friends, not His enemies, so we need to separate ourselves from enjoying the world by enjoying God with all that He is to us in His word.
We should not love the world or the things in the world, for if anyone loves the world and the things in the world, love for the Father is not in him (1 John 2:15).
We must enjoy Christ as our new wine day by day so that we can be filled with Him and be poured out to God as a drink offering for His satisfaction (see Matt. 9:17; S.S. 1:2; 4:10; Judg. 9:13; 2 Tim. 4:6; Phil. 2:17).
We can abstain from the worldly wine, the wine in today’s earthly enjoyment and pleasure, because we drink Christ as our new wine. When we drink Christ, He is the invigorating life and the cheering love to fill us and overflow from us.
We need to be so filled with Christ as the new wine that we become a drink offering poured out for God’s satisfaction.
Dear Lord Jesus, we love You! Your love is better than wine, and Your sweetness is so pleasant, more fragrant than any ointment! We give ourselves to You, Lord, to just enjoy You. We separate ourselves from any earthly pleasure and enjoyment, and we come to You to enjoy You and take You as our satisfaction! Lord, we drink of You as the new wine, for You are God’s invigorating life and cheering love to satisfy us day by day. Amen, Lord, fill us with Yourself as the new wine day by day until we are poured out to God as a drink offering for His satisfaction!
Read this blog post in Romanian via, Nazireii sunt sfințiți în mod absolut înspre Dumnezeu și se abțin de la savurarea pământească (citiți mai departe la acest link).
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message by Ed Marks for this week, and portions from, Life-study of Numbers, msg. 8 (by Witness Lee), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Crystallisation-Study of Numbers (1), week 5, God’s Desire for All His People to Be Today’s Nazarites.
- Hymns on this topic:
# Take my life, and let it be / Consecrated, Lord, to Thee; / Take my moments and my days, / Let them flow in ceaseless praise, / Let them flow in ceaseless praise. (Hymns #445)
# Tell me not of earthly pleasures, / Tempt me not with sordid gain; / Mock me not with earth’s illusions, / Vex me not with honors vain. / I am weaned from sinful idols; / I am henceforth not my own; / I have giv’n my heart to Jesus, / I belong to Him alone. (Hymns #452)
# Sanctify me absolutely, / Take my life and have Your way. / Overcome in me, give me victory / Through Your life and end this age. / I need You, but You need me too, / To do what You want to do. / Rekindle all of my love for You, / To be a voluntarily consecrated one. (Song on, Consecrated One)
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