How wonderful it is when we open to the Lord, learn to love Him, and let Him work in us to live the God-man life in us daily!
Our Christian life is not a life of doing things for the Lord but rather loving Him, opening to Him, allowing Him to work in us, and letting Him live in us; this will bring us spontaneously in a condition that is beyond human description.
This is the living of the one new man to fulfill God’s eternal purpose in creating man.
What God desires to gain is not just the Lord Jesus as the prototype, the first God-man who fulfills God’s purpose, but a corporate new man that is the duplication and reproduction of Christ as the first God-man.
At the end of Ephesians we see the church as the bride of Christ and as the corporate warrior; as the bride of Christ, the church expresses Christ in His glory, and as the warrior, the church represents God with His authority. Amen!
Christ as the Son of Man came to fulfill God’s intention in creating man; He as the second man terminated the first man and brought in the new man to fulfill God’s purpose, and Christ as the last Adam became a life-giving Spirit to bring God into man and obtain a corporate new man. Hallelujah!
Christ’s incarnation and God-man living fulfilled God’s intention in His creation of man; He expressed God in His rich attributes that saturated His human virtues, and He represented God with His authority over the enemy.
On one hand, Christ expressed God by denying Himself and not living by His human life but by living by the divine life so that the divine attributes would saturate and permeate His human virtues.
On the other hand, He represented God with His authority to destroy the works of the devil and even destroy the devil himself on the cross.
When we read the Gospels, we see the Lord’s wonderful human living; He lived a life in which He didn’t do anything out of Himself, He didn’t do His own work, He didn’t speak His own word, He didn’t do His own will, and He didn’t see His own glory.
Rather, everything He did was in oneness with the Father, His words were the words He heard from the Father, His work was the Father’s work, and He sought the Father’s glory.
Such a One became the prototype for the mass reproduction of Himself in humanity; all the believers in Christ are the reproduction of Christ for God’s corporate expression and representation on earth.
The history that Christ made as He lived on earth is now being written on us and in us; we repeat His history by our living a God-man life on earth.
For us to become the reproduction of the first God-man and live Christ as the God-man, we must be first reborn in our spirit with Christ as the Spirit, and we must be transformed in our soul by the Spirit day by day.
Opening to the Lord, Loving Him, and letting Him work and Live in us a God-man Life
God’s desire is not that we would work for Him and do things for Him; He desires that we would stop our doing and just open to the Lord, love Him, and let Him work in us and live in us.
From the very beginning when God created man, His intention was not that man would do anything for Him but rather that man would take in the tree of life so that he would express God and represent Him.
God created us as vessels to contain Him and express Him; whatever we contain, that is what we express. When we contain God by taking Him in as life, we will also express Him.
Nothing pleases the Lord so much as for us to realise that He doesn’t want us to do anything except open to Him, love Him, and let Him work in us and live in us.
He has come into us to be our life and our person, but too many times it is still us who live, work, speak, and do things. He wants us to open to Him, be emptied before Him, and allow Him as the living Person in us to be expressed in us and through us.
When we open ourselves to the Lord, love Him, and desire to be joined to Him as one, we are filled and possessed by Him and live out the glory of divinity and the virtues of humanity.
So we should just give ourselves to love the Lord; when we love Him, on one hand He comes in to make an abode with Him (John 14:23), and on the other, He reveals to us unsearchable riches, the things that eye has not seen and ear has not heard and which have not come up in man’s heart (1 Cor. 2:9).
He prepared many things for those who love Him. Without the Lord filling our vessel and working in us to live in us, we are just ourselves, natural beings; when we open to Him, however, and let Him work in us and live in us, He will live a God-man life in us for God’s expression.
Without the Lord’s inward filling and working, and without Him living in us the God-man life, we are peculiar and natural. The only solution to our problems is the Lord’s filling inwardly, and this depends on our loving Him and keeping ourselves open to Him all the time.
So we need to pray, open to the Lord, love Him, and learn to let Him work in us and live in us.
When we pray in a proper way to open our whole being to the Lord, we become a living vessel that is absolutely calmed down so that the Lord as our Master would have the full way to fill us up.
When He fills us up, He does everything for us; we simply enjoy His doing.This is the genuine and proper Christian life; a genuine Christian life is one that loves the Lord and keeps itself open to the Lord while stopping its own doing.
When the unsaved people stop their being and their doing, there’s nothing that is left; but when we stop ourselves, open to the Lord, love Him, let Him fill us, and let Him work in us and live in us, the Lord will come in and will do everything in us.
We are a vessel for Him to fill us and a channel for Him to be expressed and manifested through us. As vessels, we enjoy the Lord’s filling, and as channels, we enjoy His doing.
This is the only way for us to live a God-man life; it is not by our striving and trying but by the Lord’s inward filling, His inward working, and His living within us that we can live a God-man life with the divine attributes filling and uplifting our human virtues.
Lord Jesus, we love You. We open our vessel to You: empty us of ourselves and fill us with Yourself. We are an empty vessel open to You; You are the treasure in our earthen vessel. We just love You, Lord, and we want to contain You. Fill us and saturate us. Permeate us with Yourself. Have mercy on us, Lord, that we may keep ourselves open to You all the time! Fill us and saturate us until You are the One living in us. Amen, Lord, live in us today. May it be no longer I but Christ who lives in us!
When we Love the Lord and Pursue Him, we Live in a Condition that is Beyond Human Description
The Christian life is a spontaneous life; it is not something deliberate. When we open to the Lord, love the Lord, pursue Him, and fellowship with Him, we spontaneously live in a condition that is beyond human description.
Our job is to just open to the Lord, love Him, pursue Him, and fellowship with Him, and spontaneously the Lord will live in us the same kind of life that He lived while He was on earth.
We can live a God-man life because we live by the Lord and we live the Lord. We can endure what others can’t endure, we can love those whom others can’t love, and we can live a life that goes beyond humility and meekness.
As followers of Jesus who fellowship with Him and live one with Him, we become a mystery to others even as He was, and our life and living will be incomprehensible to others.
When things happen and we’re supposed to lose our temper, we behave as if nothing happened; conversely, when something good happens and we’re supposed to jump for joy, we act as usual, being temperate.
It is not because we do this in a deliberate way or because we stop and think “what would Jesus do right now?”; rather, it is because the Lord lives a God-man life in us for the expression of God.
When there are some situations when others are weeping, we can still praise the Lord; when others are jumping and praising, we bow down in worship.
Our Christian life is not according to the environment or situations; it is not the situations that dictate what we should do or how we should be, but it is the Lord’s moving and leading within.
Sometimes our environment is very good and there are no problems outwardly, and naturally we should be happy and rejoicing; however, we feel within that we fall short of the Lord’s glory and we don’t adequately express Him, so we repent before the Lord.
This is a mystery to others, for it is the Lord within us who does things and does not do things. This is the mystery of being a Christian, which is incomprehensible to others, especially to the unbelievers.
When we love the Lord, pursue Him, and fellowship with Him, we spontaneously live in a condition that is beyond human description.
We all have some experience of this – maybe we don’t have enough experience of this, but we do have some experiences.
When we live a life that is really one with this God-man but loving Him, pursuing Him, fellowshipping with Him, and opening to Him in prayer, we automatically and spontaneously find ourselves in a mysterious condition beyond human description – we simply live Christ.
This is how we are to live; this is how a human should be, how a man should live, for such a one is one with God.
When we live Christ, we fulfill the purpose of expressing God and representing Him on earth; God is satisfied, and we are satisfied, for we live in the meaning of our human existence.
Lord Jesus, we love You; we want to pursue You and fellowship with You so that You may work in us and live in us a God-man life for the expression and representation of God. Save us from trying to imitate Christ or to obey any self-made law according to the Bible. Dear Lord, we love You! We open to You! We want to live one spirit with You! Infuse us with Yourself, and work Yourself into us more today. Have a way to live in us, Lord, and to make us proper human beings, genuine Christians, real God-men who express God and represent Him as members of the one new man!
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message by bro. Minoru Chen for this week, and portions from, Collected Works of Witness Lee, 1980, vol. 1, “Perfecting Training,” ch. 22, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, The One New Man Fulfilling God’s Purpose in Creating Man (2019 fall ITERO), week 2, Christ as the Son of Man, the Second Man, and the Last Adam Fulfilling God’s Intention in Creating Man.
- Hymns on this topic:
– I am one with Thee, Lord Jesus, / One in spirit now with Thee; / All Thyself I now possess, Lord, / All Thou art now lives in me. (Hymns #474)
– We are the increase of Thyself, / And Thou our content art; / Through us Thou livest and dost move / And manifested art. (Hymns #116)
– I come to Thee, dear Lord, / My heart doth thirst for Thee; / Of Thee I’d eat, of Thee I’d drink. / Enjoy Thee thoroughly. / Lord, I would linger here, / Still seeking after Thee, / Continue in the Word and prayer / Till Thou dost flow thru me. (Hymns #812)
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