When we eat the kingly Christ as the all-inclusive bread, we are cleansed inwardly, we are washed, and we become His overcomers; the unique way to be an overcomer is by eating Jesus.
We need to stay away from death and eat Christ as our living bread, and any death will be swallowed up. The way for us to become the reality of the kingdom of the heavens is to eat Jesus as the all-inclusive bread.
What we eat is very important; what we feed on determines what we are and what we express. If we eat things related to life, we will be filled with life and express Christ, but if we eat things of the world and listen to death-infusing speaking, we will be in death.
God’s economy is not something related to us doing many outward things for God but Christ coming into us inwardly and growing in us until He overflows in us to be expressed through us.
For Christ to come into us, we need to eat Him. Yes, He is in our spirit, but we need to keep eating Him until He saturates every part of our soul.
As we eat the Lord, He as the kingly bread – the all-inclusive bread – cleanses us inwardly, infuses the element of God into us, and brings our whole being under God’s rule.
When the Jews wanted to make Jesus King, He said that He came as the bread of life, the living bread, the bread of God, and the bread that came down out of heaven (see John 6). This shows us that, in order for us to be in God’s kingdom in reality, we need to eat the Lord as the all-inclusive bread.
The Lord wants to reign over us by giving Himself to us as our breakfast, lunch, and dinner, plus snacks and a good night end of the day, for it is in this way that He comes into us and establishes His kingdom in us.
We can live in the reality of the kingdom of the heavens only by being nourished with Christ as our food; when we eat the Lord, He as the royal bread with all the royal ingredients is constituted into us to become in us the ruling element within us.
When we eat Christ as the all-inclusive bread, His element is wrought into us and we become the increase of Christ as the reality of the kingdom of the heavens. When we eat the kingdom bread we eat the King Himself, and this One in us will live in us the kingdom life.
We can all learn to do this little by little and day by day.
May we learn to eat the Lord in the morning, at lunch, in the evening, and all throughout the day so that He would be wrought into us and bring us and our whole being in the reality of the kingdom of the heavens.
Eating the Kingly Christ as the All-inclusive Bread Cleanses us Inwardly and makes us His Overcomers
One of the many effects of eating Christ as the kingly bread is that we are cleansed inwardly.
God doesn’t want us merely to have an outward cleansing, a cleansing of the exterior so that outwardly we may have an improvement in behavior; He wants to get into us and cleanse us from within.
For us to be inwardly cleansed and washed, something must get into us by way of our eating. The Lord Jesus is the best cleansing element; when we take Him in as our food, He not only nourishes us inwardly but He also cleanses us within.
This is how He establishes His kingdom in us, by our eating Him and taking Him as our food.
We see this in Matt. 15, where in the first part we see the matter of eating Jesus as the bread and even the crumbs, and in the second part we see His cleansing.
This is the kind of cleansing we need – not merely something outward like washing our hands, but an inward cleansing from the Lord by our eating Him as the all-inclusive bread.
The Lord wants to cleanse us metabolically to wash us inwardly, and He does this by coming into us as food. Actually, something in us desires to be clean and cleansed, and this takes place in the same principle as in Eph. 6, by the washing of the water in the word.
The heavenly food comes into our being and cleanses any defilement or uncleanness. No uncleanness or defilement is a match to the kingdom bread once it gets inside of us.
As our food, Christ is the best cleansing element; He washes our inner being, and we thereby experience the washing of our disposition. He washes our mind, He washes the feelings that build up in us, and He washes our disposition.
We all need an inward cleansing from the Lord, that is, the cleansing that comes from eating Jesus. Another effect of eating Jesus is that we become His overcomers; the unique way for us to be an overcomer is to eat Jesus (Rev. 2:7, 17; 3:20; John 6:57).
There’s no other way for us to overcome but by eating Jesus. When we come to the word of God we shouldn’t focus mainly on picking up teachings or learning things but take the way of eating Jesus.
Day by day we must eat Christ as the tree of life, the hidden manna, and the feast; then, we will be the overcomers. We may struggle with our temper for many years, and the more we try to overcome it, the more we are defeated.
The way to overcome our temper is to call, O Lord Jesus! We simply need to breathe in Jesus, for He is the strongest “chemical agent” that can deal with the uncleanness within.
When we are about to lose our temper, we should simply call on the name of the Lord.
When He comes in, when we touch Him in a real way and eat Him as the heavenly bread, the all-inclusive bread, He will neutralise our anger, our sadness, and our temper; He will even turn our anger into praising.
Eating Jesus is the way for us to become overcomers; eating Jesus is the secret to overcoming, and the unique way for us to be the Lord’s overcomers is to eat Jesus.
Lord Jesus, keep us eating You as the all-inclusive bread so that we may be cleansed inwardly! Cleanse us, Lord, and wash us inwardly, so that we may be not only nourished with You but also cleansed of our temper and disposition. We need to be metabolically cleansed from any defilement and uncleanness. Lord, make us Your overcomers! We want to eat Jesus until we overcome! O Lord Jesus, may we cooperate with You to have You wrought into our being until our temper is dealt with, our uncleanness removed, and we are produced as overcomers!
In God’s Eyes Death is the Most Ugly Thing whereas Life is the Most Precious Thing
The fact that Leviticus 11 speaks of death in relation to diet indicates that our diet, our habitual eating, is a matter of life or death (see Lev. 11:2-4, 9, 24-25, 39, 47).
In this chapter of the Bible the word “carcass” is used at least 13 times, and the word dead is used at least twice. A carcass denotes death. Death is something ugly, something abominable.
If we contact clean things, we get life, but if we contact unclean things, we get death. In God’s eyes death is something ugly and abominable, but life is the most precious things.
We need to abstain from death in any of its forms, and enjoy and minister life together with those who are living. The death from which we should abstain is not mainly physical death but spiritual death.
The characteristic of Satan’s work is death; his ultimate goal in his work is to saturate man with death. What we want in the church life is not merely to have more saints in the meeting but to enjoy life, minister life, flow out life, and stay away from any death.
There’s nothing more evil than death, and there’s nothing better and more precious than life.
What is life? Life is not a doctrine – life is nothing else but Christ Himself. A person who has life has the experience of life, but it may be difficult for him to describe what he has experienced; life is not something exciting or outwardly joyful, but life is Christ Himself.
In particular, we need to realize that life and death are in the power of the tongue (Prov. 18:21); out of our speaking people can receive life or they can be infused with death.
It is heart-breaking to see that some people gossip when they meet with the believers, and thus impart death to them. We need to realize that every idle word a man speaks will be dealt with at the Lord’s judgment seat (Matt. 12:46-47).
By our words we will be justified or condemned, so we should not let death flow through our words.
Paul encourages us that we would not let any corrupt word come out of our mouth; right after he speaks of the one new man in Eph. 4, he tells the saints that they would speak that which is good for building up.
The enemy’s weapon in attacking the church is by violent, subtle, pleasantly looking, mild-seeming death, and a lot of death is spread by our speaking.
Death is abominable to God; in His eyes death is the most ugly thing, whereas life is the most precious thing (see Rom. 5:10, 12, 17; John 10:10; 11:25).
May we realize how ugly death is, may we stay away from death, and may we remain in life, minister life, and speaks words of life to one another.
Lord Jesus, show us how ugly death is in Your eyes, and unveil us to see how precious life is! We want to stay away from death and not minister death to others through our speaking. Oh Lord, we want to experience You as life, eat You as the all-inclusive bread, and minister You as life to others. AMen, Lord Jesus, keep us in life, enjoying You as life, and being channels of life to others in the church life. May life saturate us and our meetings, and may life be ministered through us to others for the building up of the church!
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message by Ron Kangas for this week, and portions from, Enjoying the Riches of Christ for the Building Up of the Church as the Body of Christ, ch. 17 (by Witness Lee), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Crystallization-Study of Leviticus (2), week 4, The Significance of Eating and the Defeat of Death.
- Hymns on this topic:
# Eating is man’s destiny / And the Lord’s recovery; / This defeats the enemy— / Overcome! / Come enjoy the tree of life, / Leave the doctrines, leave the strife! / Overcome by eating Christ— / Overcome! (Hymns #1273)
# O Lord, do nourish us; You are the food we need; / As we are eating You, we’ll be transformed indeed; / We’re fully satisfied as on Yourself we feed, / So nourish us, O Lord, we pray. / O Lord, do nourish us today / As all our self You wash away. / Not only purify, / But fill and satisfy; / O Lord, do nourish us today. (Hymns #1135)
# Death cannot hold the resurrection life, / The life of God eternal manifest; / ’Tis uncreated, indestructible, / ’Tis Christ Himself, unconqu’rable, expressed. (Hymns #639)
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