Give Yourself to Love the Lord with the First Love and Enjoy Him as the Tree of Life!

The Lord’s recovery is a recovery of loving the Lord Jesus with the first love and of eating the Lord Jesus as the tree of life for the building up of the organic Body of Christ; to believe in the Lord is not enough – we need to love Him, even to give ourselves to love Him to the uttermost.

When we love the Lord, our heart is turned to Him and set on Him, and we are open to receive His divine element; we eat the tree of life by first loving the Lord.

As we love the Lord Jesus and eat Him as the tree of life, we have something of Christ constituted and deposited into our being.

Then, when we come together with the saints, we will have some content of Christ to minister to others and nourish them with Christ.

However, some churches are devoid of the proper content because there is a shortage of the eating of Christ as the tree of life by the saints.

If we do not love the Lord with the first love, giving Him the preeminence in all things, and we don’t eat the tree of life, the church life is not a happy place to be in.

But if we love the Lord, give ourselves to just love Him, and eat Him as the tree of life, the church life becomes the paradise of God.

When we speak in the meetings, we don’t speak merely knowledge, something that we understood or were touched with in the word or in the ministry; rather, we exercise our spirit to minister the Christ we have enjoyed.

This speaking of Christ which comes out of loving the Lord and eating Him as the tree of life is what shines forth Christ.

Christ is the tree of life, and as we eat Him as the tree of life, we become part of the tree of life to shine Him forth as the golden lampstand. Wow!

The golden lampstand is in the shape of a tree, with blossoms and calyxes, giving us an indication that it is not primarily for shining light but for growing.

The local churches are the golden lampstands, and they shine forth Christ as the light of life.

How can we shine forth with Christ? How can we be the testimony of Jesus? It is not merely by doing our best to be proper, to dress and behave properly, and to adhere to a certain code of conduct.

We are the testimony of Jesus, the golden lampstand, by eating Jesus as the tree of life and by loving Him with the first love.

The first love for the Lord causes us to do the first works, and these first works out of love for the Lord are what pleases Him.

We need to realize that eating Christ as the tree of life should be the primary matter in the church life.

When we come together, we should eat the Lord together, and by ourselves, we should also eat Him personally. Eating Jesus is the way. Eating Him makes us part of His corporate expression on earth.

To Enjoy Christ as the Tree of Life, we need to Love Him and tell Him, Lord Jesus, I Love You!

The Lord today is recovering the matter of loving the Lord Jesus with the first love, the best love, and the matter of eating the Lord Jesus as the tree of life.

As we learn to love the Lord with the best love and eat Him as the tree of life, we build up the organic Body of Christ, which is the building up of the New Jerusalem as the goal of God’s eternal economy (Eph. 4:15-16; Rev. 22:14).

The Lord Jesus is a living person; He is the tree of life, the embodiment of the Triune God to be our life and life supply.

There is no other way to apply Him and enjoy Him except by loving Him. It is not that “we have to eat Jesus” but that we love the Lord Jesus and because we love Him, we come to Him to eat Him.

We may even tell the Lord, “Lord Jesus, show me Your love that I may love You.”

As we pray in this way, the Lord will reveal His love toward us, and we will be constrained by Him to just love Him (2 Cor. 5:14).

Once we see the Lord’s love, we will be captured, attracted, and constrained by His love to just love Him. Our reaction to seeing the Lord’s love is that we spontaneously love Him.

To enjoy Christ as the tree of life, we need to love Him and tell Him, Lord Jesus, I love You!

By loving the Lord Jesus, our heart is turned to Him and our being is open to Him, and we just partake of Him as the tree of life.

Yes, Christ is the tree of life, but the way for us to enjoy and experience Him as the tree of life is by loving Him.

It is only by loving Jesus that we can enjoy Him. Our heart needs to be hot and loving, full of affection in our contact with Him.

We may even tell the Lord as the seeker did in Song of Songs 1:4, Draw me, we will run after You!

As we are attracted by the Lord’s love, we will tell Him, “Lord Jesus, kiss us with the kisses of Your mouth, for Your love is better than wine.”

This is the way to enjoy Christ as the tree of life, by telling Him again and again, Lord Jesus, I love You.

If we have a burning love toward the Lord Jesus, giving Him the first place in all things, we will enjoy all that He is (Rev. 2:4-5, 7; 1 Cor. 2:9).

Many believers love the Lord Jesus, but they may have told Him this out loud.

They may think it is funny to say it out loud, so they say it in their heart. but we need to simply love the Lord – He loves us so much that He gave Himself up for us and He is constantly dispensing Himself into us to supply us, and He cares for us in love.

We may not feel that we love the Lord, for our emotion may be focused on ourselves all the time; we simply need to exercise our spirit and our will, and open our mouth and tell Him that we love Him.

To believe in the Lord is to receive Him as life, and to love Him is to enjoy Him as life. When we love the Lord, we enjoy the very person whom we have received.

Faith is given to us by God so that by it we may receive Christ as our life; out of this faith, love issues to enable us to live out all the riches of the Triune God in Christ as our life (2 Pet. 1:1; Heb. 12:1-2a; 2 Cor. 4:13; Gal. 5:6; John 1:12-13; 21:15-17; Col. 3:4).

By faith, we receive the Lord, and by loving Him we take Him and enjoy Him.

The very life that we have received when we believed in the Lord Jesus is a person, and the only way for us to enjoy and apply this person is by loving Him with the first love (John 11:25; 14:5-6; 1 Tim. 1:14; 2 Cor. 5:14-15; Rev. 2:4-7; Col. 1:18b; Rom. 6:4; 7:6).

Since the Lord Jesus is a person and He is the tree of life for us to partake of, we need to a new contact with Him to enjoy His present presence at this very moment and day by day.

The relationship we build up with Him in our fellowship with Him, in our times and seasons of life, is that we love Him and we enjoy Him.

Our time with Him in the morning is not just to be nourished and supplied, but to love Him; we come to Him early in the morning to contact Him and give Him our best love.

May we be those who enjoy Christ as the tree of life by loving Him to the uttermost.

Lord Jesus, we love You. You are altogether lovely. Draw us with Your beauty and Your loveliness, and we will run after You. Kiss us with the kisses of Your mouth, dear Lord, for Your love is better than wine. Your name, Lord Jesus, is like ointment poured forth. We love to call on Your name and enjoy Your wonderful Person. Amen, Lord, show us Your love and we will love You more. We come to You, again and again, dear Lord, to eat You as the tree of life; we give ourselves to love You and eat You so that we may live in oneness with You. Dear Lord Jesus, You are the most precious One, the most lovely One, and we just love You!

Give Yourself to Love the Lord with the First Love and Enjoy Him as the Tree of Life!

Some Christians care very much for doctrines, others care for a particular practice, while some others just want to have a good church life and family life in the church life.

None of these work; the only thing that works, the best way, is loving the Lord Jesus.

We need to give ourselves to love the Lord, for no other way is so prevailing and so safe, so rich and so full of enjoyment than loving Him.

When we love the Lord, we will not care for anything else; we will drop our preferences, we will not focus on doctrines, and we will not pay too much attention to teachings, gifts, and power.

We just love Him!

We ask Him to attract us and draw us to Himself, and we allow the Lord to keep us in His lovely presence.

If we pray in this way, if we tell the Lord, Lord Jesus, keep me in Your love and attract me with Yourself! Keep me in Your loving presence all the time! we will see what love we will have toward the Lord and what kind of life we will live.

When we give ourselves to love the Lord and care for nothing else, we will simply live by the Lord Himself.

As long as we just love Him from the depths of our being, everything will be all right.

Everything that we need, He is; we just love Him, and He becomes everything to us.

If we need joy, He will be our joy, and if we need wisdom, he will be wisdom to us. If we need power or proper and adequate knowledge, He will be that to us. Whatever we need, He is; we just need to love Him.

We need to drop everything else and not focus on anything else, not even on the work for the Lord or on reading the Bible – we just need to love the Lord Jesus!

This is the safest way, the most prevailing way.

We may not know that much, we may not have that much power, and our works may not be that great outwardly, but as long as we love the Lord, we eat Him as the tree of life.

We need to simply give ourselves to love the Lord with the first love and enjoy Him as the tree of life!

If we do not love the Lord with the first love, if we lose our first love for the Lord, degradation creeps in.

As seen in Rev. 2, the degradation of the church began with the loss of the first love toward the Lord Jesus.

The church in Ephesus had many good works, was strong in faith, and even exposed some of the dissenters and those who cause divisions; however, the Lord rebuked her for forsaking her first love for the Lord.

Leaving the fresh and best love toward the Lord is the start of degradation.

When we leave our first love for the Lord, we start to backslide. May we ask the Lord to draw us and may we run after Him with our companions, with those who love Him, and may we eat Him as the tree of life.

Believing in the Lord is not enough; we need to love Him! We must learn to love the Lord Jesus simply by allowing Him to constrain us with His love.

May we go to the Lord and ask Him to draw us so that we may run after Him.

As we love Him, we enjoy Him as the tree of life, and we’re inwardly supplied with everything we need to live Christ and express Him, shine Him forth.

When we come to the Lord as we are and give ourselves to just love Him, we will realize what a wonderful Person He is.

Our love for Him is a reflection of His love for us; His love reaches us and causes us to love Him back.

Loving the Lord doesn’t have its source in us; we initiate the process by coming to the Lord, but He is the One who infuses Himself into us as love, and we just love Him back with His love as our love.

May we give ourselves to the Lord to love Him and enjoy Him as the tree of life!

Lord Jesus, be merciful to us and show us Your wonderful and loving self. We give ourselves to You to just love You. Oh Lord, we don’t need anything apart from You. Show us Your love that we may be constrained by Your love. We don’t want to just do something for You; we just want to love You. We take You as our life and person. We take Your personality as our personality, Your will as our will, and Your desires as our desires. Amen, Lord, we give ourselves to love You, caring for nothing and no one else but You! We want to take the prevailing and rich way of loving the Lord!

References and Hymns on this Topic

• Sources of inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, a sharing by brother Minoru Chen in the message, and portions from, Collected Works of Witness Lee, 1972, vol. 1, “Life and Building Portrayed in the Song of Songs,” pp. 237-238, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Taking the Way of Enjoying Christ as the Tree of Life (2022 Memorial Day Weekend Conference), week 3, entitled, Loving the Lord with the First Love, Enjoying the Lord as the Tree of Life, and Being the Golden Lampstand as the Testimony of Jesus for the Building up of the New Jerusalem as the Goal of God’s Eternal Economy.
• Hymns on this topic:
  – I love my Lord, but with no love of mine, / For I have none to give; / I love Thee, Lord, but all the love is Thine, / For by Thy love I live. / I am as nothing, and rejoice to be / Emptied, and lost, and swallowed up in Thee. (Hymns #546)
  – Give yourself to love the Lord. / No other way is so prevailing / And no other way, no other way is so safe. / Give yourself to love the Lord. / No other way is so rich, / And so full, oh so full, of enjoyment. / Each morning we must rise up and say to Him, / “Lord Jesus, I love You.” (Song on, Give Yourself to Love the Lord)
  – When I hated, Thou didst love me, / Shedd’st for me Thy precious blood; / Still Thou lovest, lovest ever, / Shall I not love Thee, my God? / Keep my heart still faithful to Thee, / That my earthly life may be / But a shadow to that glory / Of my hidden life in Thee. (Hymns #547)