There is an urgent need among us in the church life in the Lord’s recovery today to experience Christ as our pattern; we need to live Christ in His human living, especially in emptying Himself and humbling Himself and in not grasping equality with God as a treasure.
We need not only to know what Christ did, the processes He went through, and the steps of humiliation that He took for us, but we also need to experience Him as our pattern.
Christ went through certain things and did certain things, and He humbled Himself and emptied Himself; now He is our pattern, and He has come into us – His believers – to live the same kind of life in the church life today.
No one forced Christ to do what He did; rather, even though there’s equality and harmony in the Godhead, the Son took the initiative to submit to the Father, coming to be a man and learning obedience through the things He suffered.
He put aside the glory, power, position, and image of His deity, and became a man; He humbled Himself to be a slave, and when others saw Him, they saw a normal man.
Christ voluntarily chose to be the Son, submitting Himself to the authority of the Father; He lived a life in submission to God, and He set up a pattern for us to follow and live.
As such a One, He passed through death and resurrection, and He came into us as a life-giving Spirit; in this Spirit are all that He has done and He passed through.
All genuine believers in Christ have the life of Christ, and this life is a submitting life; when we live according to the life of Christ, we spontaneously submit to God and to others, and the pattern of Christ is lived out in us.
Christ created submission; for us to submit is relatively easy, for we only have to humble ourselves, but He had to put aside so many things so that He may submit to the Father.
It is impossible for us to copy or imitate outwardly what Christ has done in the steps of humiliation that He took. But praise the Lord, He is in us!
Yes, He did learn obedience through the things He has suffered, and He was obedient to God even unto death, but such a One is now in us!
The Lord Jesus Christ, who was submissive throughout His life, has given us is life of submission, so now we can submit not because we are inclined to do this in ourselves but because we have a life in us that submits. Amen!
Our Urgent Need is to Experience Christ as our Pattern of Living a Crucified Life
There’s an urgent need among us today to experience Christ as our pattern; Christ as our pattern is not only objective but also subjective and experiential.
This means that the One who set up the pattern and who Himself is the pattern is now operating within us as the indwelling God (Phil. 2:5, 12-13).
First, we need to have this mind, the mind of Christ, and then we need to experience Christ as our pattern. The principle of Christ as the inward pattern for our living is that, even if we have the highest standard of the highest position, we should not grasp it, just as the Lord did (see Phil. 2:3-6).
This means that we need to experience Christ as our pattern and live a crucified life; we need to experience Him as our crucified life.
Such a life stands altogether in contrast to a life of rivalry and vainglory. In the church life we need to not live by our natural life but take the crucified life as our pattern, otherwise we will automatically live a life of rivalry and vainglory.
We need to be honest with ourselves and consider what kind of church life have we been living in the church until now; did we take the crucified life of Christ as our pattern and did we live a crucified life, or did we live a life of rivalry and vainglory?
Whenever we are in rivalry and seek glory, we live in the self; we must condemn this and experience Christ as our pattern. The moment we are not taking Christ as our pattern of a crucified life, we have lived in rivalry and vainglory.
For example, some brothers may be asked to take more responsibility and we may wonder why them and not only us; or some are being certain responsibilities, but we are in rivalry with them because we were not asked to do those things.
May we receive the antidote and experience Christ as our pattern of a crucified life. When we do this, we will have the same thinking, the same mind; we will seek only one thing, the subjective enjoyment and experience of Christ for the church life.
We need to be “partners with Christ” in His emptying Himself, humbling Himself, and in His not grasping equality with God as a treasure. He didn’t insist on holding onto the form of God, but was willing to empty Himself and humble Himself.
Instead of grasping what we have, we should lay these things aside and empty ourselves.
Christ is not only our pattern for our constant salvation but also the standard for our salvation. From His incarnation to His crucifixion Christ became a pattern to us for our salvation, and His experience from resurrection to exaltation is the standard of our salvation.
May we exercise our spirit and realise our urgent need to experience Christ as our pattern of living a crucified life. May we open to the Lord and tell Him,
Lord Jesus, we take you as our pattern. We realise that our urgent need in the church life today is to experience Christ as our pattern. Thank You Lord for not only setting up a pattern for our Christian life through Your life and death, but also coming into us to live the same kind of life today. Amen, Lord, we have Christ’s life of submission in us, and we can experience Christ as our pattern of living a crucified life. Hallelujah, the indwelling God operates in us, and we can cooperate by experiencing Christ as our pattern today!
We Experience Christ as our Pattern in His Emptying and Humbling Himself and in Not Grasping Equality with God as a Treasure
We need to experience Christ as our pattern; we need to live Christ in His human living, especially in His emptying Himself and humbling Himself, and in His not grasping equality with God as a treasure (Phil. 1:20-21; 2:6).
The key to experiencing Christ as our pattern is that we have a life in us that is self-emptying and self-humbling; this life never grasps at something as a treasure but is always willing to lay aside position and title.
Hallelujah, as believers in Christ we are not asked to try harder and better and to force ourselves to do this and that…we have a life in us, and this life is of emptying oneself and humbling oneself. As long as we live by this life, we experience Christ as our pattern.
For example, in the family life sometimes the wife may give the husband a difficult time; the way for him to be saved in such a situation is not to insist on his headship or “husbandship” and ask the wife to submit to him.
Even though the Bible says that the husband is the head of the wife just as Christ is the head of the church, this is not something to be enforced or demanded.
Rather, the husband needs to lay aside his headship, his “husbandship”; this is not something to be grasped and laid hold to, but something to be put aside so that he may experience Christ as the pattern.
When the husband puts aside his headship and experiences the crucified life of Christ, he enjoys the inner salvation operating in him, and God is the One who operates in him to save him.
In this way he empties himself and lays aside his headship, and he experiences Christ. This is not only the case with the husband but also with the wife; this is just an illustration.
Sadly to say, however, in most cases the married brother “grasps his headship” and refuses to lay it aside, and the wife stands on her ground, and a bitter exchange of words ensues, with murmurings and reasonings to follow.
Again and again we need to turn to the Lord and experience Christ as our pattern in His emptying Himself, humbling Himself, and not grasping equality with God as a treasure.
If we do this, if we lay aside what is rightfully ours by experiencing the crucified life of Christ, we will experience Christ’s constant and instant salvation, and our spouse will eventually be gained by the Lord.
Hallelujah, God is working in us; He works and operates in us both the working and the willing, as long as we turn to Him and experience Him.
The God who became a man, who humbled Himself and emptied Himself, who did not consider equality with God as a treasure to be grasped, this One is the Spirit with our spirit!
We are not just men – we are God-men, for the God-man Jesus Christ is in our spirit, and we can experience Christ as our pattern! Because God operates in us, we realise we are God-men, those who live by the life of Christ in their spirit.
We have a life in us that is self-emptying and self-humbling, and this life never grasps at something as a treasure; rather, it is always willing to lay aside position and title.
When we live by this life, we will not grasp even at the God-given things but rather, we will lower our position for the sake of others and for the glory of God, not caring for our reputation.
Lord Jesus, we want to experience Christ as our pattern in His emptying Himself and humbling Himself and in not grasping equality with God as a treasure. Thank You Lord for coming into us as a life that is self-emptying and self-humbling. Hallelujah, God operates in us both the willing and the working, and we just need to cooperate with Him to work out our own salvation. Lord, we want to live by the divine life in our spirit, a life that never grasps at something as a treasure but is always willing to lay aside position and title for the sake of others and for the glory of God!
This article can also be read in the Romanian language / Citiți acest articol în limba română vizitând următorul link, Nevoia noastră urgentă e să-L experimentăm pe Cristos ca modelul nostru de trăire a unei vieți crucificate.
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message by bro. Ricky Acosta for this week, and portions from, Life-study of Philippians, msg. 49 (by Witness Lee), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, The Experience of Christ (2019 Memorial Day Conference), week 2, Knowing and Experiencing Christ as the Pattern.
- Hymns on this topic:
# Jesus lived the God-man pattern, / Set the way for us to follow, / He denied His natural man and / Was obedient unto death, / Once He was the only God-man; / Now we are His duplication. (Song on, God has called us for His purpose)
# Lord, be my pattern, humble and lowly; / Save me from self and pride and vainglory. / Preserve and keep me, for Your economy, / Live in me, possess me wholly. (Song on, Lord, I do thank You for another day)
# Oh, what a life! Oh, what a peace! / The Christ who’s all within me lives. / With Him I have been crucified; / This glorious fact to me He gives. / Now it’s no longer I that live, / But Christ the Lord within me lives. (Hymns #499)
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