Lose our Soul-life for the Lord’s Sake to Enter the Joy of the Lord at His Return

If we today lose our soul for the Lord’s sake, we will save it and gain it at the Lord’s return; at the Lord’s revelation, some believers will enter into the joy of the Lord while some will suffer in weeping and gnashing of teeth.

The Bible is quite clear when it comes to the matter of the salvation of our soul; if the proving of our faith is unto glory and honour, we will receive the end of our faith, the salvation of our soul.

Our soul is the organ where we feel, think, and decide; also, our soul is the organ for feeling joy or suffering.

It is in our soul that we suffer while being persecuted or while in trials and tests; our faith is being tested, but our soul suffers.

The enemy is attacking our souls, and the fiery darts are being shot at the different parts of our soul.

Especially when we are offended or upset, or when we allow a negative thought to lodge in our mind, the enemy shoots fiery darts and tries to take advantage of it.

But praise the Lord, we can take the shield of faith and quench all the fiery darts of the enemy!

By faith, we can have victory over the enemy, and our faith is our victory.

Though our souls may suffer the loss of enjoyment in this age for the Lord’s sake, if we continue in the Lord and contact Him again and again, He has a way to save our souls.

We are meant to enjoy, and the Lord gave us the organ of our soul to enjoy; however, the things of this world are not the real enjoyment.

What the world has to offer us and what the enemy entices us outwardly or in our soul is not the real satisfaction for our soul.

We may think that a career that constantly advances and brings in more money will satisfy us, but in the end, it will only enslave us.

We may think that the hobbies we have will make us happy, but it is all chasing after the wind.

The only One that can satisfy us is Christ, and He wants to be enjoyed by us.

On one hand, we need to enjoy the Lord and seek to have the enjoyment of Christ in our spirit and in our soul.

On the other hand, for the Lord’s sake, for the sake of the One whom we have not seen but we love, we lose the enjoyment of the soul in this age so that we may gain Him.

If today we lose our soul, that is, lose the enjoyment of the soul, for the sake of the Lord and of the church, when He returns, we will gain the enjoyment of Christ in our soul, and we will enter into the joy of the Lord.

We can enter into the joy of the Lord in the coming age only if we today pay the price, in this age, by losing our soul-life.

Though we have not seen the Lord, we Love Him and we Exult with Joy Unspeakable!

How we thank and praise the Lord for coming to us, reaching us, and saving us; we are grateful that He reached to us and unveiled Himself to us.

By believing into the Lord Jesus, we receive Him as our life, and He gives us the authority to become children of God (John 1:12-13).

However, all this is not in the physical or psychological realm – it is in the spiritual realm.

The Lord today is with us, even in our spirit, but He is with us in a hidden and veiled way (Matt. 28:20).

He promised that He will be with us until the consummation of the age.

We are now at the consummation of the age, and the Lord is still with us.

At His coming back, He will reveal Himself to us and to all, and everyone will openly see Him (1 Pet. 1:7).

Humanly speaking, we have never seen the Lord, but spiritually speaking, we love Him.

Though we have never seen the Lord Jesus, we love Him (1 Pet. 1:8).

Though we don’t see Him at present, we believe in Him, and we rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory.

Yes, on one hand, we suffer in our soul when we follow the Lord, but on the other hand, when we contact Him we are filled with unspeakable joy.

The inner joy we have when we contact the Lord, fellowship with Him, and fellowship with the saints, is unspeakable, and this joy is full of glory!

This is the real joy; outer joy, joy given by the things that are outward, is not real joy, and it will not last.

But praise the Lord, we love Him whom we have not seen, and we rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory!

We love Him because we believe in Him, that is, because He was infused into us to become our faith through the hearing of the living word of God (Gal. 3:2).

And the more we contact the Lord, receive the word of God, and place ourselves under the hearing of faith, the more we love the Lord, the more we are infused with Him as our faith.

And the joy we feel when we enjoy the Lord is unspeakable and full of glory. Our joy when we enjoy the Lord is unspeakable, it is a joy that is beyond our ability to understand or explain.

The Lord Jesus is so sweet and wonderful, and when we contact Him, we see and enjoy the hidden things of God, the things which He has prepared for those who love Him. Amen!

We all can testify that, both in our personal time with the Lord and in our fellowship with the saints, when we truly touch the Lord in spirit, we have a joy immersed in glory!

The joy we have when we touch the Lord is immersed in glory, and it is full of the expression of Christ. Hallelujah!

This doesn’t mean that our Christian life is full of ecstatic experiences, and we live in a heavenly realm that has nothing to do with the outward realm and the visible world.

Rather, we believers in Christ love the One we have not seen, and as we love and enjoy Him, we are filled with joy that is unspeakable and full of glory!

By believing into the Lord and loving Him, we obtain great joy, and this joy is the strength of our hearts.

This is the normal condition of a Christian, one who lives by faith and not by appearance. We exult with joy that is unspeakable and full of glory!

Lord Jesus, we love You! Though we have never seen You, we love You and we exult with joy that is unspeakable and full of glory! We exult in You, Lord, for touching You and believing into You brings us great joy, even unspeakable joy! We love to come to You, enjoy You, and be infused with You as our faith. Hallelujah, our joy is immersed in glory, and there’s much expression of God in our enjoyment of God! We love You, Lord Jesus, and we exult with joy that is unspeakable and full of glory. We come to You in prayer and fellowship, and we contact You by means of our spirit. Infuse us more with Yourself as our faith, and work Yourself into us much more today for the fulfilment of Your purpose!

If we Lose our Soul Now for the Lord’s Sake, we will Enter the Joy of the Lord at His Return to receive the Salvation of our Souls

At the Lord’s revelation, when He returns, some believers will enter into the joy of the Lord, and some will suffer in weeping and gnashing of teeth (Matt. 25:21, 23; 24:45-45. 25.30; 24:51).

To enter the joy of the Lord is to be rewarded by Him with the salvation of our souls, the end of our faith; this is a reward to those who lost their soul-life for the Lord’s sake in this age.

For us to enter into the Lord’s joy is the salvation, the gaining, of our souls (Heb. 10:39).

When we were regenerated, our spirit was saved; God’s life entered our spirit and our spirit became life.

However, our soul still needs to be saved.

Day by day we are being saved in our soul, and one day even our body will be saved in the divine life. When we reach the end of our faith, we will receive the salvation of our souls.

At the Lord’s second coming, our soul will be saved to the uttermost and will be brought into a higher enjoyment of Christ, if we today lose our soul for the Lord’s sake.

Not all believers will enter into the joy of the Lord at His return; only those who today take up their cross, follow the Lord, and lose their soul-life for His sake.

When He returns, Christ will say to the faithful believers who are His faithful slaves, Enter into the joy of your master.

However, those who did not deny their soulish enjoyment in this age will not enter into the joy of the Lord; rather, they will spend one thousand years in the outer darkness, in the gnashing of teeth and regret.

Today the believers in Christ have a choice: they can either be like the unbelievers, enjoying the pleasures of this world and allowing the soul to have its enjoyment, or they can choose to deny the enjoyment of the soul in this age to gain it in the next.

The unbelievers seem to be so free and loose in their enjoyment of all the pleasures of this world, but we believers cannot participate in these things.

We want to have the true enjoyment, the true joy, even to enter into the joy of the Lord at His return.

Yes, there’s a certain measure of suffering that we experience in our soul, but this is only temporary, for we will gain the eternal joy.

When the Lord comes back and finds us in the loss of the enjoyment of the soul for His sake, we will be rewarded by Him by being ushered into the joy of the Lord, and we will gain our soul.

The gaining of the soul means that we enter into the coming Sabbath rest, that is, we will share in Christ’s joy and glory in the coming kingdom (Heb. 4:9).

Our being is composed of three parts: spirit, soul, and body (1 Thes. 5:23).

When we believed into the Lord Jesus, our spirit was regenerated with the Spirit of God (John 3:6), and we were born of God in our spirit (John 1:12-13).

The redemption of our body, the full salvation of our mortal body, will take place at the Lord’s coming back, when He comes and will redeem, save, and transfigure our mortal body to conform it to the body of His glory (Rom. 8:23-24; Phil. 3:21).

What about our soul? The salvation of our soul, the gaining of our soul, depends on how we deal with it in this age in following the Lord after we’re saved and regenerated.

If today we are willing to lose our soul-life for the Lord’s sake (Matt. 16:25; Luke 9:24; 17:33; John 12:25; 1 Pet. 1:9), and it shall be saved at the Lord’s coming back (Heb. 10:37).

This is the reward of the kingdom which He will give to the overcoming followers of the Lord (10:35; Matt. 16:22-28).

May we be those who choose to follow the Lord at any cost and be willing to pay the price of the soul-life today so that we may gain it in the coming age.

The greatest reward that we can have is to enter into the joy of the Lord and be with Him at His wedding feast, ruling and reigning with Him for one thousand years.

We want to be part of the bride of Christ, the counterpart of Christ, who meets Him in His return and ends this age, enters into the joy of the Lord, and rules and reigns with Him!

Lord Jesus, we love You and we give ourselves to follow You, paying even the price of our soul-life today for the sake of Christ! Amen, Lord, we aspire to enter into Your joy when You return. Thank You for saving our spirit at the time of our regeneration. Thank You that You will one day transfigure our body to conform it to Your glorious body. Amen, Lord, we give ourselves to follow You by losing our soul life today so that our soul may be saved when You return! Make us Your overcomers. Make us those who overcome today by following You at any cost so that we may receive the salvation of our soul at Your return!

References and Hymns on this Topic

• Sources of inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, a sharing by the brothers, and portions from, The Conclusion of the New Testament, msg. 382 (by Witness Lee), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, God’s Economy in Faith (2022 spring ITERO), week 7, entitled, Taking up the Shield of Faith, Experiencing the Proving of our Faith, and Receiving the End of our Faith – the Salvation of our Souls.
• Hymns on this topic:
  – Through the Cross, O Lord, I pray, / Put my soul-life all away; / Make me any price to pay, / Full anointing to receive. (Hymns #279)
  – Whom having not seen, you love, you love; / Into whom though not seeing Him at present, / yet believing; / Whom having not seen, you love, you love; / Into whom though not seeing Him at present, / yet believing, / You exult with joy / That is unspeakable / And full of glory. / You exult with joy / That is unspeakable / And full of glory. / First Peter 1:8. (Scripture song)
  – Now is come salvation and strength / And the kingdom of our God / And the authority of His Christ: / For the accuser of our brethren is cast down / Which accused them before our God day and night. / And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, / And by the word of their testimony / And they loved not their soul lives unto death. / Therefore rejoice, rejoice, rejoice! (Hymns #1347)