Morning Nourishment - The God-man Living for a New Revival
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Day 1
Verses: Eph. 4:20-21 But you did not so learn Christ, if indeed you have heard Him and have been taught in Him as the reality is in Jesus. 1 Pet. 2:21 …Christ also suffered on your behalf, leaving you a model so that you may follow in His steps. Rom. 8:29 …He also predestinated to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the Firstborn among many brothers. The New Testament strongly indicates that we should live Christ…Paul declares, “To me, to live is Christ” [Phil. 1:21]…In Ephesians 4:20 we are told that we have learned Christ. Christ is not only life to us but also an example (John 13:15; 1 Pet. 2:21). We learn from Him (Matt. 11:29) according to His example, not by our natural life but by Him as our life…The Lord Jesus did not come into us as life directly. Rather, after living on earth for thirty years, He ministered for another three and a half years. During the thirty-three and a half years of His life on earth, He set up a pattern, a mold, a model…One reason the four Gospels were written was to show the pattern of the life that God desires, the mold of the life that can satisfy God and fulfill His purpose. For this reason the New Testament gives us a unique biography, the biography of the Lord Jesus, written from four directions. After the Lord Jesus set up the pattern revealed in the Gospels, He was crucified on the cross, and then He entered into resurrection. It is in resurrection that He comes into us to be our life. (Life-study of Ephesians, pp. 380-381)
To be saved is to be put by God into Christ.
First Corinthians 1:30 says, “Of Him you are in Christ Jesus.” When God put us into Christ, He put us into the mold…Romans 8:29 indicates that we are to be conformed to the image of Christ, the Firstborn among many brothers. To be conformed is to be molded…To learn Christ is simply to be molded into the pattern of Christ, that is, to be conformed to the image of Christ. By means of baptism God has put us into Christ, who is the pattern.
To be baptized is to be placed into Christ as the mold…To be baptized into Christ [Rom. 6:3; Gal. 3:27] is to be buried into Him. The tomb of this baptism is the pattern, the mold. In God’s eyes, we were put into this mold when we were baptized. Through being placed into the mold, we have put off the old man and have put on the new man.
By being buried into Christ, we have been brought out of Adam and the old creation. By baptism we have been put into Christ, who is both our life and our pattern. This explains why Paul uses the past tense in speaking about learning Christ. We learned Christ when we were buried into Him in baptism. This means that to learn Christ is to be put into Christ as the mold. It is to be molded into the pattern set up by Him during His years on earth.
After Christ established the pattern, He was crucified, and then He entered into resurrection, becoming in resurrection the life-giving Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45). It is as the Spirit that He comes into us to be our life…At the time we believed in Christ and were baptized in Him, God put us into Him as the pattern, the mold. Therefore, Paul could tell the Ephesians that they “did… learn Christ.”
According to the light of the New Testament and according to our experience, to learn Christ is to be placed into Christ by God. On God’s side, He has put us into Christ. On our side, we have learned Christ by being put into Him. After a person is saved, deep within him he desires to live a life in the pattern established by the Lord Jesus. However, many either ignore this desire or cultivate it in a mistaken way, thinking that by self-effort they can succeed in imitating Him. It is a mistake to think that we can imitate Christ by the exercise of our natural life. The believers in Christ should imitate Him, but they should not do so according to their natural life. (Life-study of Ephesians, pp. 381-382)
Further Reading: Life-study of Ephesians, msgs. 46, 49; CWWL, 1984, vol. 2,
Day 2
Verses: Matt. 11:29 Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. John 6:57 As the living Father has sent Me and I live because of the Father, so he who eats Me, he also shall live because of Me. The reality in Jesus is the real situation of the life of Jesus as recorded in the four Gospels. In the godless walk of the Gentiles, the fallen people, there is vanity. But in the godly life of Jesus, there is truth, reality. Jesus lived a life in which He did everything in God, with God, and for God. God was in His living, and He was one with God. This is what is meant by the reality is in Jesus. We, the believers, who are regenerated with Christ as our life and are taught in Him, learn from Him as the reality is in Jesus. (Life-study of Ephesians, pp. 382-383)
When we believed in the Lord Jesus and were saved, God put us into Christ as the mold. This mold is the life of Jesus recorded in the four Gospels, a life absolutely according to reality, truth. Truth is the shining of light, the expression of light. Since God is light (1 John 1:5), truth is the expression of God. Every aspect of the life of Jesus recorded in the Gospels is an expression of God…This expression of God is the shining of light; hence, it is the truth, the reality. This life of Jesus according to reality is the pattern in which God has placed us. In this pattern we have learned Christ as the reality is in Jesus. This means that we have learned Christ according to the reality shown in the Gospels, that is, according to the life of the Lord Jesus, which was wholly according to God’s reality, God’s truth.
This life is the shining of light. The shining of the light is truth, and truth is the expression of God. Therefore, in the life of Jesus there is truth, reality. The essence of the pattern set up by the Lord Jesus is reality. This means that the essence of the life of Jesus is reality. We have learned Christ as the reality is in Jesus. The Gentiles walk in the vanity of their mind, but we believers live a life as the reality is in Jesus [cf. Eph. 4:17, 21]. When the Lord Jesus was living on earth, He never walked in vanity. Rather, He always walked in reality, in truth, that is, in the shining of the divine light. This means that the Lord Jesus lived and walked in the expression of God. We have learned Christ according to this very reality that is in Jesus.
The reality of the Body of Christ is the living of a God-man life by a group of God-redeemed people together with the God-man Christ…He used those thirty-three and a half years to live out the model of a God-man living. After His death and resurrection He produced many brothers who, with Him as the oldest Brother, become the one great man in the universe. What is this great, universal man? This is a God-man, one who is God yet man and man yet God.
First, He lived on the earth to live out a model…He definitely was a man on the earth. He hungered, He thirsted, He slept, and He even wept and was tired and weary…However, as a man, He lived not by the human life but by the divine life within Him. He lived, yet He did not live alone. He lived not by His own life but by the divine life. He told us clearly that He spoke and did things not by Himself but by the One who sent Him (John 5:19; 8:28)…God sent Him to be a man and to live a God- man life by the divine life [cf. 6:57].
This kind of living issues in a universal great man that is exactly the same as He is—a man living a God-man life by the divine life. He lived on earth as a man, but He did not live by His human life; rather, He lived by God as His life…During His thirty-three and a half years on earth, every day He lived a life by God, a life in which He rejected and denied Himself. This kind of life is a life lived under the cross by the resurrection life. (CWWL, 1994-1997, vol. 1, “The High Peak of the Vision and the Reality of the Body of Christ,” pp. 85-88)
Further Reading: CWWL, 1994-1997, vol. 1, “The High Peak of the Vision
Day 3
Verses: Lev. 1:3 If his offering is a burnt offering from the herd, he shall present it, a male without blemish; he shall present it at the entrance of the Tent of Meeting, that he may be accepted before Jehovah. 9 But its inward parts and its legs he shall wash with water. Then the priest shall burn the whole on the altar, as a burnt offering, an offering by fire, a satisfying fragrance to Jehovah. The only life that is pleasing to God is the life that is a repetition of the life Christ lived on earth. A life that experiences Christ in His experiences as the burnt offering is a God-pleasing life. Such a life is a delight to God. The burnt offering signifies Christ not mainly for redeeming man’s sin but for living for God and for God’s satisfaction. As the sin offering, Christ is for redeeming man’s sin, but as the burnt offering, He is absolutely for living a life that can satisfy God in full…In the four Gospels He is presented as the One who is absolutely one with God. His divine attributes were expressed in His human virtues, and sometimes His human virtues were expressed in and with His divine attributes. When He was confronted, examined, and questioned by the evil, subtle opposers—the scribes, the Pharisees, the Sadducees, and the Herodians—during His last days on earth, at certain times His human virtues were expressed through His divine attributes, and at other times His divine attributes were expressed in His human virtues. (Life-study of Leviticus, pp. 82, 24)
The Hebrew word translated “burnt offering” literally means “that which goes up” and thus denotes something that ascends to God…The only thing that can ascend to God from earth is the life lived by Christ, for He is the unique person to live a life absolutely for God. After the burnt offering was slaughtered, skinned, cut into pieces, and washed, it was burned on the altar…The Hebrew words translated “satisfying fragrance” [in Leviticus 1:9] literally mean “savor of rest or satisfaction,” that is, a savor giving satisfaction to the Deity, to whom it is offered, and, therefore, received with favor by Him…(S.
R. Driver). The word for burn in this verse literally means “cause to rise in smoke.” This indicates that the offering was not burned quickly but slowly. As a result of this slow burning, there was a satisfying fragrance, a savor that brought satisfaction, peace, and rest. Such a satisfying fragrance is an enjoyment to God. When we offer a burnt offering whole to God, a fragrance well pleasing to God will ascend to Him for His satisfaction and rest. Since God is satisfied, He will render His sweet acceptance to us.
This is the significance of the burnt offering. The way to satisfy God with sweetness, peace, and rest is to live a life that is absolutely for God. Since we cannot live such a life, we must take Christ as our burnt offering. We need to lay our hands on Him to indicate that we desire to be identified with Him, one with Him, and to live the kind of life He lived on earth. To lay our hand on the offering means that we are one with the offering and take the offering as being one with us. Hence, the laying on of hands makes the two parties one. We are joined to Him. We and He, He and we, become one. Such a union, such an identification, indicates that all our weaknesses, defects, shortcomings, and faults become His and that all His virtues become ours.
This is not exchange—it is union. We may realize that we are altogether unqualified and hopeless. This is our actual situation. But when we lay our hands on Christ, our weak points become His, and His strong points, His virtues, become ours. Furthermore, spiritually speaking, by such a union He becomes one with us and lives in us. As He lives in us, He will repeat in us the life He lived on earth, the life of the burnt offering…By laying our hands on Him, we make Him one with us, and we make ourselves one with Him. Then He will repeat His living in us. This is to offer the burnt offering. (Life-study of Leviticus, pp. 69, 39, 27-28)
Further Reading: Life-study of Leviticus, msgs. 3—9
Day 4
Verses: Lev. 6:11 Then he shall take off his garments and put on other garments and carry the ashes outside the camp to a clean place. 1:16 …Toward the east, in the place of the ashes. Phil. 3:10 To know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death. If we realize that we need Christ as our burnt offering,…we need to lay our hands on the Lord in order to have a [proper and] subjective prayer…We may say, “Lord, I lay my hands on You, causing myself to be identified with You and You to be identified with me.”…[Then] the life-giving Spirit, who is the very Christ on whom we lay our hands, will immediately move and work within us to live a life that is qualified for the burnt offering. (Life-study of Leviticus, p. 29)
For God to accept the burnt offering is for Him to turn it to ashes. Concerning this, Psalm 20:3 says, “May He remember all your meal offerings / And accept your burnt offering.” The Hebrew word translated “accept” here actually means “turn to ashes.” When our offering has been turned to ashes, this is a strong sign that it has been accepted by God. Ordinarily, people do not regard ashes as something pleasant. However, to us who offer the burnt offering, ashes are indeed pleasant, even precious, because they are a sign which gives us the assurance that our burnt offering has been accepted by God. The Hebrew word rendered “accept” can be translated not only as “turn to ashes” but also as “accept as fat,” “make fat,” and “be as fat.”
For God to accept our burnt offering means not only that He turns it to ashes but also that He accepts it as fat, something that is sweet and pleasing to Him. For the burnt offering to be turned to ashes means that God is satisfied and that we therefore may be at peace. The ashes were not thrown away. Instead, they were put beside the altar toward the east (Lev. 1:16; 6:10), the place of the ashes. The east side is the side of the sunrise. Putting the ashes beside the altar toward the east is actually an allusion to resurrection. [That] the ashes were not thrown away… indicates that we should treasure the result of our offering of the burnt offering to God. We should never throw it away.
In God’s eyes, the result of our burnt offering is highly regarded. It is fine, pure, and clean. Thus, in carrying the ashes outside the camp [cf. 6:11], the priest wore stately garments and carried the ashes in a stately way. This teaches us to have a high regard for the result of our burnt offering. To become a full-timer is to offer ourselves to God as a burnt offering…The result of our being a burnt offering will be something that carries out God’s New Testament economy. What we do as full-timers is not merely to preach the gospel to save sinners, to establish local churches, to teach the Bible, or to help people to grow in life and in truth. What we do must result in the building up of the Body of Christ, which is a miniature of the coming New Jerusalem.
What we are doing is actually extraordinary, but to the worldly people it is nothing. To them what we are doing is ashes. However, God has a high regard for these ashes. Eventually, these ashes will become the New Jerusalem. Have you ever realized that the ashes, the result of the burnt offering, will be the coming New Jerusalem?…The New Jerusalem is our destiny and our destination. How can the ashes of the burnt offering become the New Jerusalem? Ashes indicate the result of Christ’s death, which brings us to an end, that is, to ashes. But Christ’s death brings in resurrection. In resurrection the ashes become precious materials—gold, pearl, and precious stones—for the building of the New Jerusalem…When we are brought to ashes, we are brought into the transformation of the Triune God. (Life-study of Leviticus, pp. 57-58, 208-209)
Further Reading: Life-study of Mark, msgs. 56—57
Day 5
Verses: John 5:19 Then Jesus answered and said to them, Truly, truly, I say to you, The Son can do nothing from Himself except what He sees the Father doing, for whatever that One does, these things the Son also does in like manner. 8:29 And He who sent Me is with Me; He has not left Me alone, for I always do the things that are pleasing to Him. . After the Lord Jesus was baptized, the Spirit descended upon Him. Then the Lord went forth in His move to work, to minister…The Lord lived a life of proclaiming, teaching, casting out demons, healing the sick, and cleansing the lepers. With Him there was just one thing—His life, which was His work, His move, and His ministry. Whatever the Lord did, whatever He spoke, and wherever He went were all part of His life. (Life-study of Mark, pp. 479-480)
Throughout His life, the Lord took satisfaction in God. He had no hope toward the world and did not expect to receive anything from it. His only hope was in God, and His only satisfaction was in God. He said that no one knows the Son except the Father, that He did not receive glory from men, that He did not come to do His own will but the will of the One who sent Him, and that He always did the will of the One who sent Him. Our Lord had God’s will as His satisfaction all His life…This is why He was not disappointed no matter how people, events, and things in this world changed. Those who take their satisfaction in God will never be disappointed. (CWWN, vol. 17, “Notes on Scriptural Messages (1),” pp. 183-184) The Lord lived as a man of prayer.
He did not live as a common man praying common prayers to God, as a pious man, a so-called godly man, praying to God in a religious way, or as a God-seeking man praying to God for the divine attainments and obtainments…Instead, He was a man in the flesh praying to the mysterious God in the divine, mystical realm. The Gospels tell us that He often went to the mountain or withdrew to a private place to pray (Matt. 14:23; Mark 1:35; Luke 5:16; 6:12; 9:28)…Divine is on God’s side. Mystical is on man’s side.
On the one hand, Jesus was a man in the flesh, yet He prayed to the mysterious God in the divine and mystical way and realm. He was a man of prayer, a man who is one with God (John 10:30). We may be a Christ-seeker, desperately praying to gain Christ, yet we may not be one with God. He was also a man living in the presence of God without ceasing (Acts 10:38c; John 8:29; 16:32). He said that He was never alone, but the Father was with Him. Every moment He saw His Father’s face. We may seek Christ, yet not live in the presence of God so closely and continuously without ceasing. Also, He trusted in God and not in Himself, under any kind of suffering and persecution.
First Peter 2:23b says that in the midst of His suffering He did not speak threatening words but kept committing all to Him who judges righteously. Luke 23:46 says that at the time He was dying on the cross, He prayed, “Father, into Your hands I commit My spirit.” In our daily life, do we trust in God when trouble comes? Maybe we do to a small extent, but not absolutely. In John 14:30 the Lord said, “The ruler of the world is coming, and in Me he has nothing.”
This means that in the Lord Jesus, Satan as the ruler of the world had no ground, no chance, no hope, no possibility in anything. If we are enlightened, we will admit that Satan has too many things in us…But here was a man of prayer who said that Satan, the ruler of the world, had nothing in Him. This is a particular sentence in the whole Bible. Thus, Christ was a man of prayer, a man who was one with God, lived in the presence of God continuously, trusted in God in His suffering and persecution, and in whom Satan had nothing. (CWWL, 1994-1997, vol. 3, “The God-man Living,” pp. 529-530)
Further Reading: CWWL, 1994-1997, vol. 3, “The God-man Living,” ch. 10;
Day 6
Verses: 1 John 4:16-17 And we know and have believed the love which God has in us. God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God and God abides in him. In this has love been perfected with us, that we may have boldness in the day of the judgment because even as He is, so also are we in this world. Gal. 6:2 Bear one another’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ completely. In 1 John 4:16 John says that he who abides in love abides in God and God abides in him. To abide in love is to live a life in which we love others habitually with the love that is God Himself, that He may be expressed in us. To abide in God is to live a life that is God Himself as our inward content and outward expression, that we may be absolutely one with Him. God abides in us to be our life inwardly and our living outwardly. Thus, He can be one with us in a practical way. To say that we abide in God when we abide in love means that the very love in which we abide is God Himself. This indicates that the love that we have toward others should be God Himself. If we abide in the love that is God Himself, we then abide in God, and God abides in us. (Life-study of 1 John, p. 308)
In our abiding in the love that is God Himself (1 John 4:16) the love of God is perfected in us [v. 17], that is, perfectly manifested in us, that we may have boldness without fear (v. 18) in the day of judgment. In verse 17 John indicates that “even as He is, so also are we in this world.” As in 3:3 and 7, He [in 4:17] refers to Christ. He lived in this world a life of God as love, and now He is our life so that we may live the same life of love in this world and be the same as He is. As in 4:1, world does not refer to the universe or the earth but to human society on the earth, to the people, who are the components of the satanic world system.
Some expositors say that the law of Christ in Galatians 6:2 refers to the Lord’s commandment that we love one another. According to them, the law of Christ is the law of love. This is correct. However, we must go on to see that the law of Christ is the higher and better law of life, which works through love (Rom. 8:2; John 13:34). The law of love, which is the law of Christ, is the law of life.
Love is the expression, but life is the substance. Real love is that which issues from the divine life. The love described by Paul in 1 Corinthians 13 is the expression of the divine life. Furthermore, the fact that love is a fruit of the Spirit indicates that the substance of love must be the Spirit (Gal. 5:22). In fact, all spiritual virtues must have the Spirit with the divine life as their substance. The law of Christ, which is the law of love, must be substantiated by the divine life.
This is the reason we say that the law of Christ in Galatians 6:2 denotes the law of life. Expressed by the law of love, the law of life will cause us to bear one another’s burdens. In this way we fulfill the law of Christ. In verse 3 Paul says, “For if anyone thinks he is something when he is nothing, he deceives himself.” Apparently, there is no connection between verse 3 and verse 2; actually, there is a very real and significant connection. Those who think of themselves as something will not bear the burdens of others.
Only those who do not regard themselves as anything will bear others’ burdens. No doubt, Paul wrote these verses according to his experience. From experience he realized that it is when we consider ourselves as nothing that we spontaneously, even unconsciously, bear the burdens of others. We do not place a high estimate on what we do. We simply do it because we are walking in the Spirit and by the Spirit. Walking by the Spirit, we are led of the Spirit to do certain things. The result is that we bear someone’s burden without even realizing it. (Life-study of Galatians, pp. 250-251)
Further Reading: Life-study of 1 John, msg. 35; Life-study of Galatians,