We need the Lord to purify our heart and our intentions so that the goal of our work would be Christ. Many people say they do great works for God – but they may have their own agenda, their own interest, desiring to make a name for themselves. In our service to God and in our speaking, Christ must be the first – He must have the preeminence!

Christ is the first in our work for God

“God’s work from eternity to eternity has always been with the view that His Son would have the first place in all things. Therefore, our work should also be for Christ.” (W. Nee, Collected Works)

The success of our work in the eyes of God depends on how much Christ is in it, and how much Christ gains the glory and is being expressed. As long as God gains something, we should rejoice – even if it is not through our hands, we should rejoice. In doing things for God we should give Christ the first place, seeking His glory, ministering Him, and giving Him the preeminence. The result is that the work is Christ’s, not ours.

Christ is the first in our speaking

In our speaking to others and in our speaking for the Lord, Christ should have the first place. Paul said in 1 Cor. 2:2, “For I did not determine to know anything among you except Jesus Christ, and this One crucified”, and in 2 Cor. 4:5 he said, “we preach… Christ Jesus as Lord.”

Our message should be Christ, and we should take the cross whenever we speak something for the Lord. The cross is God’s way to deal with everything and to eliminate anything of the flesh so that Christ might have the first place in us. Our central message is nothing else but Christ – Christ is the center and Christ is the goal!

giving the Lord the first place in everything

Our human life is complicated, complex, and even complicating. The more we grow in the human life, the more complex our life becomes. There are so many aspects of our life and our living, and our person becomes very complicated and also very involved with a lot of things. This is why there are many ways – not just one way – to give the Lord the first place so that we would love Him with our first love.

Note: I have to say it again and again, these practical points below – though they come from the Word of God – are not “my own invention” or “my own discovery”; they are from the ministry of brother Nee and Lee, and they are for the building up of the Body!

• For us to love the Lord with the first love we need to take Him as our centrality (our holding center) and our universality (our everything). We need to take Christ as the center, the content, and the circumference of our personal universe (see Col. 1:17-18). Christ is the holding center of the universe – but what about our own personal universe? Is Christ the center?
• Giving the first place to the Lord in all things means to aspire and to determine to gain the honor of being pleasing to the Lord in all things. We are determined – whether at home or abroad – to gain the honor of being well pleasing to the Lord (2 Cor. 5:9), to walk worthily of the Lord and to please Him in all things (Col. 1:10). Just like Enoch, we want to obtain the testimony that we are pleasing to Him (Heb. 11:5-6).
• We need to give the Lord the preeminence by having a clear sky between us and the Lord (see Ezek. 1:22, 26). The sky between us and the Lord needs to be clear like “awesome crystal” so that we may see the Lord’s throne – nothing needs to be between us and the Lord, so that we would be filled with the heavenly atmosphere, condition, and situation of His ruling presence. We need to allow the Lord to rule in us in such a way.
• To love the Lord with our first love is to hold Him as the Head (Col. 2:19). This practically means that we need to stay intimately connected to the Lord, take Him as the Head (not deciding things in and for ourselves), and we need to enthrone Christ as the Ruler and the Decider of everything in our life.
• To give the Lord the first place in our life means that we ask for the Lord’s counsel in all the details of our Christian life and our Christian work. In Joshua 9:14 we see that we can take others’ advice or opinions without asking for the counsel of Jehovah, and this offends God and ends miserably. In everything we need to let our requests be made known to God, and His peace will guard our hearts (Phil. 4:6-7).
• Loving the Lord with the first love is giving the flow of life the preeminence in all that we are and do (see Ezek. 47:1 and Rev. 22:1-2). The flow of the Lord Jesus as the Spirit is within us, and we need to give the flow the preeminence in everything we are and do. If we give the flow the first place, the Lord shines on us, He redeems us, He reigns in us, He flows in us, and He supplies us within!
• Giving the Lord the preeminence in us means being dominated, governed, directed, led, and moved by our mingled spirit. We are not governed by the environment; we are not directed by the situations; we are not led by our others to do and say things – we need to care for the rest in our spirit (2 Cor. 2:13-14) and allow the Lord to make us His captives, to defeat us, and never let us win.
• Ultimately, to love the Lord with our best love is to enthrone Him with our praises! The highest work we as God’s children can do for God is to praise the Lord – He is enthroned upon the praises of His people (see Psa. 22:3; 119:164; 34:1). When we praise the Lord, we enthrone Him and we give Him the first place in everything. He is the Lord! Praise the Lord!

Lord Jesus, have the first place in us. In all our work, Lord, You be the source, the means, the purpose, and the goal. In all our speaking for You, Lord, may Christ be the center and everything! Lord Jesus, keep us intimately connected to You and holding You as the Head to give You the first place! May there be nothing between us and You, so that we would be under Your throne, having Your ruling presence in us. Praise the Lord!

References and Further Reading 

• Sharing inspired from, The Collected Works of Watchman Nee (vol. 11), and the outline for this week, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Taking the Lead as Elders and Responsible Ones, week 1.
• Recommended reading: Giving Christ the First Place, and, Overcoming the Loss of the First Love;
• Buy the morning revival book online via LSM.
• Hymns on this topic:
  # Jesus Lord, You’re our first love; / You’re the One we love the best.
  # Nothing between, Lord, nothing between; / Let me Thy glory see,
  # Sing aloud your praises to the Lord of all.
• Picture source: nature wallpaper.

In little things and in big things, in our daily life, we need to take the lead to give Christ the first place, checking with Him and enjoying Him first. Even when we go shopping or as we choose what to wear, we need to give the Lord the first place – give Christ the preeminence!

love, life, light, and the lampstand

In Rev. 2:4-7 in the Lord’s speaking to the church in Ephesus we see these four matters: love (loving the Lord), life (the tree of life), light (the shining of the lampstand), and the lampstand (the testimony). God is love, Christ is life, and the Spirit is light – the entire Triune God is love, life, and light for us to enjoy and be recovered to our first love.

To be an overcomer, we need to give the Lord the preemienence in everything – this is to love the Lord. When we love Him, we will enjoy Him as the tree of life! Then we together corporately will shine forth the divine light as the lampstand. It all starts with giving Christ the first place, the preeminence!

God gives us Christ – He must have the first place

We may think that, as we go through difficult situations, we need patience – so we ask the Lord to give us patience. At other times, we may think we really need love and understanding, so we ask the Lord for love and understanding. But what God gives us is not “things” such as patience, victory, love, understanding, etc – God gives us only Christ.

Christ is love, Christ is patience, Christ is understanding, and Christ is everything that we need! God doesn’t give us “something” to meet our need and to “patch up our situation”; He gives us Christ and He wants Christ to have the preeminence in our being.

If God would give us love, we would be loving persons and not depend on Him or take Christ as our everything. If God would give us victory, we would “thank Him and forget about Him”. But what God desires is to give us Christ and have Christ become everything to us. Brother Nee puts it very well in his writing,

Christ is our life. This is victory! This is holiness! The victorious life, the holy life, the perfect life, are all Christ. From beginning to end, everything is Christ. Outside of Christ, we have nothing. Christ must have the first place in all things. The victorious life God has given us is not a thing, such as patience or meekness, but the living Christ. Christ never mends our wrongs. What we lack is not patience but a living Christ. God will never tear a piece of cloth from Christ to mend our hole. To be short of patience is to be short of Christ, because God wants Christ to have the first place in all things. Therefore, to put the self to death is not holiness. Holiness is Christ. Christ must have the first place in all things. (The Collected Works of Watchman Nee, vol. 11)

giving Christ the first place in everything

How can we give Christ the first place in everything? Yesterday we saw some simple ways to love the Lord with our first love and give Him the first place, and there are so many more other ways! I am eternally grateful to the ministry of the age, the ministry of brothers Watchman Nee and Witness Lee, which open up the Word of God, giving us a proper interpretation of the Scriptures, and betrothe us to Christ!

I just love the Lord more when I read the life-studies and the ministry, and I am inspired, encouraged, and empowered to give Christ the first place even more! Here are some more ways – from the ministry – of giving Christ the first place in all things:

• Being governed by the direct and firsthand presence of the Lord (see Exo. 33:11; 13:21-22; 2 Cor. 2:10) is a very good way to give the Lord the first place. Everything we do should be in the index of the Lord’s eye, in a personal contact with Him, and not according to “what we heard about the Lord” and “what others told us that the Bible says”. We need to have firsthand personal encounters with Him and be one with Him.
• Loving the church in the church-loving Christ is another way to love the Lord with our first love. Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her (Eph. 5:25) – we need to love what He loves, the church, His Body, the saints. We need to spend ourselves and even be utterly spent on the church (2 Cor. 12:15) out of our love for the Lord. We love the church in the church-loving Christ, not in or by ourselves (1 Cor. 16:24).
• Loving the ministry that builds up the church is an excellent way to recover the loss of our first love for the Lord. We give ourselves first to the Lord and then to the ones who have the ministry which builds up the church (2 Cor. 8:5), who have seen, heard, touched, and handled the word of life (1 John 1:3). These are the gifts ordained by God in the Body for the perfecting of the saints (see Eph. 4:11-12).
• Living and walking by the Spirit, serving by the Spirit, and ministering the Spirit are simple and daily ways to love the Lord with our first love. If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit (Gal. 5:25) and serve by the Spirit of God (Phil. 3:3), not having confidence in our flesh. This will constitute us as ministers of the new covenant – ministers of the Spirit, not of the letter (2 Cor. 3:6).
• To love the Lord with the first love we need to take Him as the fountain of living waters (see Jer. 2:13 and John 4:14). God desires to be the fountain, the source, of living waters, to dispense Himself into His people for their satisfaction and enjoyment! This produces the church as God’s counterpart, His increase, His enlargement, to be God’s fullness for His expression. Give Him the first place by taking Him as the fountain of living waters!
• Eating the tree of life is an excellent way to give Christ the first place in all things (Rev. 2:7). Christ is life – and He is available to us today as the tree of life, reaching out to us wherever we are for us to take Him in! The primary matter in the church life should be eating Christ as the tree of life, that is, enjoying Christ as our life supply continually!
• To love the Lord with the first love is to continually come to Him to contact the Lord, take Him, taste Him, and enjoy Him (see Isa. 57:20). In ourselves we “toss mire and mud” and our waters are not pure. But by coming to the Lord continually to enjoy Him, taste Him, and receive Him, we are being purified and living water shall flow out of our innermost being!

Lord Jesus, recover our first love for You. We want to cooperate with You today and give You the first place in all things. Lord, we want to live, walk, and serve by the Spirit, so that we may minister the Spirit! You are the source of the living waters – we don’t want to take any other as the source! Oh Lord, keep us eating You as the tree of life! We want to continually come to You to enjoy You, taste You, and receive You!

References and Further Reading

• Sharing inspired from, The Overcomers (Witness Lee, ch. 3), The Collected Works of Watchman Nee (vol. 11), and the outline for this week, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Taking the Lead as Elders and Responsible Ones, week 1.
• Buy the morning revival book online via LSM.
• Hymns on this topic:
  # What miracle! What mystery! / That God and man should blended be! / God became man to make man God.
  # Jesus, Oh living One in me, / Open my eyes that I might see / All that You are to me.
  # Thy dwelling-place, O Lord, I love; / It is Thy Church so blessed, / It is Thy joy and heart’s delight / And where Thy heart finds rest.
• Picture source: nature wallpaper.

The Lord as our Husband bethrothed us to Himself when we were regenerated, and He wants us to love Him with our first love. He doesn’t want us to “do a lot of things for Him”, but that rather we would love Him and then whatever we do it will be so pleasant to Him. Lord, rekindle our love for You!

loving the Lord Jesus with our first love

When we love someone, we want to hear his voice and spend time with him. The Lord Jesus is our first love, our only love, and we love Him – we want to hear His words, we want to spend time with Him, and we want to tell Him that we love Him! I love this quote from brother Lee in, The Overcomers,

When we wake up in the morning, the first thing we should do is say, “O Lord Jesus. O Lord Jesus.” It is better to add, “I love You.” We should say, “O Lord Jesus, I love You. O Lord Jesus, I love You.” How intimate, how sweet, and how affectionate this is! (The Overcomers, pp. 30-31)

In our Christian life and in our church life everything we do must be governed by our love for the Lord. We may not say certain things, do certain things, or go to certain places because we love the Lord. We just love Him, and out of love for Him we cannot do or say some things. We need to recover such a love, our first love for Him, which is our best love for Him.

Loving the Lord with our first love is no only loving Him with the love we loved Him the first time, but with our best love. Our love for Him needs to grow and become better every day, until we just give Him the first place in everything.

consider the Lord as the first in everything

First of all, we need to realize that we don’t have love in ourselves – only God is love (1 John 4:16), and we need to love God and love the others by God as our love. The husbands are charged to love their wives – by God as their love. Only one Person is love and can love – it is Christ Himself.

Christ needs to become our love, fill our love, and love God and others through us as love. We need to learn to open to Him and allow Him to fill us with Himself as love. We need to give Him the first place, the preeminence, in all things – He is the first. Christ must have the first place in us – He must have the preeminence (Col. 1:18).

How can we recover our first love for the Lord? It is firstly by giving Christ the first place in us, the preeminence in our being. We need to consider the Lord Jesus as the first in everything, making Him everything in our life. To leave the first love is actually to leave Christ, not taking Him as the first in everything.

When we give Christ the preeminence, our Christian life will be full of joy, and everything will be pleasant! We enjoy the Lord as grace as we love Him (see Eph. 6:24) and we are happy, full of joy, when we give Him the first place in everything! We need to overcome the loss of the first love by giving Christ the preeminence in us.

having morning revival every day

Another simple yet very practical way for us to love the Lord with our first love is to live a day-by-day life of morning revival. We need to wake up a little earlier in the morning to have personal, private, intimate, and spiritual time with the Lord to satisfy Christ by being His young men like the dew from the womb of the dawn (see Psa. 110:3).

This will make us those who have the tongue of an instructed one, and we will know how to sustain the weary with a word (Isa. 50:4-5), and it will bring us into a closer fellowship with God, seeking God’s will and His pleasure for His gospel service (see Mark. 1:35).

living a daily life of consecration

In the morning, we need to be revived and enjoy the Lord for His satisfaction, and every day we need to live a daily life of consecration – becoming today’s Nazarites. We need to be those who are separated unto God from anything common, unclean, and defiling, and we need to be saturated with God in all that He is in His riches.

This will make us those who bless the children of God by dispensing God in His Divine Trinity into them (see Num. 6:1-9, 22-27). Every day we need to give the Lord our fresh consecration, allowing Him more ground in our being, and being separated and saturated with Him!

living a life of prayer and musing on His Word

To love the Lord with our first love is to live a life of prayer (see 1 Sam. 12:23; Matt. 6:6; Dan. 6:10; 1 Tim. 2:1; 2 Tim. 1:3). In 1 Thes. 5:17 we have the charge to “pray unceasingly” – when we pray unceasingly, when we breathe the Lord in and converse with Him continually, we spontaneously love Him and give Him the first place.

To love the Lord with our best love is to love, treasure, and muse on the word of God. The Psalms are filled with the Psalmists desire and yearning to muse on God’s word, ponder on His precepts, read and listen to His word, etc (especially Psalm 119). When we muse on God’s word and we treasure it, we love the Lord more!

Lord Jesus, we love You! Recover our first love for You. We give You the first place, Lord, by faith – have the preeminence in us. Every morning, Lord, draw us to spend time with you and be the young men like the dew of the morning. Lord, we consecrate ourselves to You to love You and give You the first place. Lord Jesus, we just love You. Increase our love for You, dear Lord Jesus!

References and Further Reading

• Sharing inspired from, The Overcomers (ch. 2), and the outline in the message for this week, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Taking the Lead as Elders and Responsible Ones, week 1.
• Buy the morning revival book online via LSM.
• Hymns on this topic:
  # I give You the first place in all things by faith. / Let nothing take Your place in all my heart.
  # Lord, I love You, / I desire You; / No pleasure, prospects on this earth compare to You.
  # Recover my heart, / Rekindle my love for You.
• Picture source: the first love (for the Lord).

Do we still do the first works which come out of the first love? Is our love toward Him so fresh, so sweet, so intense and affectionate? We need to repent of losing our first love and do the first works, so that we would continue to have the lampstand, His testimony and His shining, among us (Rev. 2:4-5).

the beginning: a vision of His person

The beginning of our love story with the Lord is by seeing who He is – when we have a vision of His person, we just fall in love with Him! “Your anointing oils have a pleasant fragrance; Your name is like ointment poured fourth; therefore the virgins love You…” (Song of Songs 1:3).

When we see the Lord, His Person, and His name, we love Him because of what He is. We may not see everything or understand everything, but we love Him, we are drawn by Him, and we just run after Him. Spontaneously, the works that we do are the first works, works that come out of our first love for the Lord. Now, nothing but love can keep us in a proper relationship with the Lord.

the first works issuing out of the first love

What are the first works spoken of in Rev. 2:4-5? Are these works only the things we do for the Lord our of our love for Him when we firstly love Him? According to the principle of the divine life and the divine love, these works are not necessarily “open” and great, but they are works which issue out of our love for the Lord.

The Lord’s banner over us is love – this means that love is our motto, the slogan and theme for our living, and everything we do is based on our love for Him! Also, as the loving seekers of the Lord, we are “sick with love” – just like the seeker in the Song of Songs – which means that we are joyous in the Lord as love, to the point of exhaustion (Song of Songs 2:4-5).

The first works are the works done in secret for the Lord out of our first love for Him. We don’t do them for others to see or to praise us – it’s just like the joints in the Body, who richly supply every member in the Body through their operation, and who are secret, holding to truth in love (Eph. 4:15). We hold to truth IN LOVE, and we grow up into Him in all things – in love we build up the Body, we minister life to the other members, and we do the first works.

Hallelujah, God’s love in Christ is a banner spreading over us which displays / exhibits that we who are loved by God are always more than conquerors (Rom. 8:31-39)! We have a love that conquers everything if we live in His love!

repent and do the first works!

Our normal condition and situation as the loving seekers of Christ should be that we have these first works which result out of the first love. But the church as a whole and most believers are in degradation, the main cause being that we have left our first love!

The cause of degradation is not that “we didn’t read the Bible every day” or “we didn’t go to church regularly”; the leaving of the first love toward the Lord is the source of and the main reason for the failure of the church throughout the ages! Nothing but our renewed and fresh love for the Lord can keep us in a proper relationship with the Lord (see Phil. 3:8; Rev. 3:20; Eph. 6:24).

This is why we need to repent, have a change of mind and a turn of heart, and do the first works which issue out of the first love. We need to confess our deadness and our lukewarmness and ask the Lord to shine on us that we may see His Person! When we see Him, we love Him and we are kept in a loving condition toward Him!

The door of grace is still open to us today – let us repent and turn to Him, allowing Him to make His home in our hearts today (Eph. 3:14-19), that we may be rooted and grounded in love! Our foundation in everything is just love for the Lord, and anything we do out of love for Him is the first works – muchly treasured by Him!

having a personal relationship with the Lord

Paul bowed his knees before God the Father that He would strengthen the saints through His Spirit into their inner man, so that Christ may make His home in their heart through faith! The result of this is that we would be rooted and grounded in love and we would know Him in His universal dimensions in the Body of Christ, to be filled unto all the fullness of God!

For this we need to allow the Lord to come in and make His home in our heart – by having a personal, affectionate, private, and spiritual relationship with the Lord (see Song of Songs 1:1-4). Only by touching Him personally and intimately can we allow Him to make His home in us.

Lord, because of Yourself as the ointment and because of Your name as the ointment poured fourth, we just love You! We love You because of Yourself and because of Your fragrant name. We are attracted by You, dear Lord, and we love You. Draw us more, Lord, and we will run after You. Increase our love for You. We just want to repent of loving other things – we return to You as our first love and our best love.

References and Further Reading

• Sharing inspired from, The Song of Songs (introduction by Watchman Nee), and, The Collected Works of Watchman Nee (vol. 4, pp. 289-307), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Taking the Lead as Elders and Responsible Ones, week 1.
• Recommended: Rev. 2:4 note 2 on “love”.
• Buy the morning revival book online via LSM.
• Hymns on this topic:
  # Jesus Lord, You’re our first love; / You’re the One we love the best.
  # I repent and now return, / Grant my heart for You to burn. / Flame in me this zeal. / Lord, be in me so real!
  # Lord, keep my heart always true to You, / Never backsliding, always viewing You.
  # I love You, Lord Jesus! / I love You, Lord, precious One!
• Picture source: Rev. 2:5.

He charged us to be imitators of him as he was an imitator of Christ (1 Cor. 11:1). Peter also said that Christ left Himself as a model so that we may follow in His steps to become His reproduction (1 Pet. 2:21).

imitators of Paul and of the Lord

On the one hand, in the Christian life nothing should be outward – we shouldn’t outwardly copy and imitate what other more spiritual saints do and speak. On the other hand, we should learn to follow the pattern of Paul and the saints who live and magnify Christ for the Body of Christ.

Paul presented his own living of Christ and his own pattern to the Thessalonian believers in 1 Thes. 2, and in 3:9 he said, “…. in order that we might give ourselves to you as a pattern that you imitate us.” In 1 Thes. 1:6 Paul also said, “You became imitators of us and of the Lord.” Paul lived Christ and magnified Christ, and his living among the saints became a pattern.

In the human life we grow by imitating – we imitate our parents in their language, their way of speaking, their way of living, their gestures, their attitude, and even their character. We learn the accent of the language our parents speak – by imitating. In many ways, we grow by imitating and – to some extent – we become what our parents are.

In the spiritual life is the same – Paul said that we should be imitators of him as he was an imitator of Christ (1 Cor. 11:1; 4:16; 2 Thes. 3:9; Phil. 3:17). We grow by observing the patterns of the more spiritual and advanced saints and then imitating them in the Lord. It shouldn’t be an outward imitation but an inward experience with the Lord.

nourishing others with a proper pattern

The best way to take care of the new ones and the young ones is not only by giving them the best teachings but by also showing them a proper pattern and giving them examples of proper patterns.

I can testify from my experience, when I was a young Christian my parents gave me to read the life of the martyrs – the early believers, the overcoming ones throughout the ages. I was very inspired and it became clear to me that living for the Lord, being persecuted for the faith in Jesus, and even dying for Him is something noble, high, and even desirable. I was fostered, inspired, and helped to grow in life by reading the life of the overcoming believers who went before us.

In the same way, when we take care of new ones or of some young people we need to not only teach them but also show them a pattern. If our own living and experience is lacking, we can point them to the good patterns in the Bible like Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, David, Daniel, Samuel, Isaiah, etc – in the Old Testament, and the Lord Jesus, Peter, Paul, John, Timothy, etc. in the New Testament.

These stories are not only inspiring but they feed you – your inward being is being fed with others living and experience of Christ. Our growth in life is being fostered by reading the lives of these Bible characters who lived with God and even lived Christ.

feeding others with our living of Christ

On the one hand you can say that “Paul was preaching himself” in 1 and 2 Thessalonians, but what he actually did was to feed his spiritual children with his own living and experience of Christ. He simply reminded them what manner of persons the apostles were among them – their pattern was the living of Christ among the Thessalonian believers.

Parents know that to take proper care of your children you shouldn’t give them teaching – you need to feed them and care for them. To feed the young believers, and even for us to be fed and encouraged to go on with the Lord, we need to read, see, and follow the patterns of many saints throughout the ages who overcame.

In the history of the church the Lord has placed many believers who are a pattern to us, fostering us by their living of Christ. Brother Watchman Nee and brother Witness Lee were a great pattern to us, and so was M. E. Barber, John Nelson Darby, Martin Luther, Mary McDonough, Andrew Murray, Hudson Taylor, etc.

We are surrounded by a great crowd of witnesses. By following their pattern we don’t mean do everything that they did regardless – no, we need to read their biography, pray over their writings and life, and the Lord will shine on us to inspire us, shepherd us, care for us, and even impart into us something of their experience of Christ. Much prayer is needed even in this…

being a pattern to the believers

First, Paul presented himself as a pattern, and then he charged Timothy – his young co-worker – to be a pattern to the believers in word, in conduct, in love, in faith, and in purity (1 Tim. 4:12). Yes, on the one hand we need to be imitators of God as beloved children (Eph. 5:1; Matt. 5:48), but on the other hand we need to be a pattern to the other believers in all our living.

The Thessalonians became a pattern to the other believers and became imitators of the churches of God (see 1 Thes. 1:7, 2:14). We as saints imitate the proper patterns, and even we as the local churches should imitate and follow other churches in the Lord.

The Christian life is not an individual life – “we follow Christ and that’s it”. We do follow and imitate Christ, but we also follow and imitate in life those who are living Christ and experiencing Christ for His magnification. Christ’s pattern is being reproduced in the saints, and the saints’ pattern of living Christ is being continually reproduced.

We don’t “imitate blindly” and we definitely do not imitate the negative things. In learning to follow the pattern of other believers and other churches we need to “follow the vision, not the man” – compare everything to the Bible and if it is according to God’s economy, we follow.

Thank You Lord for all the patterns in the church history and even in the church life. Cause us to be open to You, Lord, as we are following Christ in His footsteps and as we are following the pattern of those who live Christ. Save us from blindly following others, and keep us from being negatively influenced in this matter. Lord, in Your divine life and by Your divine life we want to follow You and those whom You set as patterns in the church history and in the church life!

References and Further Reading

• Sharing inspired from the life-study of 1 Thessalonians (msg. 12-13), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Taking the Lead as Elders and Responsible Ones, week 1.
• Recommended reading:
  # visit the AgeTurners.com website – they have a series of podcasts on the patterns in faith in the church history;
  # Recommended biographies online: Watchman Nee, Witness Lee, Margaret Barber, John Nelson Darby, Martin Luther;
• Buy the morning revival book online via LSM.
• Hymns on this topic:
  # “Consider Him,” let Christ thy pattern be, / And know that He hath apprehended thee
  # Let us contemplate the grape vine, / From its life now let us learn (hymn by Watchman Nee)
  # God’s intention is to have us / All conformed to His dear Son (Hymn by Witness Lee)
  # If the path I travel / Lead me to the cross (hymn by M. E. Barber)
  # O Lord, breathe Thy Spirit on me, / Teach me how to breathe Thee in (hymn by A. B. Simpson)
• Picture source: Follow Paul as he followed Christ.

the Lord Jesus ate butter and honey

Have you ever wondered, How could the Lord Jesus live such a perfect life, always choosing the good and refusing the evil? How could He always reject the world and choose God’s will? What was about Him that He rejected even the glory from men and rather chose the glory from God? We shouldn’t just say, Oh, He was God, so He could do all these naturally… – there was something about Him!

Isaiah 7:15 tells us why and how the Lord did this, “He will eat butter and honey until He knows how to refuse evil and choose good”. The Lord Jesus ate “butter and honey” all His life and He was able to refuse bad things and choose the good things. In John 6:57 He admitted that the living Father sent Him and He lives because of the Father – His living was not in and for Himself, but He lived because of the Father!

What is “butter and honey”? Of all the foods, butter is the richest, and honey is the sweetest. The heavenly butter is the richest grace and the heavenly honey is the sweetest love. The Lord Jesus enjoyed the Father’s richest grace and sweetest love and this enabled Him to choose the good and reject the evil. Even more, here are some characteristics of His life on earth:

• The Lord Jesus did not do anything out of Himself – in John 5:19 He said that the Son can do nothing from Himself except what He sees the Father doing.
• The Lord Jesus did everything according to the Father’s will and not His own – in John 4 we see that His food was to do the Father’s will. The place of His food was the place of God’s will.
• The Lord Jesus didn’t speak His own words but the Father’s – in John 14:10 we see that the Lord didn’t speak of Himself, His own words, but the Father’s words.
• The Lord Jesus didn’t do His own work but the Father’s work – John 14:10 also tells us that it was the Father who abides in the Son who does His work.
• The Lord Jesus did the Father’s will – in John 5:30 we see that the Lord didn’t come to seek His own will but the will of the Father who sent Him.
• The Lord Jesus sought the Father’s glory – in John 7:18 we see that the Lord Jesus didn’t seek His own glory but the glory which comes from the Father.

enjoying the richest grace and sweetest love

The Lord Jesus did not do anything out of Himself, He didn’t do His own will, He didn’t speak His own words, He did the Father’s will, He did the Father’s work, and He sought the Father’s glory. As such a One Christ is among us as the One who serves us. He is to us the richest grace and the sweetest love so that, just as He lived because of the Father, so we would eat Him and live because of Him (John 6:57).

We need to allow the Lord Jesus to serve us with His riches, His revelation, and with more experience of Himself as the richest grace and sweetest love for the building up of His Body! This is the way we can be one with Him to serve Him to others, minister Him to others.

This is the way to take the lead to minister life to others – take the lead to enjoy the Lord as the sweetest love and the richest grace. When we enjoy the Lord as the richest grace and the sweetest love, He becomes the supplying factor and the energizing element of our living. He in us will empower us and strengthen us not only to reject the evil and choose the good, but live the same kind of life that the Lord Jesus lived on the earth!

We will learn Christ as the reality is in Jesus (Eph. 4:20) – we will not do anything out of or for ourselves, we will not do our own work or speak our own words, and we will not seek our own glory but the Father’s! This will minister life to others and will express God!

the standard to measure our Christian work

Can we say that our Christian life and work is according to God’s standard? When we work for God, do we do things out of ourselves or, even a little, for ourselves? Do we seek our own glory when we do things for God? Do we speak our own words and do our own works when we work for God? The measuring stick and the standard for all the Christian work is the Lord’s living and work.

We need to take Him as our pattern and follow Him by eating Christ as the richest grace and sweetest love so that we would live and work no longer by ourselves but because of Him! If we don’t, we are prone to being divisive and making division in the Body. But if we eat CHrist and enjoy Him as the riches grace and sweetest love, we will live a life of a God-man for God’s glory and His expression!

Lord Jesus, thank You for setting such a pattern before us to follow inwardly and organically. Keep us coming to You every day to eat and enjoy You as butter and honey, the richest grace and the sweetest love. We don’t want to work in and of ourselves even in doing things for You. Lord, gain in us the living of a God-man and the work for Your glory through our eating You and living because of You!

References and Further Reading

• Sharing inspired from portions in The Collected Works of Watchman Nee (vol. 17, pp. 111-120), and, The Elders’ Training, Book 1: The Ministry of the New Testament (ch. 3), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Taking the Lead as Elders and Responsible Ones, week 1.
• Recommended reading: John 6:57 and notes; Eph. 4:20 and notes;
• On this topic:
  # Butter and Honey (via Chittu);
  # The Power that Enables Us to Choose the Will of God (holdingtotruth)
• Buy the morning revival book online via LSM.
• Hymns on this topic:
  # Now in our spirit we can feed, / Jesus Christ is all we need, / Call His name and He becomes reality.
  # Let us eat Jesus every day, / Eating His flesh in such a way / That in the trials great or small / He as a Man will be our all
  # Our Christ is so enjoyable, / His life is so applicable; / He lives in us to cause the flow / To reach the world, His life to show.
• Picture source: honey.

The best worship to God the Father is to present the Christ we have enjoyed and experienced to Him and to give this wonderful Christ to the ones around us. We shouldn’t be religious and praise the Lord only when we are in the meeting; rather, our whole life we should offer up a sacrifice of praise to God through Christ and with Christ!

offering up a sacrifice of praise

We are not naturally inclined to praise the Lord, and many times we pass through situations and things that cause us to rather suffer than be happy and praise God spontaneously. But through Christ we need to offer up a sacrifice of praise to God – we pass through Christ, who is the channel, the agent, and the means, of our praise.

We shouldn’t be unnecessarily dissapointed with our inability to offer up a sacrifice of praise (Heb 13:15). What is sweet to the Lord is when the praise is a sacrifice, when our whole natural being is in need and in pain, but we realize that the Lord is the I AM, He is the Same, and we just praise Him!

When we bear the reproach of Jesus and when we suffer on His behalf, we don’t need to “suffer and be quiet”, “groan and be full of pain” but we need to offer praise to God! It may seem crazy and abnormal, not matching our experience and our natural inclination, but in the midst of our sufferings and reproach we can offer praise as a sacrifice to God.

We pay a price to praise Him, and we become little by little a praising person, even a being of praise! And this is not in and of ourselves, but it in Him, of Him, and through Him – the praising One, the Christ, the only One who was, is, and will be this kind of a person.

praising God through Christ and with Christ

To praise the Lord is not only to utter words of praise to Him but even more, to experience and enjoy Christ, and then offer the Christ we enjoyed and experienced to God and to man. The real praise in the meetings needs to be constituted with our daily experiences of Christ. This is what God delights in – He wants Christ, He loves Christ, and He delights in Christ.

It is pleasing to God’s heart when we offer His Son up to Him, the Christ whom we have experienced and enjoyed. It is a great delight to God when we give Christ to the unbelievers, helping them to receive Christ, enjoy Christ, and be one with Christ.

“The real praise to the Father comes out of our experience of Christ in our daily life. This is a very pleasing praise to the Father, gladdening and rejoicing His heart. The Father desires that we glorify Him with the Son. If we glorify the Son, we glorify the Father.” (Witness Lee, The Conclusion of the New Testament)

When we glorify the Son by enjoying Him and experiencing Him, we glorify the Father – the Father is glorified in the Son’s being glorified by us (see John 17:1). What have You experienced of Christ? What is Christ to you in your experience? When He is so much to us in our experience, praise ascends to Him for His glory!

singing the song of the overcomers

In Revelation it says that the overcomers sing a song to God for His praise, a song that no one knows except themselves (Rev. 14:3). What does this mean? As we daily go through things, as we experience Christ in our normal day-to-day life, as we learn to pay the price and offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, there’s a song being written which only we know.

The words and the melody are being composed, and it becomes a memorial between us and Him, with hundreds and thousands of conversations… This song will eventually be sung in the entire universe as the song only the overcomers know and can sing! What a praise to God through our experience and enjoyment of Christ!

The best way we can praise the Lord is by offering the fruit of our lips as a sacrifice of praise, calling His name and singing His praise. The praises which are the result and the issue of our experience and enjoyment of Christ are the best praises to the Father. On the one hand this is very high and wonderful, and on the other hand this can be and should be our daily experience!

Our Christian life is day to day, from glory to glory, and from praise to praise! The more we experience Christ, the more we praise God and a costly sacrifice of praise is offered to Him through Christ and with Christ! Hallelujah!

Lord, keep us experiencing You and enjoying You daily. Make us those who offer up to You a sacrifice of praise, the fruit of our lips calling on Your name and praising the Lord. Make us the singing and praising overcomers, who are daily in the process of composing the eternal song of praise to God! We want to offer the Christ we experienced and enjoyed to God for His satisfaction and praise! Praise You Lord for being our daily supply, our experience, and our reality! Praise the Lord!

References and Further Reading

• Sharing inspired from portions in, The Conclusion of the New Testament (pages 3843-3844), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on the Crystallization-Study of Psalms (2), week 24 - become a fan on Facebook for more updates;
• Recommended reading: Heb 13:15 and note; Rev. 14:3 and note 1;
• Buy the Morning Revival on Psalms (Crystallization-Study, part 2, vol 4);
• Hymns on this topic:
  # Our mouth shut up defeats us / And wins the Devil’s smile; / So why not open battle / And chase him all the while. / By “sacrifice of praises” / And shouts of victory— / ‘Twill cost us but our faces / God’s chosen fools to be!
  # I’m gonna praise God unceasingly / Because He lives in me, / He’s everything to me, / Gives life continually.
  # Christ is the hope of glory, my very life is He, / He has regenerated and saturated me;
• Picture source: A Sacrifice of Praise.