Not Bringing Anything of our Natural Life or the Flesh in our Service to God

As believers in Christ, we have turned to God from the idols to serve a living and true God (1 Thes. 1:9), and our God is living to us and in us in all the details of our daily living. Now we live under the control, direction, and correction of a living God – and not in our natural life – to be a pattern of the glad tidings that we spread.

We were separated unto the gospel of God, and we are learning to serve God in our spirit in the gospel of His Son (Rom. 1:9). Hallelujah, God is Spirit, and those who worship Him (that is, serve Him) must worship in spirit and in truthfulness (John 4:24)!

In serving God we need to exercise our spirit to contact God the Spirit; our service to Him is our worship to Him, which is our drinking of Him as the living water. Real worship to God and real service to Him is to drink of the flowing Triune God as the living water; this water will become in us a fountain springing up and flowing out to others as the gospel.

Our God loves the world so much that He gave what He had most precious for us – His only begotten Son; Christ came to die for sinners so that we may believe into Him and thus drink of Him as the flowing Triune God and become the totality of eternal life, the New Jerusalem (John 3:16; 4:14).

On the negative side, however, we need to be under the Lord’s enlightening concerning the flesh; we cannot serve God in our flesh, and the effort of the flesh is never pleasing to God. Even though we have been regenerated and we drink Christ, we may still continue to live in our fallen nature, boast in what we do in our flesh, and have confidence in our natural qualifications.

We need the Lord’s shining on our real situation and condition so that we may realize how unclean our nature is; under His shining we will condemn everything we do by our fallen nature, and we will see that in God’s eyes everything we do in the flesh is evil and worthy of condemnation!

May the Lord have mercy on us so that we may serve Him in spirit and by the Spirit of God, not in the flesh or trusting in our natural man. May our only confidence and boast in serving God be Christ Himself, and may we depend on Him as we serve Him.

Jesus was Baptized, realizing He was a Man in the Flesh good for Nothing but Death and Burial

The Lord Jesus is our pattern both in our Christian life and in our service to God. When He came to minister, He didn’t simply reveal Himself to everyone for all to see that Messiah is here; rather, the first thing He did was to go to John the Baptist and be baptized by him (Matt. Matt. 3:13-17).

John the Baptist tried to stop him, but Jesus said, Permit it for now, for it is fitting for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness. It was a righteous act in the eyes of God for Jesus to deny anything that He was in the natural being. Jesus had a lot in His natural being, but He denied everything of Himself before He served the Father.

The first thing He did was to be baptized, considering Himself as a man, according to His humanity, an Israelite, who was a man in the flesh (Phil. 3:3; John 1:14); even though Jesus was only in the likeness of the flesh of sin (Rom. 8:3) but without sin (Heb. 4:15), yet He still was in the flesh, which has nothing good but is worthy only of death and burial.

We may believe that there was something “super” about the Lord’s humanity, but He was a Man in the flesh born of Mary, a sinner, and His humanity was a real and genuine and natural humanity; it was not a sinful humanity but it was still natural, with nothing of God in it.

The Lord Jesus as our pattern would NOT serve God in His humanity but repudiated that humanity and buried it in the waters of baptism before He began to serve. At the beginning of His ministry for God, Jesus was willing to be baptized by John the Baptist, recognizing that, according to His humanity, He was one who did not have any qualification to be a servant of God.

As a man in the flesh, Jesus needed to be a dead man buried in the death water to fulfill God’s New Testament requirement according to His righteousness; and He did this willingly, considering it the fulfilling of God’s righteousness.

Wow! The Creator of the universe who became a man would not serve God in His humanity but declared by His baptism that, as a Man in the flesh, He was good for nothing except death and burial, and that He depended on the Father in everything.

This One is our pattern; we need to learn from Him and realize that, as men in the flesh, we are good for nothing except death and burial, and in our flesh we are not useful to God at all.

Jesus was willing to enter into John’s ministry – which was the ministry of that age – and not “overthrow John” to install His ministry; He was baptized by John and repudiated His humanity, serving God by being one with God and by taking God as His everything – while at the same time denying Himself in everything.

Thank You Lord for setting up a pattern of One who serves God. Through Your baptism You declared that, as a Man in the flesh, You were good for nothing except death and burial. Oh Lord, we want to learn from You. Cause us to realize that, as men in the flesh, we are good for nothing except and burial. We cannot serve You in our natural humanity, in our flesh, or in our natural man. Lord Jesus, save us from trying to serve You in our natural man or in the flesh. We take You as our source, our life, our person, our way, and our everything!

Not Bringing anything of our Natural Life or the Flesh in our Service to God

The Apostle Paul learned from the Lord Jesus and denied himself, his natural man, his background, his upbringing, and all the good things he had and acquired in the past; he considered that in his Christian life and service Christ was everything to him, and he was crucified with Christ (Gal. 2:20).

The Lord Jesus could have just served God in His perfect sinless humanity, but He chose the way of denying Himself, putting His humanity aside, and being baptized, testifying that as a man in the flesh He was good for nothing except death and burial.

We all need to learn from the Lord Jesus and follow His pattern, realizing that in our flesh nothing good dwells, and we should not bring anything of our flesh or our natural life in our service to God.

As a man in the flesh, He needed to be a dead man buried in the death water to fulfill God’s New Testament requirement according to His righteousness, and He did it willingly, considering it the fulfilling of God’s righteousness. This shows that we should not bring anything of our natural life, anything of our flesh, into God’s ministry in the service of His gospel. We all should declare in our life and work, “I am a person in the flesh, worthy of nothing but death and burial, so I want to have myself terminated, crucified, and buried” (cf. Gal. 2:20a). (Witness Lee, The God-man Living, p. 53)

We should not bring anything of our natural life or the flesh in God’s ministry in the service of the gospel. Others may do this, but we should not. The standard is not merely not preaching a low gospel (as those in Christianity today do) but: nothing natural, nothing of the flesh should be in God’s ministry in the service of His gospel, not even what we consider to be good things in the flesh.

We are God-men: we have God living in us, making His home in us, and mingling Himself with us. This means that we should no longer live by our natural life, by the old man, or by the flesh, but realize that our old man, our old I, has been terminated on the cross through Christ’s death (Gal. 2:20) and now we must live a life one with Christ.

We must leave our natural man on the cross, crucified with the Lord, and bear the cross by being conformed to the death of Christ (Phil. 3:10). The God-man life and the real service to God is not by the flesh or the natural man but by living in the mingled spirit and serving God by the Spirit of God, one with Him.

May the Lord have mercy on us that we may not repeat the pitiful history in Christianity with many serving God in their natural man, with their natural ability, by their flesh, and for their own glory.

May we choose to follow the Lord Jesus as our pattern, realizing that we are worthy of nothing but death and burial, and choose the way of the cross so that Christ may live in us and may serve God in us.

Lord, save us from bringing anything of our natural life or the flesh in our service to you in the gospel. Save us from serving You in our natural man or in the flesh. Oh Lord, we are persons in the flesh worthy of nothing but death and burial, so we want to have ourselves terminated, crucified, and buried. May it be no longer us who live but Christ who lives in us, and the life we live and serve God would be in the organic union with Jesus Christ! We want to live the life of a God-man and serve God not in our flesh or natural man but in the mingled spirit and by the Spirit of God!

References and Hymns on this Topic

• Inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message for this week, and The God-man Living, msgs. 4-6 (by Witness Lee), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Service for the Building up of the Church (2016 Spring ITERO), week 3 / msg. 3, Serving God in our Spirit in the Gospel of His Son.
• All Bible verses are taken from, Holy Bible Recovery Version.
• Hymns on this topic:
  # Our old man has been crucified with Christ; / Yes, all we are in oldness He sufficed / To bring to naught upon the cross that He / Himself as our new Husband fully be / Enjoyed by us. (Song on being crucified with Christ)
  # Already dead! And buried too! / With the old man I am through! … No longer I / No longer I! / Christ in me I’ll testify! (Hymns #938)
  # My death with Thee I now believe / And all its meaning would receive. / Thy death more deeply show to me, / That from my flesh I may be free. / I long to win as Thou hast won, / To reign with Thee when Thou dost come. / If we the cross will gladly bear, / Then in Thy glory we will share. (Hymns #488)