As believers in Christ learning to love te Lord with the first love by giving Him the first place in all tings, we behold His beauty, ask for His counsel, we are dominated and governed by our spirit, we care for the rest in our spirit, we want to have a clear sky before us and Him, for we want to be His overcomers, for Christ and His overcomers will return to solve all problems! Praise the Lord!
Amen, Lord, we open to You and we give You our best love. We give You the first place in all things by faith. Conquer us and defeat us; never let us win, but defeat us all the time. Oh Lord, we want to have a clear sky between You and us so that we may enthrone You and give You the preeminence in all things. Make us Your overcoming saints, the mighty ones with whom You will return to end this age and bring in the age of the kingdom! Amen!
This week we have been prayerfully considering the matter of the tree of life, as seen in the book of Revelation.
The goal of God’s creation and of His complete salvation is life; what He wants is not just to create all things or even to redeem us but even more, to dispense His life into us.
When we touch the Lord, when we enjoy the crucified and resurrected Christ, we are nourished and supplied.
However, there are some obstacles we need to deal with so that God’s life may freely flow in us and out of us.
First, we need to be enlightened to see the darkness of our human concepts; may we take care of the living Christ in us and forget about our concepts.
Second, we need to see that whenever we live and do things according to our disposition and natural being, the result is hypocrisy; may we take care of the indwelling Christ and be one with Him in our living.
Third, we need to realise that we are rebellious against God, for we disobey His inner speaking; may we learn to follow the inner sense of life.
Fourth, our natural capability is a great problem to God’s life, so the cross needs to operate in us to break us for God’s life to have a free way in us.
May we learn to eat Christ as the tree of life in our daily life by giving Him the first place in all things!
May we be before Him and ask Him to show us what it means for us to love Him with the first love, the best love, and may we let Him constrain us by His love to regard Him and take Him as everything in our life!
Love the Lord with the Best Love by Beholding His Beauty, Asking for His Counsel, Being Directed by our Spirit, and having a Clear Sky with God’s Throne above it
The Bible gives us many ways in which we can love the Lord with the first love, that is, to give Him the first place in all things. One such way is for us to behold His beauty and to ask for the counsel of Jehovah in every detail of our Christian life and work (Psa. 27:4; Josh. 9:14; Phil. 4:6-7).
Like the Psalmist in Psalm 27, may we desire and seek one thing: to dwell in the house of Jehovah all the days of our life to behold the beauty of Jehovah and to inquire in His temple.
As loving seekers of the Lord we give Him the first place, and we ask for His counsel in all things.
We want to behold His beauty. We love to behold Him. We ask for His counsel, for everything and everyone around us tries to cheat us and defraud us of our enjoyment of Christ.
In Joshua 9, the people of Israel did not ask for the counsel of Jehovah when they did something, and the result was failure.
The enemy tries to trick us and cheat us, but we need to remain with the Lord and ask for His counsel.
May we not be anxious in anything but in everything, by prayer and petition with thanksgiving, may we make our requests be made known to God!
As we do this, the peace of God, which surpasses every man’s understanding, will guard our hearts and our thoughts in Christ Jesus.
May we not be presumptuous, thinking we know how to handle a certain situation; may we open to the Lord and ask for His counsel.
To love the Lord with the first love is to be governed by our spirit (2 Cor. 2:13-14).
To give the Lord the first place in all things is to be dominated, governed, directed, led, and moved by our mingled spirit.
It is not the outward need or the circumstances that govern us; we care more for the rest in our spirit than for anything outward.
We pray and open to the Lord, and we ask Him, Lord, conquer me. Make me Your captive. Never let me win. Defeat me all the time! What a prayer!
We really mean it: we ask the Lord to defeat us, so that we may be one with Him, loving Him with the first love and giving Him the first place.
What the church needs today is not more gifted persons but more defeated persons, those who are governed by their spirit and who are defeated by the Lord.
The problem is that we too often defeat the Lord, we overcome Him; may we learn to submit to the Lord and give Him the ground in our being.
As we ask for the Lord’s counsel in all things, we realise that His thoughts are far above our thoughts, and His ways are different than ours. Oh, may we open to Him and just love Him!
May we give Him our first love, our best love, and may we let Him defeat us, subdue us, and make us His captives! May we allow our mingled spirit to take the lead and govern us, direct us, even move us as we do this and that!
In this way, we love the Lord with the first love. We treasure our fellowship with Him.
We want to have a clear sky between us and Him, even a sky like awesome crystal with God’s sapphire throne above it (Ezek. 1:22, 26).
We do not want to have any cloud or problem between the Lord and us. We want nothing between.
We want to be filled with the heavenly atmosphere, condition, and situation of His ruling presence. So we come to Him. We come to the throne of grace.
We deal with anything that He shines on us, we apply His precious blood, and we allow Him to fill us with Himself. We take Christ as our King and we allow Him to rule and reign in us. He is the Lord. He is our King.
He is ruling and reigning. We submit to Him, we love Him, and we give Him the first place in all things. May we practice this in our daily life and in our church life.
Lord Jesus, we love You with the first love. We give You the first place in all things by faith. We come to You, dear Lord, to behold Your beauty. Our desire and yearning is to be in the house of the Lord all the days of our life to behold the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in His temple. Amen, Lord, may we learn to stop and ask for Your counsel in all things. May we allow our mingled spirit to take the lead in all things. Oh Lord, make us those who are dominated, governed, led, directed, and moved by our spirit! Amen, praise the Lord for our mingled spirit! We love our spirit! We care for the rest in our spirit! Oh Lord, keep us in our spirit! Have Your way to defeat us and make us Your captive so that we may follow You and be fully one with You! We give You the first place, dear Lord. May there be nothing between us and You. Fill us with the heavenly atmosphere, condition, and situation of Your ruling presence. Lord Jesus, we take You as our King. We allow You to rule and reign within us! Amen!
Christ the King will come back with is Overcomers to solve all Problems and Possess the Entire Earth as His Kingdom!
Those who give the Lord the first place in all things, that is, who love the Lord with the first love, are the Lord’s overcomers today. There are many problems on the earth, and the Lord’s first coming was not to solve all problems.
Only Christ the King reigning on earth with His overcomers as His helpers in the kingship can solve the problems of today’s world (Isa. 42:1-4). Amen!
When Christ comes as King with His overcomers, He will reign over the nations with righteousness, and all problems will be solved. Praise the Lord!
The overcomers are typified by Zion; they are the beachhead through which the Lord will return to possess the whole earth (Psa. 48:2; Dan. 2:34-35).
Just as the Allied forces used Normandy as a beachhead to come and defeat Hitler and his forces, and through this one point all the troops entered into Europe, so the overcomers today are the beachhead through which the Lord will return.
May we love the Lord with the first love today, giving Him the first place in all things, so that we may be His overcoming saints.
In a sense, we cooperate with the Lord in a small way, for we simply open to Him, give Him the first place, allow our spirit to rule and govern us, and enthrone the Lord in our being.
But this prepares us to be the Lord’s overcomers! Hallelujah!
Psalm 24:7-8 and 10 says, “Lift up your heads, O gates; / And be lifted up, O long enduring doors; / And the King of glory will come in. / Who is the King of glory? / Jehovah strong and mighty! / Jehovah mighty in battle!… / Who is this King of glory? / Jehovah of hosts- / He is the King of glory!”
If today lift up our head, we give the Lord more ground in our being. The gates are of the cities of the nations, and the doors are of the houses of the people.
Hallelujah, Christ, the Desire of the nations, is coming (Hag. 2:7), and we lift up our heads, never growing weary as we wait for Him!
All the nations, in a general way, are expecting Christ to come, but Christ will not come quickly according to our human concept (2 Pet. 3:8-9). He delays His coming, so we should not grow weary or lower our heads.
May we lift up our heads and await and expect His coming with long endurance.
Praise the Lord, the King of glory is Jehovah of hosts (that is, of armies), the consummated Triune God embodied in the victorious and overcoming Christ (Luke 21:27; Matt. 25:31).
God came to be incarnated in Jesus Christ; Jesus is the incarnated, crucified, and resurrected Triune God, who is strong in fighting and is victorious (1:21; Rev. 5:5). Praise the Lord!
This One, Jesus Christ the King, will come back in resurrection with His overcomers to possess the entire earth as His kingdom (Dan. 2:34-35; 7:13-14; Joel 3:11; Rev. 11:15; 19:13-14).
As we give the Lord the first place in our being today, loving Him with the first love, we are being produced as the Lord’s overcomers who will return with Christ to possess the entire earth as His kingdom.
We today are enjoying Christ’s redemption and we’re in the process of His organic salvation to be made the same as He is in every possible way.
Christ as the One on the throne of God has the appearance of sardius (its red colour signifying redemption) and jasper (its dark green colour signifying life in its richness). Amen!
In this way, when we submit ourselves to Christ’s headship and are under His throne, we are the beneficiaries of all that He is in His judicial redemption and His organic salvation so that we may bear the same appearance of the God of glory in His rich life (Rev. 4:3; 21:10-11a; Rom. 5:10).
May we welcome the Lord in our being. May we apply His precious blood whenever we sin, and may we give Him the first place in all things.
He is the King of glory, and He wants to gain us as His overcomers to return with Him and bring in the kingdom of God.
He is not only the Shepherd in His resurrection (Psa. 23) but also the King in God’s kingdom (Psa. 24).
May we be those who overcome today; if we sin, we can wash our robes in the redeeming blood of Christ to have the right to eat the tree of life (Rev. 22:14).
Those who wash their robes in the blood of the Lamb have the right to enjoy the tree of life as their eternal portion in the holy city, the Paradise of God (2:7).
Amen, we wash our robes; we are cleansed by the Lord’s precious blood. And we come forward to the tree of life to partake of God in Christ as life.
May we receive mercy from the Lord to focus only on Christ as the tree of life by giving Him the first place in all things and loving Him with the first love.
Even in our prayer, may we pray just to absorb God and enjoy Him.
May the vision of the tree of life govern us to the point that we become the Lord’s overcomers who will return with Him to bring in the kingdom on the earth!
Lord Jesus, we praise You as the King who is coming with His overcomers to solve all the problems on the earth and bring in the kingdom of God on earth! Hallelujah! We want to give You more ground in our being. Have a way in us. May we be the beachhead You need today through which You can return to possess the whole earth. Oh Lord Jesus, we lift up our heads and we turn our heart to You. Come in as the King of glory! We enthrone You! We praise You! We apply Your precious blood to be cleansed and washed from the stain of our sin, and we come forward to eat the tree of life. Hallelujah, those who wash their robes in the redeeming blood of Christ have the right to enjoy the tree of life as their eternal portion in the holy city, the Paradise of God, in eternity! Amen, Lord, we want to have a foretaste of the tree of life today in the church life. We exercise our spirit to enjoy You, give You the first place, and love You with the first love. We give You more ground in our being. Make us Your overcomers today!
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 brother Ray Mulligan on this topic, and portions from, Life-study of Psalms (Msgs. 11-12, 20-21, 31), by Witness Lee, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Experiencing, Enjoying, and Expressing Christ (4) (2025 December Training), week 41 (msg. 5), The Tree of Life – day 6.
- Hymns on this topic:
– Nothing between, Lord, nothing between; / Let me Thy glory see, / Draw my soul close to Thee, / Then speak in love to me—Nothing between. / Nothing between, Lord, nothing between; / Let not earth’s din and noise / Stifle Thy still small voice; / In it let me rejoice—Nothing between. (Hymns #373 stanzas 1-2)
– ’Tis the holy city, / New Jerusalem; / With His saints God mingles, / Makes His home with them. / He becomes their content, / His expression they; / They shall share His glory, / One with Him for aye. / He’s the very center, / Ruling on the throne; / By His life the power, / Saints are kept in one. / By His light of glory, / They are kept in light, / Harmony enjoying / In divine delight. (Hymns #971 stanzas 4-5)
– Look! God’s tabernacle now is with the saints; / Emmanuel—God with us, we proclaim. / Everything is done, so let His children come; / Christ and the church—where God and man are one! / Lift up your heads, ye cities of the earth; / Open your gates, and let the King come in. / Shout to His praise—He’s coming in to reign! / Shout to His praise—He’s coming in to reign! (Hymns #1222 stanza 4)
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