The purpose of God’s calling is to bring His chosen people into the enjoyment of the all-inclusive, extensive Christ, typified by the good land flowing with milk and honey; Christ is our allotted portion in the light.
All the riches of the good land typify the unsearchable riches of Christ in different aspects as the bountiful supply of the Spirit for our enjoyment as believers in Christ.
When Paul mentioned the bountiful supply of the Spirit, he was in prison; he was an ambassador in chain, and he believed that even this situation would turn out to his salvation through the petition of the saints and the bountiful supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ (Phil. 1:19).
Even in prison, Paul was rooted in Christ as the good land, and he was absorbing the riches of Christ.
At the end of Philippians he said, Rejoice in the Lord always! This was not just an exhortation or a sermon for Paul; from his very first experience in Phillipi, he was rejoicing in prison even at midnight when there was an earthquake, and the Lord had a way to save some through him.
The riches in the bountiful supply of the Spirit are for us in all kinds of situations; we should not be defrauded of our prize of enjoying our allotted portion of the all-inclusive Christ in the light.
When we enjoy the riches of Christ as the good land, we are built up to be His Body as the house of God (the fulfillment of the type of the temple of God) and the kingdom of God (the fulfillment of the type of the city – Jerusalem).
There’s a spontaneous result of our enjoyment of the riches of Christ as the good land – we not only are supplied, nourished, and inwardly strengthened to go on with the Lord but even more, we build up and are built into the house of God and the kingdom of God.
God’s goal is to have this built-up testimony as His house and as His kingdom; this issues from our enjoyment of the riches of the all-inclusive, extensive Christ.
So this means that every hour of the day and in every situation that we pass through, we need to open to the Lord, receive the bountiful supply of the Spirit, and be constituted with Christ for the building up of the church.
Christ as the Good Land has become a Feast for our Enjoyment as Milk and Honey
God’s purpose in His calling of His chosen people is to bring them into the enjoyment of the all-inclusive, extensive Christ typified by the good land flowing with milk and honey (Exo. 3:8; 1 Cor. 1:9).
When God called Moses to send him to deliver His people from Egypt, He told him, I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians and bring them out of that land to a good and spacious land, to a land flowing with milk and honey.
God’s desire for His people is that they would be delivered from the usurpation of the world and be brought into the full enjoyment of the all-inclusive Christ as the reality of the good land flowing with milk and honey.
Milk and honey – which both are the mingling of the animal life and the vegetable life – are two aspects of the life of Christ, the redeeming aspect (the animal life) and the generating aspect (the vegetable life) – see Deut. 8:8; 26:9; cf. John 1:29; 12:24.
Milk comes from two lives being mingled together – the cow (the animal life) who eats the grass (the vegetable life) and produces milk. Honey is produced by a small insect, the bee, who collects nectar (the vegetable life) and takes it through a process to make it into honey.
The animal life represents the redeeming aspect of God’s salvation – God’s redemption, and the vegetable life signifies the generating aspect of His salvation – God’s organic salvation.
The redeeming aspect of Christ’s life is for our judicial redemption, and the generating aspect of Christ’s life is for our organic salvation (John 1:29; 12:24; Rev. 2:7; Rom. 5:10).
The good land therefore is a type of God’s complete salvation, and this can be experienced by us at the Lord’s Table. The symbols of the Lord’s table signify the redeeming and generating aspects of Christ’s life for God’s complete salvation (Matt. 26:26-28; 1 Cor. 10:17).
We can say, therefore, that the good land has become a table, a feast for our enjoyment.
Our appreciation of the Lord’s table meeting needs to be uplifted so that we may realize what a feast it is; at the Lord’s table we enjoy Christ as the reality of the good land!
At the Lord’s Table we enjoy God’s judicial redemption and His organic salvation; we have been enjoying God’s complete salvation all throughout the week, and at the Lord’s table we gather to enjoy some more and to offer praises to God for His salvation!
It’s not that we read about this and we understand it but that we have an inward realization of the Lord’s table being God’s complete salvation, a feast for our enjoyment, and because we experience the Lord, we overflow with praises to Him for His complete salvation!
Christ is the reality of milk and honey, and He has become feast for us at His Table!
Thank You Lord Jesus for Your judicial redemption and Your organic salvation as seen in the symbols on the Lord’s Table. Hallelujah, God went through a process to both redeem us back to Himself and to regenerate us and become our supply for our daily life! Praise the Lord, the good land has become a table, a feast for our enjoyment, for at the Lord’s table we can enjoy the redeeming and generating aspects of Christ’s life for God’s complete salvation! Amen, Lord Jesus, we come to You to enjoy You as the reality of milk and honey, the reality of the good land!
Being in the Light to Enjoy the All-inclusive, Extensive Christ as the Good Land
In Col. 1:12 we see a condition that we need to fulfill in order to enjoy the all-inclusive, extensive Christ as our allotted portion – we must be “in the light”.
We may praise and thank the Lord for qualifying us for a share of the allotted portion, and we may focus on the portion, but we need to also pay attention to, in the light, for Christ as our portion can only be enjoyed in the light.
Why? Because God is light (1 John 1:5); the word of God is light (Psa. 119:105, 130); Christ is light (Jon 8:12; 9:5); the life of Christ is light (John 1:4); the believers are light (Matt. 5:14; Phil. 2:15); and the church is a lampstand shining with light (Rev. 1:20; Psa. 73:16-17).
When God came in to recover the situation in Gen. 1 and regain the land, the first thing was the light – first the general light on the first day, and then a more solid light on the fourth day.
When the Lord Jesus came, the people sitting in darkness saw a great light, for He came as the light of the world. When Christ saved Paul, He commissioned him to open their eyes and turn them from darkness to light.
We all began by being in darkness and even being darkness; one day the light of the gospel sprang up, and we got saved, and there was a shining in our being.
But it is very often that we lose the brightness; when we are freshly saved, we enjoy light, but as time goes by, we may lose the brightness, the shining of the light, for we may lose the enjoyment of Christ.
When we are not in the light, we lose our portion of enjoyment of Christ in the light.
What is light? In a very simple way, light is the presence of God; when we have God’s presence, we have light. Gaining the Bible knowledge doesn’t guarantee we have the light, for we may read the Bible and still be in darkness.
Only when we are in the presence of God do we have light, and when we read the Bible with an exercised spirit and a turned heart, we will enjoy Christ as our portion in the light.
If we have the presence of God, we have the light; then, we have Christ as our portion and as our supply for whatever we face and pass through.
May we learn to shepherd one another to be in the light and walk in the light by being in the presence of God; may we be saved from unintentionally or unconsciously shepherd one another in keeping a practice or outward things apart from Christ.
We do need practices; we need healthy practices to contact the Lord and be in His presence, but these should not replace our living touch with Christ.
It is good to have a time in the Lord with the morning and be revived, it is healthy to have a daily practice of reading the Bible, and it is wonderful for us to preach the gospel and prophesy in the meetings.
But it is possible that we would do all these things without the Lord’s presence but rather, have these practices as a goal in themselves, and we focus on something else than the Lord Himself.
When we contact the Lord in our morning watch with Him, we need to care to be in the light. When we shepherd others, we should not extinguish their light but rather lead them to more brightness so that they can have more enjoyment of Christ.
We believers are light in the Lord; we all had the experience of meeting some saints and, no matter what they said to us, after we left their presence we had the sense that we received the Lord’s shining.
Many times we have inward struggles, problems that we have no answer to, and things we can’t break through on our own; so we go to meet with the saints who have some maturity and, though they may not give us the answer, we know what to do, for we are brought in the light.
When we are in the light, we enjoy the all-inclusive, extensive Christ as our portion.
When we are in the Lord’s presence, He becomes our portion, and we can minister Him to others. When we come to the meetings of the church we realize that the church is a lampstand, full of light.
Many times just by being in the meeting we were encouraged, supplied, and many of our unuttered questions were answered, not because some saints would speak directly to us but because the Lord had a way to shine through the church as the lampstand.
Praise the Lord for the church as a lampstand shining with Christ as the Spirit to be the light!
Lord Jesus, we want to be in the light with all the saints so that we may enjoy the all-inclusive Christ as the good land in His redeeming and generating aspects! Hallelujah, our God is light, the word of God is light, Christ is light, the life of Christ is light, the believers are light, and the church is a lampstand shining with light! Amen, Lord, keep us in the light – keep us in Your presence, for Your presence is light. May we walk in the light and deal with anything that hinders the light. Keep us in the light so that we can enjoy the all-inclusive, extensive Christ as our God-allotted portion with all the saints!
Read this article in the Romanian language / citiți acest articol și în limba română la următorul link, Să fim în lumină pentru a-L savura pe Cristos ca țară bună care curge cu lapte și miere.
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 Colossians, msg. 7 (by Witness Lee), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Knowing and Experiencing the All-inclusive, Extensive Christ (2019 Thanksgiving Conference), week 2 on the topic of, Knowing and Experiencing the All-inclusive, Extensive Christ as the Good Land — Our Allotted Portion.
- Hymns on this topic:
– God is light, and in Him there is no darkness at all! / Oh, how we love within His presence to dwell! / In this light we enjoy a constant cleansing within— / From every sin! (Hymns #1197)
– Oh! Vast Unmeasured Portion, / Oh! Bountiful Supply, / In light the saints enjoy Thee, / And Thou dost reign thereby. / Within the Father’s bosom / Beloved Son Thou art; / The sweetness of the Godhead / To us Thou dost impart. (Song on, Christ in Colossians)
– What a Christ we have, the all-inclusive One, / Our allotted portion, set apart in light. / In the kingdom of the Son of God, the Son of God’s love, / Here He rules us in the light of His love. (Song on, What a Christ We Have)
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