taking the lead to enjoy Christ as the richest grace and the sweetest love

This week in the morning revival we come to a very interesting topic, part of the series of messages given in the recent ITERO, Taking the Lead as Elders and Responsible Ones.

The topic is, Taking the Lead to be Patterns and to Love the Lord with the First Love. We may think that these messages are only for the elders and the responsible ones, but they are also for those who are willing to take the lead to be the Lord’s slaves to serve the saints.

The Lord Himself said in Luke 22:27, … but I am among you as One who serves. For us to serve the Lord we first need to allow Him to serve us with His speaking, His divine dispensing, His revelation, for His new move on earth. We need Him to serve us that we may be one with Him to serve the saints.

The Lord Jesus ate butter and honey

Have you ever wondered, How could the Lord Jesus live such a perfect life, always choosing the good and refusing the evil? How could He always reject the world and choose God’s will? What was about Him that He rejected even the glory from men and rather chose the glory from God? We shouldn’t just say, Oh, He was God, so He could do all these naturally… – there was something about Him!

Isaiah 7:15 tells us why and how the Lord did this, “He will eat butter and honey until He knows how to refuse evil and choose good”. The Lord Jesus ate “butter and honey” all His life and He was able to refuse bad things and choose the good things. In John 6:57 He admitted that the living Father sent Him and He lives because of the Father – His living was not in and for Himself, but He lived because of the Father!

What is “butter and honey”? Of all the foods, butter is the richest, and honey is the sweetest. The heavenly butter is the richest grace and the heavenly honey is the sweetest love. The Lord Jesus enjoyed the Father’s richest grace and sweetest love and this enabled Him to choose the good and reject the evil. Even more, here are some characteristics of His life on earth:

• The Lord Jesus did not do anything out of Himself – in John 5:19 He said that the Son can do nothing from Himself except what He sees the Father doing.
• The Lord Jesus did everything according to the Father’s will and not His own – in John 4 we see that His food was to do the Father’s will. The place of His food was the place of God’s will.
• The Lord Jesus didn’t speak His own words but the Father’s – in John 14:10 we see that the Lord didn’t speak of Himself, His own words, but the Father’s words.
• The Lord Jesus didn’t do His own work but the Father’s work – John 14:10 also tells us that it was the Father who abides in the Son who does His work.
• The Lord Jesus did the Father’s will – in John 5:30 we see that the Lord didn’t come to seek His own will but the will of the Father who sent Him.
• The Lord Jesus sought the Father’s glory – in John 7:18 we see that the Lord Jesus didn’t seek His own glory but the glory which comes from the Father.

Enjoying the richest grace and sweetest love

The Lord Jesus did not do anything out of Himself, He didn’t do His own will, He didn’t speak His own words, He did the Father’s will, He did the Father’s work, and He sought the Father’s glory. As such a One Christ is among us as the One who serves us.

He is to us the richest grace and the sweetest love so that, just as He lived because of the Father, so we would eat Him and live because of Him (John 6:57).

We need to allow the Lord Jesus to serve us with His riches, His revelation, and with more experience of Himself as the richest grace and sweetest love for the building up of His Body! This is the way we can be one with Him to serve Him to others, minister Him to others.

This is the way to take the lead to minister life to others – take the lead to enjoy the Lord as the sweetest love and the richest grace. When we enjoy the Lord as the richest grace and the sweetest love, He becomes the supplying factor and the energizing element of our living.

He in us will empower us and strengthen us not only to reject the evil and choose the good, but live the same kind of life that the Lord Jesus lived on the earth!

We will learn Christ as the reality is in Jesus (Eph. 4:20) – we will not do anything out of or for ourselves, we will not do our own work or speak our own words, and we will not seek our own glory but the Father’s! This will minister life to others and will express God!

The standard to measure our Christian work

Can we say that our Christian life and work is according to God’s standard? When we work for God, do we do things out of ourselves or, even a little, for ourselves? Do we seek our own glory when we do things for God? Do we speak our own words and do our own works when we work for God?

The measuring stick and the standard for all the Christian work is the Lord’s living and work.

We need to take Him as our pattern and follow Him by eating Christ as the richest grace and sweetest love so that we would live and work no longer by ourselves but because of Him! If we don’t, we are prone to being divisive and making division in the Body. But if we eat Christ and enjoy Him as the riches grace and sweetest love, we will live a life of a God-man for God’s glory and His expression!

Lord Jesus, thank You for setting such a pattern before us to follow inwardly and organically. Keep us coming to You every day to eat and enjoy You as butter and honey, the richest grace and the sweetest love. We don’t want to work in and of ourselves even in doing things for You. Lord, gain in us the living of a God-man and the work for Your glory through our eating You and living because of You!

References and Further Reading

• Sharing inspired from portions in The Collected Works of Watchman Nee (vol. 17, pp. 111-120), and, The Elders’ Training, Book 1: The Ministry of the New Testament (ch. 3), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Taking the Lead as Elders and Responsible Ones, week 1.
• Recommended reading: John 6:57 and notes; Eph. 4:20 and notes;
• On this topic:
  # Butter and Honey (via Chittu);
  # The Power that Enables Us to Choose the Will of God (holdingtotruth)
• Hymns on this topic:
  # Now in our spirit we can feed, / Jesus Christ is all we need, / Call His name and He becomes reality.
  # Let us eat Jesus every day, / Eating His flesh in such a way / That in the trials great or small / He as a Man will be our all
  # Our Christ is so enjoyable, / His life is so applicable; / He lives in us to cause the flow / To reach the world, His life to show.