As the Nazarites of today, we need to remain in our separation to be holy to God, overcome natural affection, and be separated from death in any of its forms.
In Num. 6 we see that God has made a provision for all His people who want to serve Him that they would consecrate themselves to Him and be the Nazarites who cooperate with Him for His move on the earth.
God desires that all His people would be Nazarites separated absolutely and ultimately to Him, living a life for nothing other than God and His satisfaction.
To be such ones, we need to abstain from all kinds of earthly enjoyment and pleasure; we are here not for the enjoyment in the flesh or in the soul by the things and activities in the world, but for God to be satisfied.
Therefore, we need to enjoy God and take Him as our unique satisfaction, living a life for His satisfaction on earth. Furthermore, we need to be absolutely subject to the headship of Christ as well as to all the deputy authorities that God has appointed over us.
The Nazarite was to leave his hair grow long, to have it as a covering before God, taking God as His head and supreme authority. Christ needs to become the center of our personal universe, and He must have the first place in all things.
He not only holds the physical universe together, being its center, but He must hold our personal universe with all our being and our daily life.
We need to learn to give Him the first place in all things, giving Him our best love. This is to hold Him as the Head, so that from the Head we may be richly supplied and knit together by means of the joints and sinews.
May we daily take Christ as our head by simply telling Him to head up our whole being, our day, our living, and everything about us. This is the inward cooperation we can give Him for Him to be our Head.
Furthermore, we need to realise that in ourselves we are full of rebellion, so whenever we’re not in our mingled spirit abiding in the Lord, we are rebellious toward Him. Therefore, we need to be filled with Christ; He is the submissive One, and He took the will of the Father and accomplished it to the end.
To be filled with Christ is to be filled with His submission; when we are filled with Christ, we have a submissive spirit, standing, atmosphere, and intention, and we are greatly blessed by the Lord.
Nazarites Overcome Natural Affection and Relationships, and they Live by the Spirit
The Nazarite was not to be defiled by the death of his blood relatives but remain in his separation to be holy to God (Num. 6:7); this signifies that a Nazarite must overcome natural affection.
God doesn’t want us to love with our natural love but with Him as our love (see Matt. 12:48-50; Phil. 2:21; 1 Cor. 13:4-8, 13; 2 Tim. 1:7). This means that we need to take Christ as our life and our person, and we must love others with Him as our love.
Paul did this in 1 Cor. 16:24 where he said, My love in Christ Jesus be with you all. It was not just his love but his love in Christ Jesus, that is, Christ as his love.
Furthermore, even in longing for the saints we need to do so in the inward parts of Christ Jesus; we shouldn’t just miss the saints or being with the saints, but long after them in the inward parts of Christ Jesus (Phil. 1:8).
We need to let the inward parts of Christ Jesus become our inward parts, and our love will be His love.
The Lord Jesus Himself overcame His natural affection for His family members; when they came to try to interfere with what He was doing, He clearly said that His brothers and sisters and mother are those who do the will of His father (Matt. 12:48-50).
However, many seek their own things today, not the things of Christ Jesus; therefore, we need to be those who seek the things of Christ Jesus by setting our mind on our mingled spirit (Phil. 2:21).
The things of Christ Jesus are the things concerning the church with all the saints. Our love should not be a natural love but Christ as love; such a love suffers long, is kind, is not jealous, does not brag, is not puffed up, never falls away, but survives everything (see 1 Cor. 13).
Praise the Lord, God has not given us a spirit of cowardice but of power, of love, and of sobermindedness (2 Tim. 1:7); when we exercise our spirit, we will love the saints with Christ as our love, for love for others is in our mingled spirit!
In Acts 15:35-39 we see how the problem between Paul and Barnabas was caused by the natural life with natural relationships.
Paul proposed to Barnabas to go visit the brothers in every city in which they announced the word of the Lord, and Barnabas wanted to take John Mark, but Paul considered it was not fitting for this one to come with them, since the last time he did, he left them.
The Bible doesn’t say which one of them was right; however, Barnabas took Mark and sailed to Cyprus, while Paul chose Silas and was sent with the blessing of the brothers.
John Mark was the cousin of Barnabas, and after this incident, Barnabas is no longer mentioned in the book of Acts, while John Mark is recovered later in Paul’s ministry.
This shows that disputes that arise between the Lord’s workers because of natural affection are terrible.
We should separate ourselves from everything of our natural man with its natural enthusiasm, natural affection, natural strength, and natural ability, so that we may live by the Spirit, walk by the Spirit, and serve by the Spirit, doing everything by the Spirit in our spirit for God’s unique testimony (Lev. 10:1-11; Gal. 5:25; Phil. 3:3; Rom. 1:9; 8:4; Zech. 4:6).
Everything that we do in our natural man with our natural enthusiasm and affection is strange fire in the eyes of the Lord; we need to live in spirit and do everything in the Spirit for the building up of the church!
Lord Jesus, we love You and we love the saints. Purify our love, Lord, that our love may be Christ as our love. May we have more of Christ infused into us until His inward parts become our inward parts, and we love others in Christ Jesus. Amen, Lord, save us from loving others in a natural way. May we separate ourselves from everything of our natural man with its natural enthusiasm and natural affection. We want to do nothing by our natural strength or ability but live by the Spirit, walk by the Spirit, and serve by the Spirit, doing everything by the Spirit in our spirit for God’s unique testimony!
Nazarites are Separated from Death by being Filled with Christ as the Life-giving Spirit
The Nazarites were specifically not allowed to come near a dead person nor to be defiled by the sudden death of one beside him (see Num. 6:6-9); this signifies that a Nazarite is separated from death.
The principle of the Nazarites is that they are separated from spiritual death and spiritual deadness. Whenever we sense or smell the stench of spiritual death, we must run away.
Just as we don’t enjoy looking at our trash can or at others’ trash can, so we should not look into death or try to understand things are spread to cause death.
May we exercise to enjoy the good things of God’s economy, and may we refuse to feed on or listen to the rubbish things of gossip, criticism, and murmuring, which eventually leads to death and being deadened.
If we contact these negative things, we will not be able to pray; we may have one hundred reasons to listen to gossip or criticism, but the result is that we will be deadened.
We must be separated from death. It is better not to know anything and not to try to find out what happened and who did what, because the more we know, the more we will be deadened.
Most of the talk in the church life is not related to sinful things but related to death; our speaking can spread death. Sometimes even in the meeting, we may feel deadened, unable to pray.
As the Nazarites of today, we must learn the lesson to be in life and be separated from death and deadness.
When we come to the meeting and sense death – not on purpose, as if we’re inspecting to see if there’s death, but whenever we sense death in the meeting – we need to be the first to exercise our spirit and pray.
Lord Jesus, cover this meeting with Your prevailing blood! Lord, under Your blood we participate in Your divine life! We exercise our spirit against any deadness, Lord, and we fight against death in all its forms! Amen, Lord Jesus, we want to be filled with Christ as the life-giving Spirit, and we want our meeting to be filled with life and the ministry of life!
The most hateful thing in the eyes of God is death (see Rev. 3:4; Lev. 11:31); He hates when His people have a name that they are living yet they are dead. Our God is living, and we must match Him by being filled with His livingness and thus be living people.
We must be filled with Christ as the life-giving Spirit to be filled with life, and we must be separated from death.
Different kinds of spiritual death may spread among God’s people in the church life — wild death (the carcasses of beasts), mild death (the carcasses of cattle), or subtle death (the carcasses of creeping things) (Lev. 5:2; cf. 1 John 5:16a).
We must be separated and saved from all these kinds of death. How can we be saved from death in all its forms? In order to be saved from death, we need to realise that setting our mind on the flesh is death, but setting our mind on the spirit is life and peace (Rom. 8:6). Hallelujah!
We need to learn to set our mind on our spirit so that we may be filled with Christ as the life-giving Spirit; He is the anti-death, He can save us from death, and His life will enliven us and fill us with life!
For us to be saved from death we must be filled with “anti-death”, that is, we must be filled with Christ as the life-giving Spirit by exercising our spirit to pray (Rom. 8:11; Eph. 6:18).
And if we are defiled by some unexpected deadness (we cannot control or predict when those around us suddenly spread death), we need to have a new start with a new consecration by reseparating ourselves to the Lord (see Num. 6:9-14a; cf. 1 Sam. 1:11; 2:11).
May we be vigilant, full of feeling for the war against death, having a sense of death so that we can fight against it.
Lord Jesus, we separate ourselves from anything of death unto You, our living God! We want to set our mind on our spirit, pay attention to our spirit, care for our spirit, and use our spirit, so that we may be filled with anti-death – filled with Christ as the life-giving Spirit! Amen, Lord Jesus, we choose to be separated from death, stay away from death, not listen to any gossip or criticism or murmuring, and simply enjoy You as life and be filled with life! Fill us with Yourself as life and overflow from us as life!
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message by Ed Marks for this week, and portions from, Life-study of Numbers, msgs. 9-10 (by Witness Lee), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Crystallisation-Study of Numbers (1), week 5, God’s Desire for All His People to Be Today’s Nazarites.
- Hymns on this topic:
# You need the Nazarites to turn this age. / Strengthen us to overcome in these last days— / All rebellion, natural affection, even death, / Worldly pleasures, every enjoyment of the flesh. (Song on, Consecrated one)
# Break through my nature, mighty, heavenly love, / Clear every avenue of thought and brain, / Flood my affections, purify my will, / Let nothing but Thine own pure life remain. (Hymns #431)
# Let us open to the Lord Himself through prayer, / Breathe Him deeply as the living air. / Gain the life supply by praying into Him, / ’Till our being’s filled up to the brim. (Song on, Let us work together with the Lord through prayer)
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