The God-man living is the life of the burnt offering; we must allow the Lord to burn us so that we may be a continual burnt offering to burn others and be reduced to ashes to become the New Jerusalem for God’s expression. Amen!
What is the God-man living? What is the living of a God-man, a living that satisfies God and is according to His heart’s desire?
It is not our best behaviour or our striving to please Him. It is Christ living in us.
It is the repetition of the life of the Lord Jesus in us, the many members of His Body.
The life that Jesus lived was fully pleasing and acceptable to God, and this was the life of the burnt offering.
He constantly denied Himself and lived by the Father, with the Father, and for the Father, doing all things and speaking and working one with the Father.
Christ is the reality of the burnt offering; He was completely and absolutely for God and for God’s satisfaction, and He always lived a life that the Father was pleased with.
In the Old Testament, we see the burnt offering, which should be daily and continual for God’s satisfaction.
Every part of the burnt offering was burnt for God’s satisfaction.
And before the animal was put on the altar of burnt offering, he was slaughtered, skinned, and cut into pieces.
The Lord Jesus was the perfect Lamb of God, with no defect or imperfection; however, He was afflicted, and He did not open His mouth like a lamb that is led to the slaughter.
We need to experience Christ in His experiences as the burnt offering.
When others lead us to the slaughter, when they do injustice to us and mistreat us, we need to experience Christ in His experiences as the burnt offering.
Just as the Lord Jesus was silent before the priests who condemned and judged Him, so we can be today before those who mistreat us, for the Lord lives in us.
Our children sometimes may lead us to slaughter, and our spouse may do this too; may we take the grace to allow them to slaughter us as we remain one with the Lord to experience Him in His experiences as the burnt offering.
The apostle Paul also experienced this; he was slaughtered by those around him, and he was also skinned.
To be skinned means that your virtues are stripped away; they are virtues, they are of the Lord, but others strip them away.
The Lord Jesus was called Beelzebul and was accused that He had a demon.
Paul was always being persecuted and evil spoken of; though he only preached the gospel and led others to salvation, he was skinned even by those whom he brought to the Lord.
The Lord Jesus was called a gluttonous man and a drunkard when He spent time and ate with the sinners. by these things, He was stripped.
One example of being skilled is having evil reports spread about us; we serve the Lord, we minister to Him and give life to the saints, but others spread an evil report about us.
May we experience Christ in His experiences of being the burnt offering in all these things.
May we not try to “take our skin back” or rectify the evil report and rather spread a good report about us; may we just experience Christ in His experiences of being slaughtered, skinned, and cut into pieces.
To be cut into pieces can be seen in the married life.
The many quarrels happening between the husband and wife are due to the fact that none of them wants to be cut into pieces; they know they need to die and be cut, but they refuse to.
Each one wants to cut the other one into pieces, so quarrels ensue.
May we come to the Lord day by day and experience Christ in His experiences of being the burnt offering so that we may live a life that is pleasing to God in all things, the repetition of the life the Lord Jesus lived when He was on earth.
Allow the Lord to Burn us so that we may be a Continual Burnt Offering to be Reduced to Ashes and enter into Resurrection
As those who aspire to live a God-man life as a repetition of the God-man living of Jesus today, we must live a life of being a continuous burnt offering.
We must allow the Lord to burn us so that we may be a continual burnt offering to burn others and be reduced to ashes to become the New Jerusalem for God’s expression (Psa. 20:3; Lev. 1:16; 6:8-13; 1 Cor. 3:12a; Rev. 3:12; 21:2, 10-11, 18-21).
Psa. 20:30 says, May He remember all your meal offerings and accept your burnt offerings. Selah. The Hebrew word translated as “accept” actually means “turn to ashes.”
When God accepts the burnt offering, He turns it to ashes.
God is pleased with a continual burnt offering, for the sweet-smelling savour rises up to please Him and satisfy Him; the sign that He accepts the offering is that ashes remain.
To people in the world, ashes are not something to behold, but God regards and treasures the ashes resulting from the burnt offering.
When we are reduced to ashes, we know that God is pleased and satisfied with our experience of Christ in His experiences of being the burnt offering.
God accepts and is pleased with us being burned as a continual burnt offering to be reduced to ashes. He turns the offering to ashes and He accepts it as fat, something that is sweet and pleasing to Him. We and Him are at peace, and God is satisfied.
If we understand this, we will allow the Lord to burn us so that we may be a continual burnt offering to be reduced to ashes and enter into resurrection.
The ashes signify Christ reduced to nothing; since we are one with the Christ who has been reduced to ashes, we also are reduced to ashes, that is, reduced to nothing, to zero (Mark 9:12; Isa. 53:3; 1 Cor. 1:28; 2 Cor. 12:11).
The result of experiencing Christ in His experiences as the burnt offering is that we are reduced to ashes; God does not toss out the ashes but treasures them.
This is proven by the fact that the priest had to change his garments and wear stately garments when he dealt with the ashes, and the ashes had to be put at the east of the altar, the side of resurrection.
If we are willing to be reduced to ashes by being a continual burnt offering, we will experience Christ in His death and we will be brought into resurrection.
Christ as the Son of Man came and was considered as nothing, even reduced to be nothing in the eyes of those around Him. This is our portion today.
Being a Christian, a believer in Christ, means that we are being reduced to nothing.
We desire to serve God, we give ourselves to be one with Him and serve Him, but we are just nothing: we are zero, but Christ lives in us and is expressed through us.
People in the world dream of doing this or that great thing, but our aspiration is to serve God, for we want to experience Christ and gain Christ.
But for us to serve God, we need to be ready to be reduced to ashes, to be reduced to zero.
This means that we experience Christ in His experience of being reduced to ashes.
The more we are identified with Christ in His death, the more we will realize that we have become a heap of ashes.
When we become ashes, we are no longer a natural person; instead, we’re a person who has been crucified, terminated, and burned, and now Christ lives in us (Gal. 2:20).
May we allow the Lord to burn us so that we may be a continual burnt offering to burn others and be reduced to ashes and be brought into resurrection in our experience today.
Lord Jesus, we allow You to burn us so that we may be a continual burnt offering for God and His satisfaction. We open to You today, Lord; grant us to experience Christ in His experience of being a burnt offering. May we be willing to be reduced to nothing, reduced to ashes, so that we may go through death and enter into resurrection. Save us from trying to be someone or accomplish something great outwardly for God. May we be one with Christ and experience Christ in His experiences of being reduced to nothing. Oh Lord, may we be identified with Christ in His death so that we may realize we are just a heap of ashes, not appreciated by man but with God precious and honourable. Grant us to experience Christ in His experiences of death and resurrection so that Christ may live in us day by day a life for the satisfaction of God!
Being Reduced to Ashes to be Transformed and Become the New Jerusalem
![He was despised and forsaken of men, / A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; / And like one from whom [men] hide their faces, / He was despised; and we did not esteem Him. Isa. 53:3](https://i0.wp.com/www.agodman.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/He-was-despised-and-forsaken-of-men-A-man-of-sorrows-and-acquainted-with-grief-1024x1024.webp?resize=750%2C750&ssl=1 "He was despised and forsaken of men, / A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; / And like one from whom [men] hide their faces, / He was despised; and we did not esteem Him. Isa. 53:3")
The fact that the ashes were put at the east side of the altar, the side of the sunrise, is an allusion to resurrection (Lev. 1:16; John 11:25; Phil. 3:10-11; 2 Cor. 1:9).
The priest who was handling the ashes resulting from the burnt offering was not allowed to throw them out; rather, they had to change their clothes and take the ashes in a stately way to a place of honour, the east side of the altar.
With Christ as the burnt offering, the ashes were not the end – they are the beginning; the ashes mean that Christ has been put to death, but the east signifies resurrection (Mark 9:31).
![...it is written of the Son of Man that He should suffer many things and be counted as nothing? Mark 9:12 And the lowborn things of the world and the despised things God has chosen, things which are not, that He might bring to nought the things which are. 1 Cor. 1:28 I have become foolish; you yourselves have compelled me. For [it is] I [who] should have been commended by you; for in nothing am I inferior to the super-apostles, even though I am nothing. 2 Cor. 12:11](https://i0.wp.com/www.agodman.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/it-is-written-of-the-Son-of-Man-that-He-should-suffer-many-things-and-be-counted-as-nothing-683x1024.webp?resize=400%2C600&ssl=1 "...it is written of the Son of Man that He should suffer many things and be counted as nothing? Mark 9:12 And the lowborn things of the world and the despised things God has chosen, things which are not, that He might bring to nought the things which are. 1 Cor. 1:28 I have become foolish; you yourselves have compelled me. For [it is] I [who] should have been commended by you; for in nothing am I inferior to the super-apostles, even though I am nothing. 2 Cor. 12:11")
The more we’re reduced to ashes in Christ, the more we will be put to the east, and on the east, we will have the assurance that the sun will rise and that we will experience the sunrise of resurrection (Phil. 3:10-11).
Our job is to be willing to be reduced to ashes; on His side, God is faithful to burn us and reduce us to ashes, and He will bring us into resurrection.
Many of us are passing through all kinds of situations, challenging situations; we should not fight against the situation or people around us but allow God to reduce us to ashes.
We need to realize that the Lord is working in our environment and through many people, situations, things, and matters to reduce us to ashes.
If we are willing to be reduced to ashes, reduced to nothing, we will be transformed to become the New Jerusalem.
We will enter into resurrection and we will be transformed into gold, pearls, and precious stones to adorn the holy city, New Jerusalem.
Eventually, the ashes will become the New Jerusalem (Rev. 3:12; 21:2, 10-11).
What is seemingly worth nothing in the eyes of man, the ashes resulting from the burnt offering are highly regarded by God and become part of the New Jerusalem.
A bullock, so strong and useful to man to do this and that, is being reduced to ashes by becoming a burnt offering, and God is satisfied. Wow!
In our experience, we may be strong, capable, intelligent, and useful in the world, but we lay it all on the altar. We go through death and resurrection to be transformed for the New Jerusalem. Hallelujah!
Christ’s death brings us to an end, and reduces us to ashes; in resurrection, the ashes become precious materials for God’s building (1 Cor. 3:9, 12).
If we are willing to be reduced to ashes, we will be brought into the transformation of the Triune God to become the precious materials for the building of the New Jerusalem (Rom. 12:1-2; 2 Cor. 3:18; Rev. 21:18-21).
Outwardly, no human glory is assigned to the ashes resulting from the burnt offering; in the eyes of God, however, precious stones, pearls, and gold are produced to build and adorn the New Jerusalem.
The Lord Jesus was reduced to ashes through death on the cross, but He rose in resurrection to build up the church and consummate the New Jerusalem.
In man’s eyes, the Lord became nothing, for He was reduced to zero on the cross.
In God’s eyes, however, His sacrifice on the cross was acceptable and pleasing to Him, and He considered the ashes resulting from Christ as the burnt offering as being precious and valuable, for He brought Him in resurrection. Amen!
We should not consider it as an insignificant matter that we serve the Lord; the world may despise this, for outwardly we don’t seem to be doing something valuable, but the Lord highly regards it.
What we are doing by experiencing Christ in His experiences of the burnt offering is extraordinary, but to the worldly people, it is nothing.
To them, it seems that we are being reduced to ashes, to nothing; God, however, has a high regard for these ashes, for these ashes indicate we’re being transformed to become precious materials for the New Jerusalem.
The result of the burnt offering is that we are reduced to ashes to be transformed for the New Jerusalem. Hallelujah!
The New Jerusalem is our destiny and our destination, and our experience of Christ in His death and resurrection results in our transformation to be precious materials for the building of the holy city.
God is now working to gain the New Jerusalem, a miraculous structure of treasure, in our daily life, our family life, our Christian life and our church life.
May we cooperate with Him by being willing to be reduced to ashes as we experience Christ in His experiences of being the burnt offering.
Lord Jesus, have Your way in us. Grant us the experiences we need for us to experience Christ in His experiences as the burnt offering. Have Your way, Lord, to reduce us to ashes so that we may be transformed for the New Jerusalem. Bring us into the transformation of the Triune God so that we may become the precious materials for God’s building, for the building up of the New Jerusalem. Make us willing, Lord, to be reduced to ashes as we live a God-man life. Make us willing to allow You to reduce us to ashes so that we may be brought into resurrection and be transformed to become part of the New Jerusalem. Praise the Lord, we are nothing and we can do nothing, but we have Christ living in us, and He brings us through death into resurrection to build up the church consummating the New Jerusalem!
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Inspiration for this article/sharing comes from the Word of God, the enjoyment in the ministry, a sharing by brother Ricky Acosta in the message for this week, and portions from, Life-study of Leviticus (msgs. 6-7, 23) by Witness Lee, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, An Overview of the Central Burden and Present Truth of the Lord’s Recovery Before His Appearing (2023 July Semiannual Training), week 5, entitled, The God-man Living.
- Similar articles on this topic:
– The Rebuilding of the Altar of God— the Altar of Burnt Offering, a message by R. S.
– Did You Know You’re a Vessel God Wants to Fill? Read more via, Bibles for America blog.
– Gold, Pearls, and Precious Stones, via, New Jerusalem blog.
– The Amazing Process of Transformation as Revealed in the Bible, article via, Holding to Truth in Love.
– The holy city, New Jerusalem, article by Watchman Nee in, Affirmation and Critique.
– The New Jerusalem, a portion from, Lesson Book, Level 2: The Triune God—The Triune God and the Person and Work of Christ, Chapter 12, by Witness Lee.
– Aspects of the New Jerusalem: Transformation, article in, Affirmation and Critique.
– The fire on the altar being kept burning continually and not going out, a portion from, Life-Study of Leviticus, Chapter 23, by Witness Lee.
– The Burnt Offering Life, article via, Living to Him. - Hymns on this topic:
– Such a union requires exercise through proper prayer / We open our failures, defects for our Lord to bear. / As we pray in this way, Christ — the One with no such sin / As the life-giving Spirit moves and works within / To live in us a life, a repetition of Christ our King, / The One who lived on earth the life of the burnt offering. (Song on, Our Burnt Offering, stanza 4)
– Oh, may Thy Cross within me / Deepen its work and burn / In me enlarge Thy measure, / And me to ashes turn. / Oh, may Thy Spirit fill me / Each day more than before, / And may Thy living water / On me and thru me pour. (Hymns #280 stanza 4)
– We the altar must obtain, / Have our all upon it lain. / The burnt-offering must be slain, / O glory be to God! / This we never should dispute, / For the church be absolute, / All that’s otherwise uproot / In the local churches now. (Hymns #1251 stanza 4)
About aGodMan
Life-study of Leviticus, pp. 57-58, by Witness Lee
The result of our experiencing Christ in His experiences of being the burnt offering is that we are reduced to ashes.
To the worldly people, ashes are insignificant, but to God they are most valuable, for these ashes are brought into resurrection to be transformed for the New Jerusalem.
Yes Lord do this in us for Your satisfaction!
O brother, in our Christian life there should be a lot of ashes!!
It is really a paradox!
The impossibility for man is possible for God. In actual fact, whenever something is burnt, the result could be an ashes.
But the mystery is the transformation of this Ashes into the precious materials for the building of the new Jerusalem.
The very surprising thing is that the Almighty Lord came down to be Ashes so that He can pass through all these processes.
In addition to all these, we all started living from the dust of the earth.
Praise the Lord for this wonderful transformation to come up with His organic Body, The new Jerusalem!
Amen, ashes in resurrection 🙌🏻
Praise the Lord! 😃🙋🏽🙏 Amen!
Dear brother, as the real burnt offering Christ became ashes, was reduced to nothing but this was acceptable to God and issued in resurrection for God’s building! Amen!
As Christians we too need to be reduced to ashes, to be burned so that we burn others and experience resurrection to build the church, with gold, silver and precious stones, to become the New Jerusalem.
Brother, what we do as slaves of the Lord isn’t merely to preach the gospel, to establish local churches, to teach the Bible or to help others to grow in life and in truth.
What we do must result in the building up of the Body of Christ, which is a miniature of the New Jerusalem.
To ordinary people, what we do is nothing, merely ashes. However, we see in the Old Testament that God has a high regard for our “ashes.”
These ashes will become the New Jerusalem. We must believe that the New Jerusalem is our destiny and our destination.
Ashes indicate the result of Christ’s death, which brings us to an end. However, Christ’s death brings in resurrection, which produces gold, silver and precious stones.
All these valuable materials come from the transformation of the ashes.
Listen to the audio version of this article via,
These are the last two stanzas of the song entitled, Our burnt offering, via, Hymnal.net here https://www.hymnal.net/en/hymn/ns/303
Lev. 6:10, footnote 1 on, “ashes”, Recovery Version Bible
Lord Jesus, keep us turning back to you. Lord we want to redeem the time. Dispense your life in us today!
Amen. God’s economy is so real. We are the ashes are transforming into New Jerusalem. Hallelujah
Ameen!!!
God’s thought really is different from our thoughts and God’s ways are different from man’s ways.
Who could think that after man is reduced to nothing and becomes ashes that this miraculous structure of treasure comes forth from such.
Truly amazing.
Truly He is God who calls not being as being and One who raises the dead.
We are these ones considered to be nothing, insignificant, useless.
Behold what God is doing. Oh Lord i’m full of worship to You.
Amen 🙏🏾! Our experience Christ as the Burnt offering is gorgeous God’s Building!
Amen Lord! Deal with us in this age to be the ashes becoming the New Jerusalem!
Amen brother wow!
How can the ashes of the burnt offering become the New Jerusalem?
Ashes indicate the result of Christ’s death, which brings us to an end, that is, to ashes.
But Christ’s death brings in resurrection.
In resurrection, the ashes become precious materials—gold, pearls, and precious stones—for the building of the New Jerusalem.
All three precious materials come from the transformation of the ashes.
When we are brought to ashes, we are brought into the transformation of the Triune God.
I have so enjoyed this message and through it am realizing the freedom God has arranged for us all by our becoming a burnt offering. I love that our virtues, our flesh, our organs are all consumed (think consummated) and that true living is only through resurrection, through the life of this wonderful perfect loving husband. To the world it may sound like an oppressive marriage, not freedom. But it is freedom because through Him it is perfect peace; no sin, no anxiety, no death. No death? Correct. How can we die if we are already dead, burnt, ashes? We can live now, even now, even here, in resurrection unto eternal life. Wow. Wonderful freedom. Thank you for this amazing portion. (Hymn 310)