In order for us to be prepared for the Lord’s return, we need to absolute in following the Lord, hating even our own soul-life and being the salt of the earth so that we may be found faithfully following Him at His imminent coming.
In Matt. 16:25 the Lord tells us that we should not love our soul-life in this age but save it for the next age; for us to lose the soul-life is for us to cause the soul to lose its enjoyment and thereby to suffer.
Our spirit is for contacting, receiving, and containing the Lord, and by means of our spirit we can know God, contact God, receive God, and fellowship with God so that we may be one with God.
Our body is to contact the physical world, and by means of our human body we exist, move, eat, drink, sleep, exercise, and do many things.
But our soul is for enjoyment; our soul is not merely for learning more, loving others, making decisions, or expressing ourselves, but in particular, our soul is for enjoyment.
Our soul seeks enjoyment in this age; it has certain preferences, certain tastes, and certain desires, and when its desires are fulfilled, it is happy, but when the preference of the soul is not fulfilled, it suffers.
In particular, in following the Lord as believers in Christ, our fallen soul has many preferences, opinions, desires, and decisions that are fallen, that is, they are not in accord with the Lord.
The Lord is not a religion or a set of rules; He doesn’t give us a certain law that we need to follow, and unless we adhere completely to His law, we can’t be His people.
No, our Lord is a living Person, and His life is in our spirit; Christ lives in us, and the way He feels, thinks and decides things are completely different from the way we do it.
So He requires that we deny the self (the person of our fallen being) and lose our soul-life (the life of our fallen soul) and take up our cross and follow Him.
This is the living that we should have today with the Lord’s return in view: we should not love our soul-life but rather hate it and lose it, we should deny the self, and we should take up our cross and follow Him. All this is on the negative side.
On the positive side, we need to enjoy the Lord, cause our soul to delight in Him, and learn to be satisfied in God and with God.
Actually, the soul’s real enjoyment is in God; but before we can enjoy God, the life of the fallen soul has to be put to death, denied, and put aside.
The enjoyment of the soul has to be lost in this age; there are many things like pleasures, amusements, and entertainment today that seek to “delight” our soul, and there are many things that our soul is just naturally attracted to.
In following the Lord, the life of the soul needs to be put aside, and the enjoyment of the soul needs to be lost; we need to actively choose God, turn to our spirit, set our mind on our spirit, and live in spirit, and we will follow the Lord in spirit, while the soul delights itself in God.
If we lose our soul-life in this age for the Lord’s sake, we will gain it in the next age with the Lord in the coming kingdom.
Being Absolute in Following the Lord and Hating our own Soul-life, for it Hinders us from Following Him Faithfully
In Luke 14:26-35 the Lord Jesus taught us to be absolute in following Him and to hate everything – even our own soul-life – that distracts us, hinders us, and frustrates us from following Him faithfully.
In this portion of the Word, the Lord speaks of hating our father, our mother, our children, and even our own soul-life, so that we may follow Him faithfully.
This doesn’t mean that we should outwardly and humanly hate all those close to us or hurt ourselves so that we may not love our soul-life; rather, this means that we should hate the natural relationship, the natural affection, those things and persons that compete with the Lord, the One we love the most.
The Lord doesn’t accept any competitors in our being; He wants us to remove and hate anything that competes with Him in our being, for He is the first and the best for us.
And this very thing we do not by outwardly hating others or denying ourselves but by first loving the Lord, giving Him the first place, and whenever something or someone competes with Him for our love, we need to return to the Lord and rekindle our love for Him.
The Lord doesn’t want us to “hate our mother” or to “hate ourselves”; rather, He wants us to hate our soul’s natural desires, wants, preferences, and love the Lord much more.
Following the Lord is something that we need to do wisely, absolutely, and faithfully.
For example, if we are building a tower but we don’t have enough money to finish it, we will be put to shame; similarly, if we were to go to war with an army of ten thousand men but the enemy has one hundred thousand men, we need to be wise and ask for terms of peace.
In the same way in following the Lord we need to be wise, counting all things as loss on account of the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus our Lord, for it is worth it that for Him we would lose our soul-life in this age so that we may find it in the next age.
Our Christian life is like a building; we need to take heed how we build; it is like doing a work – we need to count the cost and take heed how we build.
Think about it and consider this prayerfully before the Lord: should we allow our soul to have its enjoyment in this age of max. 80-90 years on earth (yet with much warning from the Lord concerning the next and many sufferings along the way) and lose its enjoyment in the next age of one thousand years?
Do we really want to be part of the Lord’s bridal army that will be first raptured to the heavens, and then will return with Him to defeat and destroy Antichrist with his armies?
Or do we want to be put to shame when the Lord returns, for He does not approve of what we are and what we have done on this earth?
Don’t we want that, when the Lord returns, He would tell us, Well done, good and faithful slave?
If we want to be rewarded by the Lord at His return, we need to deny the wants, desires, and preferences of our soul-life, for these hinder us and frustrate us from following the Lord.
The wants, desires, and preferences of our soul-life have a way to hinder and distract us from following the Lord faithfully.
If we deny the self, lose the soul-life, and take up our cross to follow the Lord faithfully in this age, we will gain much more than what the world has to offer us – we will gain the love and care of the universal family of God – together with persecutions and sufferings in this age, we will be rewarded with the Lord’s smile and His rest and enjoyment in the coming age, and we will rule and reign with Christ for eternity!
If we, for the Lord’s sake and for the sake of the church, put our soul-life aside and follow the Lord faithfully, we will one day find our soul-life, and we will save our soul.
Lord Jesus, we want to be wise and faithful in following You today so that we may receive the reward at Your return. We want to be those who are absolute in following You by hating anything that hinders, distracts, and frustrates us from following You faithfully. Amen, Lord, may we realize that our own soul-life distracts us and hinders us from following You, and may we choose to deny our soul its pleasures and enjoyment in this age. May we be those who ate any natural relationship and natural affection that would compete with You. Increase our love for You, Lord, and be our unique enjoyment and satisfaction in our soul in this age. We want to count the cost, pay the price, and never look back: You are our choice, we choose to follow You absolutely, and we put aside any natural relationship and even our own soul-life for Your sake in this age, so that we may obtain the reward and save our soul in the next age!
If we as the Salt of the Earth lose our Salting Function, we will Suffer God’s Discipline
Being a believer in Christ is the most wonderful and exciting thing that can happen to a human being; however, it also comes with a warning.
When we believe into the Lord Jesus, we become the salt of the earth (Matt. 5:13), and by living according to the divine nature the germs of corruption in us and around us are killed and eliminated.
The earth around us corrupted and the world is continually being corrupted and degraded, but we as the salt of the earth – the Lord’s followers – have an element that keeps the earth from being fully corrupted.
However, according to the Lord’s word in Luke 14:34-35, it is possible for salt to become tasteless, that is, to lose its taste and its salting function.
For us to become tasteless salt means that we have lost our salting function – we are just like the ones in the world, those around us, with no distinction between us and them.
Our salting function depends on our renouncing the earthly things and not considering them as being desirable or precious, but rather, renouncing the things of the present life for the sake of the Lord.
The more we hate our soul-life, refuse to love others more than the Lord, and renounce the things of the present life for the Lord’s sake, the more we exercise our salting function, and the germs of corruption in us and around us are being killed.
But if we are not willing to renounce all the things of the present life for the Lord’s sake, if we do not lose our soul-life, and we still love people or things more than the Lord, we lose our taste.
If this happens, we will be fit neither for the soil (signifying the church as God’s farm – 1 Cor. 3:9) nor for the manure pile (signifying hell, the dirty place in the universe – Rev. 21:8; 22:15).
The result is that such ones, those who lose their salting function, will be thrown out of the kingdom of God – especially from the glory of the kingdom in the millennium, and they will suffer God’s discipline.
The believers in Christ who do not renounce the earthly things for Him and who don’t lose their soul-life in this age are not fit for the millennial kingdom nor for the hell; they will be put aside for discipline.
This is a great warning to all believers in Christ, especially in the light of the Lord’s return.
Our Father God knows that we may be “naughty children of God” by not faithfully enjoying Christ, so He made a part of His full salvation an incentive and a reward to encourage us, warn us, and remind us to keep ourselves in the enjoyment of Christ every day and behave ourselves in this enjoyment.
If we don’t enjoy Christ and forsake all other things for His sake, we will lose our salting function and we will suffer discipline.
This doesn’t mean that we will be eternally lost; rather, we will not perish but suffer a dispensational discipline from God so that we may learn, the hard way and for an extended period of time, to love the Lord to the uttermost and forsake all other things for His sake. Oh, Lord Jesus!
Many of the Father’s children will need to suffer discipline during the coming age; they will not cease to be children of God but rather, they will suffer discipline to be mature and faithful followers of the Lord who love Him to the uttermost and forsake all other things for His sake.
When salt uses its taste, it is not good for anything except to be thrown away and become like soil, trampled underfoot; it is not useful even for the manure pile. Oh, Lord Jesus!
May we as believers in Christ, the salt of the earth, heed this warning and not become just like the earth by losing our salting function!
Amen, may we retain the taste, the saltiness, the power of salting to kill germs and corruption, by renouncing anything that belongs to the earth and clinging to the Lord Himself to enjoy Him!
When we start loving the world, the things of the earth, we will start to lose our taste, our saltiness, our function as the salt of the earth; this is a warning to us, for it is a serious matter. May we bring this before the Lord and tell Him,
Lord Jesus, thank You for making us the salt of the earth to kill any element of corruption in us and around us by enjoying You to the uttermost and forsaking all things of this world for Your sake. Save us, Lord, from losing our salting function; save us from losing our taste. Keep us in the enjoyment of Christ today. May we enjoy You and behave ourselves in the enjoyment of Christ so that we may be salted, salty, and salting. Dear Lord Jesus, save us from being naughty children of God who love the world and the things of the world, while at the same time they love the Lord and the church. Save us from suffering a dispensational discipline for losing our salting function in this age. Make us in reality the salt of the earth who receive the reward of the coming kingdom at Your return!
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Sources of inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message by Minoru Chen for this week, and portions from, Life-study of Luke, msgs. 21, 32-33, 38-39, 47-48 (by Witness Lee), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, The Christian Life, the Church Life, the Consummation of the Age, and the Coming of the Lord (2020 fall ITERO), week 3, The Losing of the soul-life, Participating in the Rapture of the Overcomers, and Receiving the End of our Faith – the Salvation of the Soul.
- Hymns on this topic:
– Press on, press on, count all things loss. / All that is gain to us, / To win the prize, the Christ of God, / Is far more glorious! (Hymns #1205)
– But as children of the kingdom / We are salting the earth; / His humanity preserves us / In the midst of such dearth. (Hymns #1172)
– We’ve seen the vision of Christ and the church. / Reckoned the cost; all things are but loss. / Will pay the price — give all of our lives; / We’re burning bridges, left the world behind. / On God’s economy our hearts are set / We’re living a life… / On God’s economy our hearts are set, / We’ll live a life of no regrets. (Song on, A Life of No Regrets)
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