sharing from the Crystallization-Study of Isaiah(2) – drinking Christ and being in the jubilee (part 2)

This sharing is the second part of sister Rona’s summary of what she enjoyed in the recent video training on the Crystallization-Study of Isaiah(2) – the last messages in the training. Two times a year we have these trainings where we get into the crystallization-study of a book in the Bible, and we have just finished the book of Isaiah part two. It is so good to see not just the main points or main topics in Isaiah, but the crystallized significance of the main points in Isaiah!

One of my favourite messages during the training was the intrinsic significance of keeping the Sabbath and Fasting. The real meaning of keeping the Sabbath is that we cease from our doing, we stop our work, get ourselves “fired”, and we enjoy what the Lord has done for us by drinking of Him, the consummated Spirit, as the waters. We need to deny ourselves and live by Christ as our life, declaring that we are nothing and we can’t do anything apart from Christ. God first supplies us with His enjoyment and then together we work with Him. God does the working before resting, whereas us (man), first needs to rest – to gain strength & energy, and to be refreshed – before working. This is for the building up of the Body of Christ to consummate the New Jerusalem. The brother reminded us of these two principles mentioned by sister M.E. Barber: (1) all the work in the universe should come from God, not from man, and (2) All that matters is what God does for man, not what man does for God. Another matter I enjoyed in this message is that the highest profession on earth is to spend time being infused with God so that we may glow and shine forth God! When we receive the abundance of Christ, we reign in life over Satan, sin, death, and our filthy self. Whoever cannot stop working for the sake of God, cannot work for the sake of God. O Lord Jesus! And as it regards to Fasting – the real meaning of fasting is stop eating any things other than the Lord Jesus and to not have a taste for anything other than Him. In the sight of God, nothing is more evil than not eating and enjoying Him! May the Lord change our diet so that we may be reconstituted with Christ and become God’s dwelling place.

The matter of drinking and building was also given an emphasized during the training. Apart from God as the fountain of living waters, nothing can quench our thirst and satisfy us. And nothing apart from God Himself as the fountain of the living waters can make us His increase as His corporate expression. Where is the river? It is located in the city of God – in the Church! So do not depart from the Church life! Brothers and sisters, we need to drink to be saved! Drink unto salvation! What is the price we pay to drink the water of life? All we need to do is to give ourselves to the Lord to obtain the water of life. Furthermore, the central thought of the Scriptures is that God is seeking a building as a living composition of persons redeemed by and mingled with Himself. The Lord’s supreme and highest requirement is that we may be built up with others. He measures and evaluates us not merely and not mainly according to morality or spiritual principles but according to His house. We must become the materials for the building – through growth and transformation – so that we may be buildable. This includes breaking, the discipline of the spirit, and genuine transformation. And lastly, we need Him to infuse into us the desire for His building. We need to be desperate for the Lord! We desperately need to be transformed before we become old and eventually die! We are His corporate expression, His dwelling place into which He can enter. And God’s dwelling place is the church as a house of prayer. In the church as a house of prayer, we pray according to God’s desire and thought; such prayer is precious and weighty and it will shake the gates of Hades and affect Satan.

The last message was about living and proclaiming Christ as the Jubilee of grace for His second coming. This is a very good conclusion of the entire crystallization study of Isaiah. Here we saw that the age of the jubilee is divided into two periods – one period is the New Testament age, which is the age of grace today, and the other period is the age of the millennium, which is the fullness of Jubilee. In the year of the Jubilee there were two main blessings – the returning of every man to his lost possession and the liberation from slavery. This is also the age of grace, the age of Christ as grace dispensed into us for our enjoyment by His words of grace. The New Testament jubilee is an age of ecstasy for our salvation. We must receive the Lord Jesus as the real jubilee into us; if we have Him, we have God as our possession and can be delivered from the bondage of sin and Satan so that we may have real freedom and rest. In the Jubilee there is no anxiety. We just have to turn to our spirit, glorify the Father, do not walk in the vanity of our mind, call on the name of the Lord, and switch “on” the Lord within us! We must give all the room in our heart to God! Remember: anything that doesn’t have God, whether good or bad,  causes anxiety, and our heart is restless until it rests in God! He is the only peace, rest, enjoyment, and satisfaction. This is the living of the jubilee. Our enjoyment and proclaiming of Christ as the jubilee of God’s grace will issue in the full enjoyment of Christ as the jubilee in the millennium and in the fullest enjoyment of Christ in the New Jerusalem in the new heaven and new earth. Hallelujah!