photo credit: Christian Pictures – Col. 1:12 Giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you for a share of the allotted portion of the saints in the light.
The good land promised to Abraham is very important in the fulfillment of God’s purpose.
It is in the good land that the people of God live, walk, and do everything; it is here that they labor on the ground to bring forth some rich produce for their supply and for God’s satisfaction. It is in the good land that the people of God build up the temple for God to have a habitation among man, and it is in the good land that the people of God become the kingdom of God for God’s dominion.
As true sons of Abraham according to faith, the believers in Christ have been allotted by God a portion of Christ as the good land (see Col. 1:12). We all have been given Christ as the allotted portion of the saints, and now we have to walk in Him and labor on Him day and night to bring forth the rich produce of the land for our supply and for God’s satisfaction.
Just as in the Old Testament the people of Israel were allotted a portion of the good land, tribe by tribe, so today the believers in Christ as the Israel of God are being allotted a portion of Christ to be their enjoyment and inheritance.
May we not despise our allotted portion but labor on Christ by enjoying Christ, experiencing Christ, walking in Christ, and doing everything in Christ, so that we may have something for our supply, for others’ supply, and for God’s satisfaction.
The good land today is Christ Himself as the all-inclusive Spirit who dwells in our spirit to be our enjoyment (see Gal. 3:14; 2 Tim. 4:22). Today Christ as the Spirit is with our spirit to be the good land for our enjoyment. The Lord is with our spirit; grace is with us! God as our enjoyment, God as our allotted portion for our enjoyment, is with our spirit!
May we live and walk in Christ as the good land, and may we experience doing everything in Christ in our daily living so that Christ may become to us, in reality, the good land as the blessing of the promise.
Christ is the Good Land, the Allotted Portion of the Saints
In the Old Testament we see that every tribe in the people of Israel was allotted a portion of the good land as their inheritance.
In Egypt the people of Israel didn’t need to labor (they simply enjoyed the Passover lamb with the herbs and the unleavened bread), in the wilderness they didn’t labor (they enjoyed the daily manna and the meat brought about by God), but in the good land each person in Israel had to labor in order to have a produce for their sustenance and also for bringing to God’s house to satisfy Him.
photo credit: AFellowPartaker – Christ our portion
As believers in Christ, we all have been given a portion of Christ – Christ is the allotted portion of the saints in the light (Col. 1:12). We have a “lot”, a portion of Christ allotted to us by God, and we now need to walk in Him, labor on Him, live in Him, and do everything in Him.
When Paul was speaking of Christ being “the allotted portion of the saints in the light” he was surely having in mind the picture of the allotting of the good land to the children of Israel in the Old Testament. Our inheritance as New Testament believers, our allotted portion, is the all-inclusive Christ (as seen in Deut. 8:7-10, the land of Canaan is an all-inclusive type of the rich Christ allotted to the saints in the light).
Christ is the allotted portion of the saints as their divine inheritance for their enjoyment (see Eph. 3:8). Since God is Spirit and He is not after physical things, He surely didn’t have in mind only the land of Israel (as rich in natural resources as it would have been); the good land promised by God to Abraham is the all-inclusive Christ.
Throughout the Old Testament we see that God wants to be expressed and represented among His people in the good land, and He loves the land of Israel (even calling it Beula, the beautiful land). The reason God loves the good land is because God chose the good land as a picture and type of Christ of the all-inclusive Christ.
Today we are privileged to have the all-inclusive Christ as our allotted portion, and we need to walk in Him, enjoy Him, experience Him, do everything in Him, and have our being in Him.
Since Christ is our Allotted Portion, we need to Walk in Him and Labor on Him
As we have received Christ, we should walk in Him. To walk is to live, to act, to behave, and to have our being. We should walk, live, and act in Christ so that we may enjoy His riches, just as the children of Israel lived in the good land and enjoyed all its rich produce. In our experience Christ should be the good land in which we live and walk. This should not merely be a doctrine to us. We need to pray, “Lord, I want to live and walk in You. Lord, I pray that You will be the good land to me in my experience, and that every aspect of my living may be in You.” (Life-study of Colossians, p. 159)
The good land is the place where the people of Israel existed, did everything, labored on, walked on, lived because of, built God’s house, worshiped God, expressed God, and did everything.
Since Christ has been allotted to us as our portion, we need to walk in Him, that is, we need to live in Christ, act in Christ, behave in Christ, and have our entire being in Christ. When we walk in Christ and live in Christ, we will enjoy His riches – just as the children of Israel lived in the good land and enjoyed all its rich produce.
The blessing of Abraham is the good land (see Gal. 3:14 and the entire chapter), and for us to walk in Christ means to walk in the all-inclusive Spirit.
Col. 2:6 tells us to walk in Christ; Gal. 5:16 tells us to walk by the Spirit; and Romans 8:4 says, Walk according to spirit. Today the Lord is the Spirit (2 Cor. 3:17), and this all-inclusive Spirit is the good land for us to walk in and walk by.
The Triune God went through the processes of incarnation, human living, death, and resurrection, and today the Triune God is the all-inclusive Christ as the all-inclusive Spirit for us to enjoy and experience as the good land! Wow!
This Christ as the Spirit is today with our spirit, even one spirit with us. The Lord is with our spirit (2 Tim. 4:22; Philemon 25), and we are joined to the Lord as one spirit (1 Cor. 6:17). The good land God promised to us is right now IN AND WITH OUR SPIRIT!
Where can we enjoy the riches in the good land? In our mingled spirit. How can we labor on Christ as the good land to have the rich produce? By exercising our spirit and walking by the spirit. We need to set our mind on the spirit (Rom. 8:6) and our mind will be set on Christ, the all-inclusive One, who is the good land.
The most crucial, central, and vital matter in the New Testament is living and walking according to the mingled spirit. Christ as the Spirit is right now the rich all-inclusive good land in our mingled spirit, and when we set our mind on the spirit, walk according to the spirit, and do everything in spirit, we inherit and enjoy the good land promised to us by God.
However, if we forsake our birthright to the good land and don’t labor on Christ nor walk according to the spirit, we will lose the enjoyment of Christ as the good land. But, Hallelujah, Christ as our allotted portion is a rich and good land, and as we labor on Him and walk in Him we will have His riches for our enjoyment and God’s enjoyment!
How we need to return to Christ, set our mind on the spirit, and walk according to the spirit so that we may enjoy and enter into the inheritance of the good land!
Lord, we want to live in You and walk in You today. We pray that You will be the good land to us in our experience, and that every aspect of our living may be in You. Thank You for qualifying us for a share of the allotted portion of the saints in the light. Christ is now our allotted portion of the good land in our spirit! We want to walk in the good land by walking in Christ. We want to labor on the good land by setting our mind on the spirit and by doing everything according to the spirit! Lord, You are the Spirit with our spirit, even one spirit with us, to be the rich all-inclusive good land for our experience and enjoyment! Hallelujah!
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Inspiration: the Word of God, my Christian experience, bro. Andrew Yu’s sharing in the message for this week, and portions from, Life-study of Colossians (msgs. 6, 19-20), as quoted in, the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Crystallization-Study of Genesis (2), week 4 / msg 4, The Land for the Fulfillment of God’s Purpose.
- Hymns on this topic:
# Jesus, the all-inclusive land, / Is everything to me: / A Christ of brooks, of depths and streams, / And fountains bubbling free. / Springing from valleys and from hills, / Flowing till every part He fills, / He waters us—how glorious— / By His life! (Hymns #1164)
# What a Christ we have, the all-inclusive One, / Our allotted portion, set apart in light. / In the kingdom of the Son of God, the Son of God’s love, / Here He rules us in the light of His love. (New song on the all-inclusive Christ, #438)
# Laboring on Jesus, the good land so real, / Plowing and planting and watering the field. / He yields the produce of reality, / God reaps a harvest of Jesus in me. / O Jesus! You’re God’s good land / For me to labor on! / I’ll bit by bit possess You / Until the whole is won! / With Canaan is God’s purpose, / The labor He will bless; / Lord Jesus, here I gain Yourself, / Your Person to possess. (Hymns #1168)
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