All the believers in Christ are disciples of Christ who have been called by Him out of wherever they are and whatever they are doing to follow Him, learn from Him, be discipled by Him, and live like Him. The Lord today is discipling us by guiding us as the Spirit of reality into all the reality that He is, He has said, and He has done.
The disciples of Christ who were with Him on earth (like Peter and Andrew) were discipled by Him as they followed Him around and as they observed His living, His ways, His speaking, and His works. Eventually, they were qualified to be not only the Lord’s disciples but also His disciplers – He sent them out to disciple all the nations (Matt. 28:19).
We need to allow the Lord’s pattern and His living to disciple us until we become a corporate model of the living of a God-man on earth in our generation today. What the Lord desires is to live in us again, and the best example of one who did this is the Lord Jesus Himself.
Today we will start to look at the Lord’s discipling and how we can have a life as a copy, a reproduction, of the model of the life of Christ, the first God-man. May the Lord gain a corporate model of the living of a God-man in all the local churches on earth today by our letting Him disciple us through His living on earth!
Being Revolutionised in our Concept of what a Man should be like by Looking at the Lord’s Pattern
Christ’s human living discipled the ones around Him; the way He lived and spoke and worked was a discipling to those who followed Him and were around Him. Before they became His disciples, Peter, Andrew, James, and John were going about their business, and then the Lord came to call them to follow Him.
He wasn’t a handsome man, but there was something very attractive about Him – He was a great magnet attracting people to Himself, and He came as a great light shining in the darkness. His disciples followed Him into the “discipling classroom” for three and a half years, and by being close to him, they observed who He was, what He did, and what He said.
By spending time with Jesus, His disciples observed Him and His every word and action, and by that they were positioned to live the same kind of life that He lived. The Lord “picked them up as soil and put them in His pocket” (in a sense), and they saw and heard everything; all that the Lord did and said was a seed sown into them, and this seed was to grow and blossom into the same kind of living in them.
If we read the gospels we will be amazed to see such a man with such a living and work, and we will be revolutionised in our concept of what a man should be like and do. In the case of the Lord’s disciples (Matt. 5:1), His discipling was very effective: they were His disciples under His discipling, and they were sent by Him to disciple others to also enter into this God-man living (Matt. 28:19).
Today we are the Lord’s disciples, those who were attracted to Him and follow Him because He’s so attractive and wonderful that we can’t resist Him; His living on earth with His work and speaking formed a pattern that is discipling us to live the same kind of life that He lived, the life of a God-man.
Just as the Lord discipled His followers, so He is discipling us through His human living, His crucifixion, and His resurrection. He today is in us as the Spirit of reality to guide us into all the reality of what He lived, worked, and spoke, and He wants to live in us today the same kind of life He lived while He was on the earth.
We are discipled by His human living to live a life not by our natural life but by the divine life in our spirit. We are discipled by His all-inclusive, all-terminating, life-releasing, and new-man-creating death of Christ to be annulled in our human life so that we may live out the divine life and thus have Christ live in us (Gal. 2:20).
We are discipled through Christ’s resurrection to know Him as God’s firstborn Son (Rom. 1:4; Acts 13:33; Rom. 8:29) who is both divine and human and who lives in us the divine life in our human life as we live by the spirit. We are discipled to know Christ as the life-giving Spirit dwelling in our spirit to impart life to every part of our inner being and become the dynamo, life-pulse, life-source, and everything to us in our daily life.
If we see the pattern of the Lord’s living, work, and speaking on earth we will be revolutionised in our concept and view of what we should be like and do as believers in Christ.
Lord Jesus, we follow You as Your disciples and we allow You to disciple us through the pattern of a God-man living You set up while on earth. We want to know You intimately so that we may live You. You are the most wonderful and attractive Person, and Your living on earth revolutionised the way people should live and work. Oh Lord, impart what You are, what You lived, and what You spoke into our being and guide us as the Spirit into all the reality so that we may have a God-man living today, the duplication of Your living on earth!
Our Life should be a Reproduction of the Model of the Life of Christ, the First God-Man
Our life as disciples of Christ and believers in Christ should be a copy, a reproduction, of the model of the life of Christ, the first God-man. Through His living Christ set up a model so that we would follow in His steps and learn from Him (1 Pet. 2:21).
How can we follow the Lord and learn from Him? It is not in an outward way but by knowing Him and loving Him so that we would come to Him, take His yoke upon us, and toil restfully with Him (Matt. 11:28-29). We need to be taught in Him as the reality is in Jesus (Eph. 4:20-21); this reality is the actual condition of the life of Christ as presented in the four Gospels.
As we contact the Lord and are in an intimate fellowship with Him and even one with Him (John 10:30), we will not do anywhere from ourselves or do anything of ourselves or take any decision without consulting with Him and being one with Him (see John 5:19, 30; 7:6, 8, 18).
The Spirit of life and reality who was breathed into the disciples in Christ’s resurrection guided them into the reality of what they had observed of the Lord when they were with Him for three and a half years (John 16:13; 20:22).
The Spirit of reality today is in our spirit and declares to us all the things that He receives from the Son (who is the embodiment of the Father, receiving everything from the Father), and He is bringing us into the reality of all that we see in the life of Jesus on earth. We have received the Spirit of reality into us at our regeneration as the resource and capital for us to live the same kind of life as the Lord Jesus had and be His duplication, His reproduction.
The Spirit of reality is the “extract” of all that God is, has, and has attained and obtained in Christ Jesus through His incarnation, human living, death, and resurrection. In the Spirit with our spirit we have the God-man living of Christ which is of an indescribable quality and nature, His affectionate fellowship with the Father, and His unbreakable and seamless living with the Father; all these are in our mingled spirit to emerge in our living for us to become part of the corporate model of the God-man living on earth.
If we open to the Spirit within us as we prayerfully consider these things, we will be discipled by the Lord to live no longer by our natural human life but by the divine life in our spirit.
The vitality and impact of our life and ministry is due to our living the divine in the human life; whatever we utter then will be out of a crucified life one with the Lord. May the Lord gain a reproduction of the life of Christ, the first God-man, in our daily living today!
Lord Jesus, may our life be a reproduction of the model of the life of Christ, the first God-man. We want to follow in Your steps, learn from You, and be taught in You as the reality is in Jesus. Lord, we open to You as the Spirit to be guided into all the reality of what You are, what You lived out, and what You spoke; disciple us through Your pattern so that we may have the same kind of living today. We want to no longer live by our natural life but allow the divine life to live in us a God-man life for the glory of the Father!
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 Vital Groups, msgs. 2-4 (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:
# Jesus lived the God-man pattern, / Set the way for us to follow, / He denied His natural man and / Was obedient unto death, / Once He was the only God-man; / Now we are His duplication. / As the many grains we’re blended / As His corporate reproduction. (Song on Christ’s Pattern)
# Christ is a genuine man, / The perfect and finest man, / Obedient, serving, no appearance of evil, / The finest personality, / Divinity expressed through humanity. / Christ is the pattern for our human living. / His perfect life is filling us. / Christ is the pattern for our human living, / The fine and balanced humanity of Jesus! (Song on Christ being our Pattern)
# Lord, be my pattern, humble and lowly; / Save me from self and pride and vainglory. / Preserve and keep me, for Your economy, / Live in me, possess me wholly. (Song on Christ living in us)
About aGodMan
The constituents of the vital groups are the disciples of Christ (Matt. 5:1)….The nations [in 28:19] are the Gentiles. To disciple the Gentiles is to constitute the Gentiles into the disciples of Christ.
The disciples who followed the Lord for three and a half years saw what He did, how He behaved, and how He spoke. That discipled them….Christ used these three processes—His human living, His all-inclusive, all-terminating, life-releasing, and new-man-creating death, and His life-dispensing resurrection—to disciple His followers. (Witness Lee, The Vital Groups, pp. 16, 18)