This is a great spiritual principle in the Bible and in our daily Christian life, and it is based on the fact that God created man not to WORK for Him but for man to be satisfied with God and rest with God! Man’s first day on earth after he was created was God’s rest day – man simply entered into God’s rest and enjoyed God in His rest!
This clearly shows that even though God created man in His image and likeness and wants man to express Him and represent Him, the first thing God wants man to do is to enjoy Him, rest in Him and be satisfied with Him! This is a sign – a perpetual covenant, between God and His people – we firstly rest with God and enjoy God, and then we can work for God. Man was and is God’s refreshment!
Man in God’s image with a spirit to fellowship with God, be God’s companion and counterpart – is God’s refreshment and His satisfaction! And we have a spirit that delights in God and fellowships with God – there is a deeper part in our being that is satisfied and can be filled only with God!
We have a spirit to contact God, receive God, enjoy God, and contain God! When we exercise our spirit to enjoy God, contact God, receive God, and contain God, we are satisfied, and God is refreshed!
God firstly supplies us with the enjoyment of Himself, and then we work together with Him! First enjoy God, then work together with Him! If we want to be one with God in His work, we need to enjoy Him first! Before we can do anything for Him, we need to enjoy God! Just like on the day of Pentecost – the disciples spent time together to pray and be infused with God until they were filled with enjoyment, they were filled with “new wine”: the heavenly Christ Himself as the Spirit!
Then, when they were filled, Peter and the disciples stood up and worked together with the Lord to announce the gospel! Before we can preach the gospel or tell others about the Lord, we need to pray ourselves into God, into the enjoyment of God! We need to be filled with the enjoyment of God! In this way, we have Christ’s authority – because we are filled with Him!
Even before doing the practical things we need to take care of – spend time to enjoy God and be filled with Him! With God, He works first and then He rests; with us, we rest first and then we work together with God! As we enjoy God, He becomes our strength and energy to work and our energy to labor – it all comes out of our enjoyment of the Lord!
Yes, we work together with God, but God needs to be our strength, our energy, our everything, so that we may work together with Him for the building up of the church as the Body of Christ! We enjoy God FIRST, then we work together with the very One who fills us within – He become sour strength, our oneness, and our power! This is an eternal covenant between us and God – forever!
Another example of this is king David in the Old Testament – he collected and prepared all the materials for the building of a temple for God, and he wanted to build it! But God did not want him to build the temple – God wanted Solomon to build Him a temple. Instead of David building God a temple, God wanted to build David a house – He wants to build Himself into man!
When David heard God’s word, he stopped and allowed Solomon to build the temple. Whoever cannot stop working for the sake of God cannot work for the sake of God! The Lord wants us not to just DO things for Him – He wants us to STOP, listen to Him, enjoy Him, take Him as our Sabbath rest, and let Him lead us and do things in us! First let God build Himself into you, and then something will come out of you spontaneously for the building up of His Body!
This is the twofold principle that issues from David’s stopping according to God’s word:
1. All the work in the universe should come from God and not from man!
2. All that matters is what God does for man and not what man does for God.
May we be those like David who stop our opinions, our decisions, our ideas, even our good intentions to do something for God, and let the Lord speak and command, let Him be in charge – we would just enjoy Him and cooperate with Him! Enjoy Him first, and then we will be able to work together with Him! [enjoyment from message 9 in the Crystallization-Study of Isaiah(2)]
Lord, make us those who STOP ourselves and firstly spend time with You! We want to honor You and respect You, Lord, by first stopping our doing, our intentions, our ideas – and just enjoying You! Make the principle of the Sabbath real to us – make it a principle of our daily life! Draw us to enjoy You first – and then be open to work together with You in whatever You want us to do! Thank You for creating us in Your image and Your likeness – praise You, Lord, we have a spirit! O, Lord, may we Enjoy You First, then Work Together With You! Supply us with more enjoyment of You!
That was awesome! An so refreshing. God told me a while ago, "Enjoy me my son, i long for my people to enjoy me". An it first when i heard God say that i really doubted it because i never heard sermons on the subject of enjoying God or even if he wanted that from us. but God confirmed his word to me in many ways but especially in the psalms where David expresses his love an desire for his shepherd.Keep it up man of God that was really encouraging.