As we Labor on Christ and Eat Him, we’re Constituted with Him and become God’s Inheritance

As believers in Christ, we are constituted with what we eat; Christ is our heavenly food for our enjoyment, and as we labor on Christ as our good land, we gain Him as our enjoyment, we are constituted with Him, and we are transformed to become Christ’s treasure, His possession. Amen!

This week we come to a further crystal in the book of Joshua entitled, The Produce of the Land of Canaan and the Intrinsic Significance of the Allotment of the Good Land.

It’s all about the land – the produce of the land and the allotment of the land. This book of Joshua is full of types, shadows, and figures of the New Testament realities.

The good land is the most comprehensive type of Christ; it is the most all-inclusive type of Christ in the entire Old Testament.

There are many types of Christ, such as the sacrifices, the offerings, the tabernacle, and the lampstand; one of them, however, is both comprehensive and all-inclusive – the type of the land.

The land represents Christ Himself, the Son of God, as everything to God’s people for them to enjoy, labor on, and partake of for the building up of the Body of Christ.

However, when we come to the Bible we should not read it with our natural mentality or try to understand it with our own intelligence; rather, we need to have God’s viewpoint and pay attention to what God speaks and wants in His word.

The entire Bible is a book on God’s economy – it’s all about Christ and the church, which will consummate in the New Jerusalem. The book of Joshua is also concerning this, and when we approach any type, figure, or shadow in this book, we need to pay attention to Christ and the church.

The good land of Canaan has a twofold significance – a positive significance and a negative significance; on the positive side, it typifies the all-inclusive Christ with His unsearchable riches, but on the negative side, it signifies the heavenly part of the dark kingdom of Satan with its satanic forces.

The enemy is doing his best to prevent God’s people from entering into the enjoyment of the allotted portion of the land.

In our Christian life, we need to realize that God has qualified us and has given us the wonderful Christ as our portion; on the other hand, there’s a battle to experience, enjoy, and express this Christ.

Every day there are many opposing forces in our environment that hinder us from the enjoyment of Christ as the good land.

God created the universe and especially the earth with the good land for His eternal economy; however, because of Satan’s rebellion, the earth was judged, and God came to recover and do a work of further creation.

Again and again, in the Old Testament we see that the people of Israel enjoy God and are under His blessing, and then they fail; they repent, are brought to the enjoyment of God in the land, and after a while, they become degraded and are judged by God, after which they repent and return.

May we return to the Lord and enjoy Him, eat Him, and even advance in our eating and enjoyment of Christ so that we may be constituted with Him and become Christ’s treasure, even the same as He is, for we are intrinsically made of the same element as Him.

We need to Labor on Christ to Grow Christ and Eat Him by Struggling and Pursuing Christ to Gain Christ

Josh. 5:12 says that, after the people of Israel crossed the Jordan river and started to eat of the produce of the land, the manna ceased on that day; there was no longer manna, but they ate of the yield of the land of Canaan.

The ceasing of the manna when the people began to eat the produce of the land indicates that the produce of the land was the continuation of the manna.

This introduces the thought that there are stages of eating Christ; they ate Christ in Egypt, in the wilderness, and in the good land, in three different stages.

The manna eaten by Israel in their wandering in the wilderness (Exo. 16) typifies Christ as the heavenly food given directly by God to His chosen people, which requires no labor on the part of the eaters. This is wonderful!

Eating the manna, however, is something elementary, for we don’t have to do anything to get it except get up early and collect it.

The manna simply fell from heaven, and the people had to get up early to gather it and eat it. We don’t belittle such an experience, even though it is elementary.

However, we need to advance from this to laboring on Christ so that we may gain Christ and enjoy Christ.

The rich produce of the promised land given by God to Israel in their fighting in Canaan typifies Christ as the consummated life supply given to the believers, which requires them to labor on Him (Deut. 8:7-10).

It may sound quite odd to say “labor on Christ”, but this is what we see in type in the Old Testament and in fulfilment in the New Testament.

Christ is the good land, and to labor in the land is to do some farming; there’s the need to plant, water, cultivate, harvest, and to do so many other things.

How do we labor on Christ in our Christian life? How do we “farm Christ” and “grow Christ”?

Phil. 3 gives us an indication of this; here we see that we need to struggle, to pursue Christ in order to gain Christ.

Paul described his experience, that he struggled, paid a very great price, and pursued Christ so that he may gain Christ.

He even considered all things that used to be gains to him, to be a loss, even dung, on account of the excellency of the knowledge of Christ.

And on account of this Christ, he suffered the loss of all things.

The cost of pursuing Christ in order to gain Christ is everything; we have to give up everything to enjoy Christ, gain Christ, and be constituted with Christ.

We may think that this is too much, but if we do this, if we give up everything as Paul did, we will gain Christ as our reward and enjoyment.

Such a decision to Paul was very easy, for he had the excellency of the knowledge of Christ, so he was more than willing to suffer the loss of all things to gain that which he had seen.

We need to have the full assurance of understanding so that we may have the excellency of the all-inclusive Christ so that we may experience and enjoy Christ as our portion.

For us to labor on Christ, grow Christ, and produce Christ is to struggle, to pursue Christ in order to gain Christ.

There are millions of believers on earth, and there are many saints meeting in the local churches in the Lord’s recovery, but who is struggling to pursue Christ? Many are involved in a routine kind of meeting life, a routine practice and service as a Christian.

Who struggles to gain Christ? Who pays the price and advances in his or her experience and enjoyment of Christ?

This is why God needs the overcomers, those who pursue Christ to gain Christ and be constituted with Christ by eating Christ every day.

The church as a whole has failed God in His economy, but God is calling His overcomers, those who labor on Christ by struggling and pursuing Christ to gain Christ and be constituted with Christ.

Lord Jesus, we give ourselves to You to labor on Christ by struggling and pursuing Christ to gain Christ. Amen, Lord, we want to learn to labor on Christ so that we may produce Christ, eat Christ, and be constituted with Christ. Save us from living a routine Christian life and having a routine Christian service. Grant us to have the excellency of the knowledge of Christ so that we may gladly give up everything to gain Christ and be filled with Christ. We want to struggle every day to gain Christ, produce Christ, and eat Christ so that we may be constituted with Christ for the building up of the Body of Christ. Make us Your overcomers, those who are not content with what we see and have but rather, pursue Christ to gain Christ and be constituted with Christ!

As we Labor on Christ and Eat Christ, we are Constituted with Christ and become God’s Treasure

The type in Joshua 5:12 is rich, for it shows that, after we possess Christ as the land, we need to labor on Christ to produce something of Him that will become our food, our life supply.

We cannot gain Christ and be constituted with Christ merely by being in the meetings of the church in a passive way, just listening to others.

It is only by laboring on Christ that we can gain something of Christ and be constituted with Christ; if we don’t labor on Christ, what we enjoy may be fleeting, and a week later, we may not even remember what we enjoyed.

Our laboring on Christ has very much to do with our dealing with the Word of God; we not only need to read the Bible but also interact with it, let it affect us, and dealing with what the Bible speaks about.

We need to come to the Word to produce a life supply, firstly for ourselves and then for others; in this way, we are firstly nourished, and then we will be able to nourish others also.

We have to produce something of Christ for our own supply, and we have to produce a surplus so that we can feed the saints, the new ones, and the young ones, and the gospel friends.

As we eat Christ and enjoy Him as the produce of the good land, we are constituted with Him, being made the same as Christ in life, nature, and expression (John 6:57; Phil. 1:19-21).

We are becoming what we eat; through our labor on Christ, we produce something of Christ, we eat Christ, and we are constituted with Him, with the result that, for us to live is Christ (Phil. 1:21).

If we want to be a heavenly people, we need to eat Christ as our heavenly manna every day.

If we want to be the Lord’s overcomers, we need to labor on Christ as our good land, so that we may gain Christ as our enjoyment.

As we struggle and pursue Christ to gain Christ, as we enjoy and experience Christ, something of Christ is produced and enjoyed by us, and this Christ becomes our very constitution.

God has given to us an all-inclusive Christ for us to enjoy, partake of, and be constituted with; as we properly enjoy Christ, something precious of Him will get into us and make us God’s treasure, His inheritance.

Ultimately, our enjoying of Christ as our inheritance, our possession, will constitute us to be God’s inheritance, God’s treasure and possession (see Eph. 4:11-14, 18; cf. Exo. 19:5).

As we enjoy Christ, something metabolic is going on in our being; we are being metabolically transformed, and we become Christ’s treasure, His possession.

First, we are chosen and predestinated by God, and we are redeemed by Him.

This gives us the access to enjoy God as our inheritance; the more we enjoy God in Christ as our everything, the more we are constituted to be God’s inheritance, His treasure.

On one hand, we have Christ as the good land to enjoy, possess, labor on, partake of, and be constituted with.

On the other hand, the enjoyment of Christ as the good land will constitute us with Christ, and we become God’s inheritance.

In Christ we were designated as an inheritance to God; He is our inheritance in Christ, and as we enjoy and experience Him as our inheritance, we become God’s treasure, God’s inheritance in Christ.

As we enjoy Christ as the all-inclusive, life-giving Spirit, the precious element of this Christ is brought into our vessel, and the treasure is being constituted into us to make us the inheritance of God. Amen!

Lord Jesus, we come to You to eat You and enjoy You as the rich produce of the good land so that we may be constituted with You. Amen, Lord, we open our whole being to You to eat You and take You in. Become in us our very constitution and make us the same as You are. May there be an inward, continual, metabolic process going on for us to be constituted with God. Amen, Lord, we give ourselves to enjoy You as our inheritance, our allotted portion of the good land, so that we may be constituted with You and become God’s inheritance, His possession. We want to eat You, be constituted with You, be transformed by You, and become Your treasure, Your inheritance! Hallelujah, God is our inheritance, and we are becoming His inheritance.

References and Hymns on this Topic

• Sources of inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message by bro. Raabe for this week, and portions from, Life-study of Joshua, msgs. 5-6, 12-13, by Witness Lee, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Crystallization-study of Joshua, Judges, and Ruth (2021 summer training), week 5, The Produce of the Land of Canaan and the Intrinsic Significance of the Allotment of the Good Land.
• Hymns on this topic:
  – 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)
  – We on Christ, as land, must labor, / Harvest Him for all our fare; / Tasting Him to overflowing, / Christ with others we may share. (Hymns #912)
  – O show me that Christ is the hope of Thy call— / O glorious hope, Christ will fill all in all! / Reveal Him—the riches of glory in us— / As God’s own inheritance. How glorious! (Hymns #1133)