We only have Today, so we should Enjoy Christ Today and He will be our Peace and Rest

This week we come to the first of at least three weeks of enjoying Christ as our peace offering, and in particular we want to see that we need to enjoy Christ today to have His peace.

The full title for this week is, Christ as the Peace between God and God’s People for Their Co-enjoyment in Fellowship to Have the Vital-group Church Life and to Consummate in the New Jerusalem as the Ultimate Peace Offering. Wow.

Christ is our peace! He’s our peace between us and God for our mutual enjoyment in fellowship so that we may have the vital group church life and consummate the New Jerusalem, which is the ultimate peace offering.

The issue of enjoying Christ as our burnt offering, our meal offering, our sin offering, and our trespass offering is the enjoyment of Christ as the peace offering (Lev. 3:1-2; 6:12; 7:37).

Christ as our burnt offering deals with our not being absolutely for God and for His satisfaction; when we take Christ as our burnt offering, we take Him as our absoluteness, and He in us will live a life for the satisfaction of God.

Christ as our meal offering is our supply for us to live a life for God’s purpose; when we take Christ as our meal offering, anything impure in us is removed, His humanity is lived out in us, and we become a corporate meal offering for the supply and nourishment of God and man.

Christ is our sin offering to deal with the sinful nature in our flesh; when we take Christ as our sin offering, we know who we are, we see who Christ is, sin is condemned in the flesh, and we learn to live by the Spirit and not by the flesh.

Christ is our trespass offering to deal with and remove our sins, trespasses, wrongdoings, and defects; when we take Christ as our trespass offering by confessing our sins under the shining of His light, we enjoy the cleansing of His blood and we have fellowship with God and man.

The result of taking Christ as all these major offerings is that we have peace with God and with one another, and Christ Himself is our peace for our mutual enjoyment of God with His people.

Christ is the supply and provision of His people for them to live a holy, clean, and rejoicing life, and as we take Christ as the reality of all the offerings, we are supplied and nourished to be able to be God’s people who live a holy, clean, and rejoicing life, having Christ as our everything.

All these offerings are to be enjoyed before God and with God in the Tent of Meeting, where we have God’s speaking. Through God’s wonderful speaking, the Tent of Meeting issues in the New Jerusalem, and every aspect of the speaking concerning Christ and our enjoyment of Christ in togetherness with God will be fulfilled in the New Jerusalem.

All the offerings – and our enjoyment of these offerings – issue in the New Jerusalem. There in the New Jerusalem we will surely realize that Christ is our burnt offering, meal offering, peace offering, sin offering, trespass offering, wave offering, and heave offering. All these offerings will eventually issue in the New Jerusalem. Hallelujah!

Do not “Try to have Peace” – the only Way to have Peace is to Enjoy Christ every day!

Our duty as the priests of God is to “add wood to the fire”; the divine fire has already come into us at the time of our regeneration, and this fire is from God, and all we need to do is come to the Lord daily in a personal way and keep the fire burning.

Our duty is to spend time with the Lord every morning to keep the fire burning.

Just as the priests in the Old Testament did, we need to daily “add wood to the fire” by offering ourselves to the Lord to enjoy Him, take Him as our absoluteness, and take Him as our peace between us and God.

Christ is our peace toward God and man, and He’s the only One who gives peace in our hearts; His peace surpasses every man’s understanding. If we daily take Christ as our burnt offering and peace offering, the fire in us will rise up, we will be on fire for the Lord, and we will maintain our zeal for the Lord’s house.

We shouldn’t “try to have peace” by our own effort, for the more we try in ourselves to have peace, the more anxious we become and the less peace we will have. The only way for us to have peace is to enjoy Christ every day!

We need to give ourselves to enjoy Christ every day – not just once a week or in the meetings, but every day; when we enjoy Christ every day, we will have pace every day.

The kingdom of God is not eating and drinking but righteousness, joy, and peace in the Holy Spirit (Rom. 14:17); the way for us to have peace in the Spirit is by calling on the name of the Lord (1 Cor. 12:3).

The more we tell the Lord, O Lord Jesus, I love You! and even more, Lord, I need You! Lord Jesus, I’m tired and empty, but I need You! – the more we have peace in the Holy Spirit, and Christ is our peace. we should never graduate from calling on the name of the Lord, but call on His name continually!

Also, we should tell the Lord Jesus, Lord Jesus, make Your home in our heart more today so that we may be rooted and grounded in love and apprehend with all the saints the universal dimensions of Christ and be filled unto all the fulness of God (Eph. 3:16-19)!

Peace can be found only in Christ; when we are in Christ, we have peace, but when we’re outside of Christ, we have no peace. The amount of peace we have depends on how much Christ we have; having peace is a measurement to show us to what degree we enjoy Christ.

We need to enjoy Christ every day, taking Him as our burnt offering, our meal offering, our sin offering, our trespass offering, and our peace offering, and we will have peace with God and man.

God graced us in Christ; grace is God in Christ as the Spirit for our pleasure, delight, and enjoyment, and the more we enjoy grace, the more peace we have.

We need to come to the Lord with all our problems, hardships, burdens, and toils, and touch Him, enjoy Him, and open to Him. He told us, Come to Me, all who toil and are heavy burdened, and I will give you rest (Matt. 11:28).

Every day we need to come to the Lord and tell Him, Lord, give me rest for my soul. Be my Sabbath rest, my real holiday, my real rest for my being. We may be lying down to rest outwardly, but inwardly we may still struggle and not be at peace; we need Christ as rest in our soul.

We need to come to the Lord, take His yoke (His yoke is the Father’s will) and His burden (the work to carry out His Father’s will) upon us, and we will have peace and rest for our soul. His yoke is easy, and His burden is light. We simply need to come to the Lord again and again and tell Him,

Lord Jesus, we want to enjoy You today so that we may find rest for our soul. Save us from trying to have peace by our own effort. Keep us coming to You, opening to You, and enjoying You every day! Lord, You are our rest. You are our peace. We call on Your name, Lord Jesus, and we open our whole being to You. Only You can give peace, and only Your peace is the real peace. Lord, we come to You as we are, with our toils and burdens: give us rest and peace for our souls. Be the peace in us, and cause our soul to be at rest.

We only have Today: we should Enjoy Christ Today and Forget about Yesterday or Tomorrow

We only have today – yesterday is over, and tomorrow is not ours, but today, even right now, belongs to us; therefore, we should enjoy Christ today, even enjoy Him right now.

Satan – God’s enemy – always tempts us to think about tomorrow, worry about our future, and be anxious about so many things.

But we don’t have tomorrow – tomorrow belongs to the Lord, and He will give it to us when that day comes; we only have today, so we should enjoy Christ today!

Satan also tries to accuse us about yesterday or to cause us to worry about what we have done; but the past is the past, the blood of Jesus has cleansed us, and we now can enjoy the Lord today, even right now!

Whether we were a success or a failure yesterday, yesterday is over now; we have today! The Lord Jesus Himself said, Do not be anxious about tomorrow (Matt. 6:34).

Paul was a good pattern of enjoying Christ today; in Phil. 3:13-14 he said that he didn’t account of himself to have laid hold of Christ, but one thing he did – forgetting the things which are behind and stretching forward to what is before, he pursued Christ.

One thing we need to do: forget the things which are behind and stretching forward to the vast unexplored territory of Christ, we should pursue Christ, enjoy Christ today, and gain Him today!

We need to pursue toward the goal – the fullest enjoyment and gaining of Christ in this age, so that we may obtain the prize – the uttermost enjoyment of Christ in the millennial kingdom.

In Hebrews we are also told again and again that TODAY is the day that we should pursue Christ, forget everything else, gain Him, experience Him, and worship Him (see Heb. 3:7-8, 13).

We should not be stubborn or stiff-necked but turn to the Lord today, enjoy Christ today, and be filled with His peace today.

He is our peace offering, and even if we come to Him as the prodigal son came back to the father – empty, hungry, wretched, poor, and dirty, Christ as our fattened calf is our enjoyment in peace and love before God. Hallelujah!

We need to learn to forget about the past for the Lord already took care of it, and not worry about the future – which is not ours! – and just enjoy Christ today, for we only have today!

We only have Christ – we only have today – so we should enjoy Christ today.

Lord Jesus, we want to forget about yesterday and not worry about tomorrow but enjoy Christ today! Hallelujah, the blood of Christ has already cleansed us from anything that happened yesterday, and tomorrow is in God’s hand; Lord, we come to enjoy You today, even right now! Amen! Satan, we will not worry about tomorrow and we refuse your accusations about yesterday – we simply stretch forward to gain the Christ which is before us, enjoy Christ today, and gain Christ more right now! Hallelujah!

References and Hymns on this Topic

• Inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message by Ed Marks for this week, and portions from, Life-study of Leviticus, msgs. 17, 27 (by Witness Lee), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Crystallization-Study of Leviticus (1), week 10, Christ as the Peace between God and God’s People for Their Co-enjoyment in Fellowship to Have the Vital-group Church Life and to Consummate in the New Jerusalem as the Ultimate Peace Offering.
• Hymns on this topic:
  # Lord, Thou art our peace offering; / We lay our hands on Thee. / We’re one with Thee, Lord Jesus, / In fact and practically. / Here in the tent of meeting / We offer Thee to God / And with the Father feasting / Enjoy Thee as our food. (Hymns #1104)
  # In nothing be anxious, / But in everything, / By prayer and petition / With thanksgiving, / Let your requests, let your requests / Be made known to God; / And the peace of God, / Which surpasses / Every man’s understanding, / Will guard your hearts / Will guard your thoughts / In Christ Jesus. (Scripture song)
  # Let’s enjoy Christ to reach the goal, / Partake of Him to beat the foe, / All His vast riches we extol, / Yes, we are freed from every woe! / We may not know a lot of things, / But we are kept from Satan’s stings / By eating Christ, and Christ alone! (Song on, our Christ is so enjoyable)