In order for us to be faithful, normal, and proper Christians, the primary matter we need to care for is enjoying the Lord; our spirit needs to take the lead in enjoying the Lord, and we need to experience and enjoy Christ in His all-inclusiveness. Amen!
We Christians are wonderful people and at the same time, for we are both human beings and we have God living in us.
By regeneration, we have received the divine life and now we have both the human life and the divine life.
However, our natural concept and inclination is that we now have to please God, for we want Him to be happy with us.
So we do all kinds of things, we are involved in many works, and we go through routines and accomplish something just to be pleasing to Him.
It is indeed true that we need to live a life that is pleasing to God, but God does not need our work for Him, nor does He need our efforts to please Him.
Even more, when we have problems and are suffering, we may come to the Lord fervently about our problems and suffering, and He may not seem to respond to our prayer, no matter how much we pray.
Many times He does respond to our prayer, but sometimes He does not.
The main reason is that God’s desire is not that we do things for Him or that He helps us with our problems; He wants us to come to Him and enjoy Him.
The apostle Paul had a great problem: he had a thorn in the flesh, which was quite painful, and he asked the Lord many times to remove it.
Instead of removing the thorn, the Lord simply told him that His grace is sufficient to him, for His power is perfected in his weakness.
God is not in the thorn-removing or problem-solving business; He wants to increase the level of grace, the level of the enjoyment of Christ, so that any mountain in our way would be swallowed up by grace upon grace.
The Lord Jesus went through so many sufferings and persecutions, and not even once did He complain nor did He try to get out of them.
Rather, He took God as His source, He enjoyed God, and He lived because of God.
Now we as His continuation, the many disciples of the Lord, need to follow Him not to try to avoid suffering or problems but to enjoy the Lord and live because of what we eat of Him (John 6:57).
We need to eat the Lord, enjoy the Lord, and partake of Him, and we will live because of Christ, even live Christ in our daily living.
The secret of our Christian life is the enjoyment of Christ.
How can we go on with the Lord? We need to enjoy Him. How can we overcome? We need to overcome to enjoy Him.
How can we go on with Him in the church life? We need to enjoy the Lord day by day, even moment by moment.
Having a Vision of Enjoying the Lord in our Christian Life and our Church Life
The primary matter we should take care of in the church life is enjoying the Lord.
For us to be faithful Christians, those who are normal and proper in their Christian life, we need to primarily take care of enjoying the Lord.
This has to be a vision to us (Prov. 29:18; Acts 26:19).
Our natural concept, whether we are Christians or non-Christians, is that human beings need to do things for God, at least fear God and worship God, and make sure that we’re pleasing to God.
Even after believing in the Lord, a matter which happened through grace and not by our merit but by God’s mercy, we still try to do things to please God.
So we learn a lot of doctrines, read a lot from the Bible, and try our best to live a Christian life that is pleasing to the Lord.
But in order for us to be faithful, normal, and proper Christians, we need to first take care of enjoying the Lord, not of learning doctrines or any such things.
We need to see this as a vision, for by nature we’re inclined not to do this but to do many other things.
For example, when the prodigal son returned to his father in Luke 15, his natural inclination was to work for his father to redeem himself; the father, however, had a feast laid out for him and welcomed him back non-conditionally.
Our God wants us to come to Him and just enjoy Him.
Yes, we do need to serve the Lord, but our serving Him needs to come out of our enjoying the Lord.
If we don’t enjoy the Lord while we’re serving Him, we will be like the brother of the prodigal son, who was serving his father as a slave but with no joy or enjoyment, and he was therefore jealous that his father did so many things for his brother but never gave him something to enjoy. Oh, Lord Jesus!
May we see a vision, an unforgettable scene that impresses us and is burned into our being of our need to primarily take care of enjoying the Lord above all other things.
Whenever we are about to do something or say something, the vision of enjoying the Lord needs to govern us and direct us.
Outwardly we may be laboring for the Lord, toiling for Him, but inwardly we are supplied, for we enjoy the God of all-sufficiency.
It is similar to what the parents do when they have children; they don’t primarily teach the little baby but feed him, nourish him, and cherish him.
Even as the kids grow up, the parents’ primary concern is the children’s eating, so they feed them good food to make sure they are happy and grow properly.
May the Lord recover the believers’ enjoyment of Christ among us in the church life and all over the earth.
The reason we have so many problems in the church life is that we do not enjoy the Lord enough.
![Where there is no vision, the people cast off restraint; / But happy is he who keeps the law. Prov. 29:18 Therefore, King Agrippa, I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision. Acts 26:19 I am the living bread which came down out of heaven; if anyone eats of this bread, he shall live forever; and the bread which I will give is My flesh, [given] for the life of the world. John 6:51](https://i0.wp.com/www.agodman.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Where-there-is-no-vision-the-people-cast-off-restraint-But-happy-is-he-who-keeps-the-law-683x1024.webp?resize=400%2C600&ssl=1 "Where there is no vision, the people cast off restraint; / But happy is he who keeps the law. Prov. 29:18 Therefore, King Agrippa, I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision. Acts 26:19 I am the living bread which came down out of heaven; if anyone eats of this bread, he shall live forever; and the bread which I will give is My flesh, [given] for the life of the world. John 6:51")
The reason the husband and the wife argue and have an exchange of words is because they lack the enjoyment of Christ.
If the husband and the wife enjoy the Lord sufficiently, if they are filled with the enjoyment of Christ, there’s no reason to argue.
Many Christians today are full of knowledge and know a lot of doctrines, but they have little growth in life; the reason is that they lack the enjoyment of Christ.
Hence, it is easy for them to criticize others and be puffed up because of their knowledge.
There are so many problems in our Christian life and church life because of our lack of the enjoyment of Christ.
We argue with others, we are unhappy with what is happening around us, and we are dissatisfied with our job and with our family life because we do not enjoy the Lord sufficiently.
In the church life and in our Christian life, both corporately and individually, we need to primarily take care of enjoying the Lord.
The unique solution to all our problems is enjoying the Lord again and again.
We have so many germs and negative elements in our being; the solution is not to consider them and try to remove them but simply to enjoy the Lord.
As we contact the Lord, enjoy Him, and exercise our spirit to partake of Him in His word and in fellowship with the saints, all negative elements in our being are swallowed up, all germs are removed, and we are supplied with many positive divine elements and spiritual vitamins.
We need to continually enjoy the Lord, for when we stop enjoying Him, the negative things creep back in, and many kinds of spiritual diseases try to come in.
May we daily take Christ as our nourishment.
May we eat Him and partake of Him in a daily way, never forgetting to enjoy the Lord. May the vision of enjoying the Lord govern our daily living!
Lord Jesus, show us a vision of our need to enjoy Christ! Grant us to see the revelation of our need for the enjoyment of Christ. Save us from merely doing many things for You or serving in the church life without the enjoyment of Christ. Renew our mind, Lord, so that our natural concepts may be removed and we would primarily care for enjoying the Lord in all things! Amen, Lord, recover the believers’ enjoyment of Christ. We don’t want to focus primarily on dealing with the problems or taking care of so many outward things; we primarily want to focus on enjoying the Lord in spirit! Amen, Lord, may we never stop enjoying Christ! May we never stop partaking of the riches of Christ in spirit! Keep us enjoying You today. Keep us in the organic union with You, breathing You in, eating You, and drinking You. Amen, Lord, may the enjoyment of Christ remove any problems, negative elements, and germs, and add the positive divine elements and spiritual vitamins for our growth in the divine life and our being built up together in the Body!
Our Spirit needs to Take the Lead in Enjoying the Lord so that we Enjoy and Experience the All-Inclusive Christ
When we speak of enjoying the Lord, we do not refer to anything of the soulish enjoyment which has “Christ” as a label; many so-called Christian activities, concerts, and outings today have the label “Christ” on them but they are not the real enjoyment of Christ.
For us to enjoy Christ, our spirit needs to take the lead in enjoying the Lord.
In Luke 1:46-47 Mary said that her soul magnified the Lord and her spirit exulted in God her Savior.
Our spirit needs to take the lead in enjoying the Lord, and then our soul will magnify Him.
When our spirit exults in the Lord, when we exercise our spirit to enjoy the Lord, our soul will magnify the Lord.
Our praise to God issues from our spirit and is expressed through our soul.
Sadly, however, we primarily use our soul; by default, we do things in and by our soul. So we need to exercise our spirit.
We need to come to the word of God and exercise our spirit so that the Word would become like a sharp two-edged sword dividing our soul from our spirit (Heb. 4:12).
Our soul is the organ for enjoyment, but in order for the soul to enjoy what we take in, we first need to exercise our spirit.
In order for us to take in Christ, our spirit needs to take the lead.
We should not be passive; in the matter of enjoying the Lord, we should not passively wait to enjoy the Lord or just read and passively meditate on God’s word.
We shouldn’t have the attitude that, if the Lord wants us to enjoy Him, let Him come to us and speak to us, and we will then enjoy Him.
Rather, may we exercise our spirit, stir up our spirit, and contact the Lord.
Isa. 64:7 says that there’s no one who calls on the Lord’s name, who stirs himself to lay hold of God.
This is our situation many times. So we need to exercise our spirit, be active, and even be aggressive in taking the initiative to call on the Lord, pray, pray-read His word, and come to the meetings with the saints.
We need to learn to directly use our spirit and let our soul be a follower of the spirit.
When we use our spirit and are strong in our spirit, our soul will follow.
But if we passively do nothing and wait for the Lord to stir us up, our soul will take the lead, and it will not enjoy Christ.
Our spirit needs to take the lead aggressively in enjoying the Lord.
If we don’t exercise our spirit and take the lead to enjoy the Lord, the world today will sweep us away.
There are many challenging situations, many politics, many trends, and many aspects of the world that appeal to our soul and to our flesh.
If we don’t exercise our spirit, we will be smothered, and we will be pushed back in no time.
Especially in these days when people care so much about their feelings, we may say that we don’t feel like enjoying the Lord.
We may feel down for one reason or another, and we don’t feel like enjoying the Lord. Oh, Lord!
May we take the lead aggressively to just enjoy the Lord again and again, never staying down being defeated and buried under our weaknesses and feelings.
May we choose to use our spirit, exercise our spirit, and lift our spirit up to the Lord.
May we choose to go against the downward current and not let the current lead us but take the lead to enjoy Christ in His all-inclusiveness!
In the church as the kingdom of the Son of God’s love, we experience and enjoy Christ in His all-inclusiveness (Col. 1:12-13, 27; 2:9, 16-17; 3:1, 4, 11).
![Giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you for a share of the allotted portion of the saints in the light; who delivered us out of the authority of darkness and transferred [us] into the kingdom of the Son of His love. Col. 1:12-13 If therefore you were raised together with Christ, seek the things which are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God...When Christ our life is manifested, then you also will be manifested with Him in glory...Where there cannot be Greek and Jew, circumcision and uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free man, but Christ is all and in all. Col. 3:1, 4, 11](https://i0.wp.com/www.agodman.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Giving-thanks-to-the-Father-who-has-qualified-you-for-a-share-of-the-allotted-portion-of-the-saints-in-the-light-5-683x1024.webp?resize=400%2C600&ssl=1 "Giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you for a share of the allotted portion of the saints in the light; who delivered us out of the authority of darkness and transferred [us] into the kingdom of the Son of His love. Col. 1:12-13 If therefore you were raised together with Christ, seek the things which are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God...When Christ our life is manifested, then you also will be manifested with Him in glory...Where there cannot be Greek and Jew, circumcision and uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free man, but Christ is all and in all. Col. 3:1, 4, 11")
God has qualified us to partake of Christ, our allotted portion together with the saints in the light.
Just as the children of Israel in the Old Testament were allotted a portion of the good land for their enjoyment and partaking, we also have enjoyed a portion of Christ to enjoy and partake of.
On one hand, we have been delivered out of the authority of Satan and transferred out of the kingdom of darkness.
On the other hand, we are now in the kingdom of the Son of God’s love where Christ is our everything.
We give Him the preeminence, and we enjoy Him by exercising our spirit. Christ is everything to us in the kingdom of God.
Christ is our allotted portion, our good land; He’s the divine inheritance for our enjoyment (1:12).
Christ is the reality of every positive thing in the universe (2:16-17).
Christ is the One sitting at the right hand of God (3:1), and at the same time, He dwells in us as the hope of glory (1:27).
Christ is our life (3:4) and He is the constituent of the one new man (vv. 10-11).
He is everything to us for our enjoyment. May we exercise our spirit to enjoy Him!
Lord Jesus, we refuse to remain in our feelings and in our weaknesses; we choose to exercise our spirit to enjoy You! Amen, Lord, may our spirit take the lead in enjoying the Lord in our daily life. We want to learn to directly use our spirit and exercise our spirit so that our soul would follow our spirit. Amen, Lord, thank You for our spirit! We do not have a spirit of cowardice to be under slavery again but we have a spirit of power and of love and of sobermindedness! Hallelujah! Lord, we refuse to stay defeated. We refuse to focus on our weaknesses. We exercise our spirit. We use our spirit to contact You! We do not want to remain passively in the sphere of our feelings, defeats, and weaknesses. We exercise our spirit to enjoy Christ in His all-inclusiveness! Hallelujah, Christ is our allotted portion! Christ is the reality of all positive things! Christ is the One on the throne and He also dwells in our spirit to be our hope of glory! Christ is our life and He’s also the constituent of the new man! Praise the Lord for the all-inclusive Christ, our God-allotted portion!
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Inspiration for this article/sharing comes from the Word of God, the enjoyment in the ministry, a sharing by James Lee in the message for this week, and portions from, Collected Works of Witness Lee, 1969, vol. 2, pp. 188-190, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, The Enjoyment of Christ and our Growth in Life unto Maturity (2023 Thanksgiving Blending Conference), week 2, entitled, The Joy of the Triune God Becoming our Joy.
- Similar articles on this topic:
– Our Need to Labor on the All-inclusive Christ, a sharing by brother Ron Kangas (video).
– What is the All-inclusive Christ? Read more via, Radio Newsletters.
– Calling on the name of the Lord is one of the hidden gems for us in the Bible and one of the great treasures among us in the Lord’s recovery. Read more via, Having this Ministry.
– The all-inclusive Christ in the New Testament, article via, Conversant Faith.
– Entering the good land, a portion from, The All-inclusive Christ, Chapter 14.
– The all-inclusive Christ in 1 Corinthians, article by Ed Marks in, Affirmation and Critique.
– The all-inclusive Christ as the believers’ portion, via, The Economy and Dispensing of God, Chapter 6, by Witness Lee.
– Our Need to Labor on the All-inclusive Christ to Have the Produce to Exhibit Christ, sharing by Mark Raabe (video).
– Lamb, Manna or Good Land—What Kind of Christ Do You Enjoy? Red more via, Holding to Truth in Love.
– Our Spiritual Remedy: The Spirit as an All-Inclusive Dose, via, Bibles for America blog. - Hymns on this topic:
– Our spirit we must exercise / To take the Word most inwardly, / And then to give the Spirit forth; / The two as one with us should be. / Lord, may Thy Word in me become / The Spirit as my life supply, / And may Thy Spirit in Thy Word / My true expression be thereby. (Hymns #815 stanzas 6-7)
– The Christ of glory is my life, / He as the Spirit lives in mine, / That I with God be fully blent / And in His image shine. / I would exalt this glorious Christ, / Ever the Spirit I’d obey, / Making His glory fully known, / Filled with His grace for aye. (Hymns #509 stanzas 4-5)
– Our spirit we must exercise / To take the Word most inwardly, / And then to give the Spirit forth; / The two as one with us should be. / Lord, may Thy Word in me become / The Spirit as my life supply, / And may Thy Spirit in Thy Word / My true expression be thereby. (Hymns #815 stanzas 6-7)
About aGodMan
Collected Works of Witness Lee, 1969, vol. 2, pp. 188-190
Dear brother, in order for us to be faithful, normal, and proper Christians, the primary matter we need to take care of is enjoying the Lord.
We need to have a vision of the importance of enjoying the Lord, and we need to exercise our spirit and let our spirit take the lead to enjoy the Lord!
The reason we have so many problems today in our family life and at work is because of our lack of enjoyment of Christ.
Amen, Lord Jesus! Do keep us enjoying You day by day in spirit!
Make our spirit strong to subdue our soul and make our soul to follow our spirit to enjoy You!
Amen! We need to take care of our enjoyment of the Lord.
Our spirit must lead the way. We need to learn how to directly use and exercise our spirit. Our spirit must subdue the soul!
Amen.
Keep us enjoying you, Lord.
Christ is our daily nourishment, we need to partake of him every day.
He is our heavenly portion.
May our spirit lead us today in enjoying the Lord
Amen Lord Jesus we love You.
Our spirit needs to take the lead in enjoying Jesus.
Then, our enjoyment will be expressed through our soul. If we are short of enjoying Christ, we will certainly have problems.
We need to remember that the enjoyment Christ is the unique solution to all our problems.
We need to eat, taste & partake of Christ in a daily way.
Amen! Continue in the enjoyment brother.
Ammmmeeenn
Yes Lord teach us to be simple and enjoy you!
Ameen!!!
This is the secret of the Christian life is not how much we work for Him, but how much we enjoy Him…
We must learn this secret…
We need to learn to simply turn our inner being to enjoy God.
Lord grant us the seeing, the revelation of this matter of enjoying You.
May this not just a doctrine, a concept that we hear but a vision that we see that governs our daily living.
Make us proper, normal, and healthy Christians.
(CWWL, 1969, vol. 2, pp. 188-190)
Praise the Lord! 🙌😃
the primary thing we as Christians need to take care of is not to learn a lot of doctrines or try to do a lot of things. but to enjoy the Lord
the first thing God did after creating man was to place Adam in front of the tree of life indicating that God wants us to eat ,and partake of him as our portion .
The reason why we have problems with our family and the saints is the lack of the enjoyment of Christ,
when we enjoy christ ,all the negative things go away and we get the spiritual nourishment.
May the Lord increase our enjoyment of him in our daily Christian life
To be a faithful, normal and proper Christian the primary matter is that we enjoy Christ!
For this our spirit must take the lead, so that our soul, being subdued, will follow.
Through the word of God we will be clear what is of the spirit and what is of the soul.
Like Mary, as we praise God in using our spirit, we will magnify and express God through our soul.
Listen to the audio version of this article via,
Youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EfhRJx5iY_0
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https://rumble.com/v4hz3wr-primarily-enjoy-the-lord-by-exercising-our-spirit.html
Amen. Yes Lord, we want to enjoy you day by day by our spirit leading us
Amen amen!! Make our spirit strong today Lord so that we can enjoy You
The secret of the Christian life is not how much we work for Him, but how much we enjoy Him…We must learn this secret…We need to learn to simply turn our inner being to enjoy God.
So…why am I more joyous when contemplating Joy than contemplating the enjoyment of the Lord? Why is it that Joy breeds actual joy, that is, reproduces, whilst the notion of “enjoying the Lord” remains celibate? I find this most curious.
Intellectually, It can be argued that enjoying the Lord requires Joy, aka Jesus, the Holy Spirit. So, we need the Lord to enjoy Him. Absolutely. But though I appreciate this fact, and it is a fact, it does not make me joyful.
I agree with everything written in this latest post, but I miss Joy who accompanied the previous ones. Could it be that “enjoying the Lord” somehow gets translated into an indictment of my limitations and shortcomings whereby Joy Himself requires nothing save that I see His smile?
Praise God, our adoring Savior, our everything, that my tepid enjoyments never diminish His joy, which is Joy immeasurable, everlasting and glorious.
Oh Lord Jesus! The joy that the Lord gives us and wants us to have is not only in our soul but in our spirit; it is from the depths of our being. It will eventually be expressed and enjoyed in our soul, but it has to be in our spirit first. This is why we need to exercise our spirit. And by saying this, exercise our spirit, we mean that we contact the Lord, who Himself is our joy! The more we contact the Lord, the more we’re filled with joy.
Oh, we’ve got joy, joy, joy, joy, down in our heart! And this joy is here to stay! Praise the Lord!