In the book of Job we see that sufferings may not be God’s judgment but rather that God wants to consume us so that we may gain God more, for His intention is to dispense Himself in Christ by the Spirit into us to be our life and everything so that we become His expression; we live and work in this principle by doing everything by the Spirit.
Lord Jesus, unveil us to see God’s intention with humanity. May we realise that God desires to dispense Himself into us to be our life, our nature, and our everything so that we may live Christ and express Christ. We open to You, Lord! Dispense Yourself into us a little more today. Gain more opening in us. May we live by the Spirit, walk by the Spirit, and do everything in the Spirit with our spirit. Amen, Lord, we love You and we open to You! Amen!
This week we have been prayerfully considering the living and working according to the vision of the age to change the age as seen with Noah, Daniel, and Job. These three persons, mentioned in Ezekiel 14:14 and 20, reveal the Triune God dispensing Himself into His chosen and redeemed people to fulfil His eternal economy.
With Noah we see God the Father in His faithfulness to keep His eternal covenant (signified by the rainbow). God is faithful to dispense the all-inclusive Christ into us and make us a wise exhibition of what God is.
Noah found grace in the sight of Jehovah, and he built the ark, for he walked and worked with God. We need to find grace in the eyes of the Lord, and we need to go deeper into God to know and enjoy the Father. Our work and our living should be for the building up of the church as the Body of Christ, the reality of the ark today.
With Daniel we see Christ the Son being the centrality and universality of God’s move. God wants to gain a corporate Christ as a smiting stone to come and destroy human government and bring in the kingdom of God.
Therefore, we need to redeem the time to enjoy Christ as the supreme preciousness of God so that we may be constituted with Him to be men of preciousness, even preciousness itself, as His personal treasure.
He infuses us with Himself and works Himself into us to make us His reproduction, the corporate Christ today.
With Job we see God the Spirit bringing His loving seekers through the process of transformation by the renewing of the Holy Spirit in their seeing God to gain God and be transformed by God, even to become the same as God. May we be unveiled to see this more!
Seeing that Job’s Sufferings were God’s Consuming so that God might Gain Job and Job may Gain God More
The book of Job is like no other book in the Bible; thirty-six chapters are full of man’s speaking, man’s opinions, and man’s arguments.
Job was an upright and righteous man, but a lot of calamities came upon him; all his children and all his possessions were taken from him, and even he himself had a sickness that caused him to suffer very much.
Three friends came to be with him, not just to comfort him but to try to convince him that he must have done something wrong, something unrighteous, so that God would deal with him in such a way. Job, on his side, argued back that he didn’t do anything wrong.
The logic of Job’s friends was according to the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in their thinking that Job’s sufferings were a matter of God’s judgment.
However, according to the divine revelation in the Bible and as hinted in God’s speaking to Job (Job 38), Job’s sufferings were God’s consuming so that God might gain Job so that he might gain God more (John 9:15; 11:12; 13:4; Phil. 3:8, 12-13).
“Then Jehovah answered Job” (Job 38:1a); “then Job answered Jehovah” (42:1a); “and Jehovah turned the captivity of Job” (v. 10a).
When God speaks, all things are cleared up. God came and exposed Job’s self-justification and self-uprightness; these had to be consumed.
Oftentimes, we are still in our own uprightness; we don’t do bad things, we don’t love the world, but we are satisfied with ourselves and we justify ourselves so much.
This justification of ourselves becomes our idol so that we become estranged from God. So God needs to do in us a special work as He did in Job, to remove this idol, even to consume us with all kinds of sufferings so that we may understand that we are nothing, we are worthy of nothing, and we need to be emptied so that we may gain more of God.
God’s intention with Job was not to perfect Job and make him upright and righteous; He wanted to usher Job into a deeper seeking after God so that Job might realise that what he was short of in his human life was God Himself and that he might pursue God, gain God, and express God (Col. 2:19). Wow!
This is what God intends – He wants to usher us all into a deeper seeking after God so that we may realise that, even though we may seem to be OK and even upright and perfect, what we need is more of God.
God’s intention with Job was not to build up Job and make him more perfect; rather, God wanted to tear down the natural Job in his perfection and uprightness so that He might build up a renewed Job in God’s nature and attributes (Job 1:1; Titus 3:5).
This is our experience today also. The more we know about God, the more we know of the Bible and concerning God’s economy, the more we tend to perfect ourselves, even to have our own righteousness and uprightness.
But God wants to tear our natural man down so that we may gain more of God. God wants to renew us and make us the same as He is by working Himself into us.
We are short of God! We may not be short of knowledge or good behaviour, but we are short of God! There’s not much constitution of God.
There is not much weight of God. There’s not much taste of God. So God needs to do a consuming work, a tearing down work, to add Himself into us.
God’s intention with Job was to have him on the line of life, even to be on the line of the tree of life, so that Job may be a man of God (Gen. 2:9; 1 Tim. 6:11; 2 Tim. 3:17; Eph. 3:14-21).
God wants not a good man but a God-man. He doesn’t want a self-justifying man but a man of God. He wants tree-of-life-men who eat Christ, depend on Christ, and live Christ, and who don’t rely on their own uprightness or righteousness.
Lord Jesus, unveil us to see that You are working in our environment to tear our natural man down so that You may work Yourself into us. Oh Lord, save us from building ourselves up and from having our own righteousness by which we live. We open to You. Have Your way to tear down our natural man in its perfectness and uprightness so that He may build us up in a renewed way! Amen, Lord, build us up with Your nature and attributes so that You may be expressed through us and we would not rely on our own uprightness or perfectness. Usher us into a deeper seeking after God. May we see how short we are of God. Oh Lord, may we realise we’re so short of God. We come to You to seek You, pursue after You, gain You, and express You! Amen, Lord, bring us fully on the line of the tree of life! Save us from doing things according to the knowledge of good and evil; may we be men of life, men of God, God-men who depend on the Lord in all things and concerning all things!
Live under God’s Dispensing to be a God-man by Being and Doing Everything by the Spirit by Exercising our spirit!
How thankful we are to the Lord for opening up the book of Job according to His divine revelation in the entire Scripture! There’s much knowledge in this book, but there is God’s appearing and His speaking to His seeking one, Job.
The book of Job reveals that the Bible of sixty-six books is for only one thing: for God in Christ by the Spirit to dispense Himself into us to be our life, our nature, and our everything so that we may live Christ and express Christ; this should be the principle that governs our life (Job 10:13; Eph. 3:9; Phil. 3:8-9; Eph. 1:22-23; 2:15; Rev. 21:2). Wow!
God simply wants to dispense what He is into us to make us His corporate expression. This is what the entire Bible tells us.
How can we do this? How can we cooperate with God’s intention? The way for us to live and work in this principle is to be and do everything by the Spirit, with the Spirit, in the Spirit, and through the Spirit by exercising our spirit (Gal. 5:25; Rom. 8:4; Phil. 3:3; Rev. 2:7; 22:17a).
Today God is in Christ as the Spirit with our spirit; we cannot be a proper Christian, but the Spirit can be a Christian.
We cannot live the Christian life, but the Spirit can live a proper Christian life to express God. The Spirit with our spirit is the consummation, the aggregate of the Triune God; we have the Father, the Son, and the Spirit as the all-inclusive Spirit with our spirit.
All we have to do is turn to our spirit and live according to the Spirit. We have been regenerated by the Spirit, and we received the divine life through the Spirit. Now, we need to live, walk, and do all things by the Spirit.
The way for us to experience and enjoy Christ, even to receive the fullness of the Triune God, is by doing everything according to the Spirit (Rom. 8:4).
As long as we are in our spirit and do all things by the Spirit, we can experience Christ’s incarnation, human living, death, resurrection, and ascension with the outpouring of the Spirit.
This will cause us to be the church of God, the Body of Christ, the new man, and the organism of the Triune God, which will be consummated in the New Jerusalem.
May we daily turn to the Lord in our spirit. As we live our daily life, doing this and that, we need to refuse to remain in the realm of the tree of knowledge of good and evil and be in the realm of the life-giving Spirit.
We need to do everything according to the Spirit in our spirit by being one spirit with the Lord (1 Cor. 6:17).
As we are about to speak or do something, we need to inwardly open to the Lord and tell Him,
Lord, be one spirit with me so that I may be one spirit with You. I want to be one spirit with You in my speaking. Lord, as I’m about to do this or that, I want to be one with You. You be the One who does this and that in me. I open to You! May my speaking be Your speaking and may my doing be Your doing!
As we do this, as we open to the Lord and seek to be one with Him in all things, we live in the dispensing of the eternal economy of God. When we converse with the Lord about all things and in all things, we enjoy His divine dispensing, and He has a way to grow in us.
Christ wants to grow in us, and as He grows, we decrease – He increases, we decrease! As Christ grows in us, we grow in Christ.
Day by day we need to remain in this process of growth; what needs to grow in us is not our self with its perfectness, self-justification, and self-exaltation, but Christ and only Christ!
Day by day we need to deal with the Spirit. We need to live in the Spirit, do everything by the Spirit, and be in the spirit. We need to do everything and be everything by the Spirit, with the Spirit, in the Spirit, and through the Spirit.
We may read the Bible or have a time with the Lord; we should not just read the Bible but read the Bible in the Spirit and by the Spirit. We may go to work and take care of many things at work; we should simply be in the mingled spirit and do all things by the Spirit.
We need to take care of our spirit. We need to exercise our spirit. We need to mind our spirit. This doesn’t make us “super-spiritual” people who have nothing to do or say to those around them because they are “in the Spirit”.
Rather, doing all things by the Spirit will make us normal Christians, for we become normal believers in Christ who overcome by being in the Spirit and doing all things in the Spirit.
As we live in the Spirit and do all things by the Spirit, Christ is making His home in us, the Spirit is transforming us, and we become God-men in reality.
We realise that the divine Spirit lives in us to pray in us, read the Bible in us, speak God’s word in us, love our spouse in us, do the house chores in us, and visit sinners for the preaching of the gospel in us.
It will be us who do all these things, but it is the Spirit who does all things in us; we have a living that is the mingling of the processed Triune God with the regenerated tripartite man. Wow! Amen!
Lord Jesus, we want to live in the Spirit and do all things by the Spirit! Amen, Lord, as we are doing this and that, keep us turning to our spirit. We want to live, walk, and do all things by the Spirit so that we may experience Christ, enjoy God the Father, and enjoy the fullness of the Triune God! Hallelujah, God is in the Son, the Son is the Spirit now, and He is the wonderful Spirit in us! Amen, Lord, we choose to live not in the realm of the tree of knowledge of good and evil but in the realm of the tree of life by doing all things by the Spirit, in the Spirit, through the Spirit, and with the Spirit! May we be one spirit with You as we speak to others. Lord, speak in us. Be one spirit with us and make us one spirit with You practically in our daily living. Grow in us; may we grow in Christ. Do things in us and through us as we do things in You and by the Spirit. Amen, Lord, we want to take care of our spirit, do all things by exercising our spirit, and be by the Spirit so that Christ may live in us! Hallelujah for our spirit mingled with the divine Spirit! Amen!
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 the brothers on this topic, and portions from, Life-study of Job (msgs. 3-4, 8-10, 12, 16, 30-31) by Witness Lee, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Noah, Daniel, and Job – Patterns of Living an Overcoming Life on the Line of Life to Fulfill the Economy of God (2026 International Chinese-Speaking Conference), week 1, Living and Working according to the Vision of the Age to Change the Age – day 6.
- Hymns on this topic:
– Now the Triune God has come to dwell within / As the wonderful Spirit in us. / We are mingled with the Lord, we’re one with Him / As the life-giving Spirit in us. / Oh, He’s the wonderful Spirit in us, / He’s the wonderful Spirit in us! / God is in the Son, the Son’s the Spirit now— / He’s the wonderful Spirit in us! (Hymns #1113 stanza 1 and chorus)
– O Lord, Thou art the Spirit now / Who in my spirit makes His home; / He mingles with my spirit too, / And both one spirit thus become. / Lord, teach me how to exercise / My spirit now to contact Thee, / That in Thy Spirit I may walk / And live by Thy reality. (Hymns #493 stanzas 4-5)
– God’s intention is to have us / All conformed to His dear Son; / Thus a work of transformation / By the Spirit must be done. / Lord, transform us to Thine image / In emotion, mind, and will; / Saturate us with Thy Spirit, / All our being wholly fill. (Hymns #750 stanza 1 and chorus)
About aGodMan
