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God has predestinated us human beings to be His sons (Eph. 1:5). This is according to His good pleasure. It is most pleasant to God that a group of human beings can be men of God.
To be called a man of God does not mean merely that one belongs to God but rather that he lives God. This term is used even in the Old Testament. It is applied to Moses several times (e.g., Psa. 90, title). Of course, he was not a man of God for the first forty years of his life, when he lived as the son of Pharaoh’s daughter and became “educated in all the wisdom of the Egyptians” (Acts 7:22). Nor was he a man of God in the second forty years of his life, which he spent in the wilderness. By the time God called him at the age of eighty, he was just a country shepherd, all his power “in words and works” (v. 22) far behind him. He had already passed “seventy years” (Psa. 90:10); by his own evaluation his life was as good as finished.
It was during the last forty years of his life that Moses was a man of God. Because he was already at an end, he could live in resurrection, having God as the fuel to burn upon him. During those years of his ministry, Moses lived God. That is why Caleb could later refer to him as the man of God (Josh. 14:6). Deuteronomy 33 gives the “blessing with which Moses, the man of God, blessed the children of Israel before his death” (v. 1). Later on, in the time of Ezra, mention is again made “of Moses the man of God” (Ezra 3:2).
The most pleasant thing to God is to have some people on this earth who are living Him. This is His heart’s desire. Even if you are young, God wants you to live Him before your family. Even if you live in a palatial home and have Pharaoh for your father, God still wants you to live Him there. Living Him means being one with Him. This is what makes you a man of God. It is not merely that you represent Him. God wants to be lived out of you. In your speaking, He would speak. He would like the work that you do to be what He is doing. You are only a human being, but you can have a divine living.
In the Epistles to Timothy the phrase man of God is used again. Paul wrote these Epistles when the church was in a state of degradation. In such a time “the man of God may be complete, fully equipped for every good work” (2 Tim. 3:17). Would you like to be a man of God? The preceding verse tells us the way: “All Scripture is God-breathed” (v. 16). By breathing in God’s Word, spontaneously you will live God. Take ten minutes every morning to pray-read the Word. By breathing in His Word and eating of Him, you will become a man of God. Even if you are quite young, you can still live God. I do not mean that you will improve your behavior. I am talking about God Himself being expressed through you.
The standard pattern of a man of God is not Moses but Jesus of Nazareth. He was surely a man: He had a mother, and He lived in a small town for thirty years. Then He came forth to minister for three and a half years. If you read through the four Gospels, you will see that there is not much mention of works that He did. Mostly He just lived and walked among His disciples.
However, He did not live out Himself. He explained His relation to the Father in this way: “As the living Father has sent Me and I live because of the Father, so he who eats Me, he also shall live because of Me” (John 6:57). He also told the Jews, “Truly, truly, I say to you, The Son can do nothing from Himself except what He sees the Father doing, for whatever that One does, these things the Son also does in like manner” (5:19). He could say, “I can do nothing from Myself” (v. 30). In John 10:30 He went on to say, “I and the Father are one.”
Here was a man who lived out God. This is why the Father delighted in Him. However much you try to do for God, He will not be impressed. Simply live Him, and you will touch His heart.
I have stayed in many homes. Sometimes I have observed wives very busily doing one thing after another with the intention of serving their husbands. It was plain to me that the husbands were not pleased. I would have liked to say, “Wife, stop your doing. Just go and sit by your husband. Say whatever he says. Live him; do not do things for him.”
Consider how many Christians are busily doing things for God. Do you not realize that God is disgusted with your doing? He wants you to spend some time with Him, looking at Him and living Him out. “It is God who operates in you both the willing and the working for His good pleasure” (Phil. 2:13). Stop your foolish work. Be quiet and let God operate in you. Let Him work. This is what it means to live God.
If we want God to rejoice that He created the earth and that He created man, live Him. Then He will see His purpose being fulfilled. James 1:18 says, “He brought us forth by the word of truth, purposing that we might be a kind of firstfruits of His creatures.” We have been begotten by God. We may say that the incarnation is repeated with our regeneration. God initially became incarnate in Christ. Now whenever one is regenerated, the incarnation is repeated.
Peter tells us that we are “partakers of the divine nature” (2 Pet. 1:4). By our first birth we partake of human nature. Now that we have been begotten of God by the new birth, we partake of the divine nature. Our status is both human and divine. We are not merely sons of man but sons of God as well. Two thousand years ago in the Holy Land there was only one man like this. Now there are thousands. God the Father is operating or energizing in us both the willing and the working for His good pleasure. In eternity past He predestinated us unto sonship. Now He is working within us so that we may live Him.
Since we have within us our own life as well as the divine life, how are we to live out the divine life? We can see from the life of Jesus that there must be a setting aside of our own life. He said, “I have come down from heaven not to do My own will but the will of Him who sent Me” (John 6:38). This verse clearly indicates that the Lord Jesus had a will of His own but that He laid it aside.
In the marriage relationship there can be only one head. That is the origin of the universal custom for the bride to have her head covered at her wedding. The head covering is a declaration that the bride from then on is taking the husband as her head. If the wife refuses to keep her head covered in her married life, the result may well be separation or divorce.
Our Christian life is a married life. The Lord is our Head. Our own head must be kept covered. This means that we are to deny our own life. We are those with both a human life and a divine life. Since only one life can be lived, our natural life must be denied. The way to deny the self is to deny our will and our glory. The Lord Jesus said that He was not seeking His own glory but that of the One who had sent Him (7:18).
The key to a happy married life is for the wife to deny her own will and glory. If she will turn from her wishes and care only for her husband’s will, if she will disregard her own glory and let all the glory go to him, the problems in the family will disappear. Do not think that I am introducing some concept to bring you sisters into bondage! Even the Lord Jesus set aside His own will and His own glory. Because of this, He brought peace.
This same principle applies in the church life. Problems arise when we seek our own will and glory. These two terms comprise the essence of our human life. Because we feel insignificant, whenever we get a little job, we want to be king over it. We get annoyed if anyone interferes with the way we do it. But there will be peace in the family and peace in the church if we have the grace to put aside our will and our glory. “Lord, make me willing to lay aside my will, as You did when You were on this earth. Grant me the grace to live on earth not seeking my own glory. Lord, be the grace within me that I may put aside my will and my glory.”
To practice putting aside your will and your glory is not easy. You may feel that you are willing or at least willing to be made willing. But very soon a situation will arise, and you will see that you are not. Why is it that you have been seeking the Lord and meeting with the saints for so many years and yet have so little growth in life? It is because of your will and glory.
It would be helpful to pray-read these verses over and over: “Truly, truly, I say to you, The Son can do nothing from Himself except what He sees the Father doing, for whatever that One does, these things the Son also does in like manner...I can do nothing from Myself; as I hear, I judge, and My judgment is just, because I do not seek My own will but the will of Him who sent Me...I have come down from heaven not to do My own will but the will of Him who sent Me...He who speaks from himself seeks his own glory, but He who seeks the glory of Him who sent Him, this One is true, and unrighteousness is not in Him” (5:19, 30; 6:38; 7:18).
To overcome sin, self, and the world is not a problem. The reason you are defeated and have become so worldly and sinful is that you are so much in your will and your glory.
It is beyond our ability to lay aside our will and our glory, however willing we may think we are. Such a life can be lived only in resurrection. The Lord Himself is the resurrection (11:25). Only in Him can we have a life under the cross. As A. B. Simpson’s hymn says,
This hymn came out of the author’s experience of Philippians 3:10: “To know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death.” A. B. Simpson learned how to experience the death of Christ in His resurrection power. In ourselves we do not have such a power.
Compare a stone with a grain of wheat. There is no life inside the stone. The seed, however, has something concealed in it. There is life inside. When the seed falls into the earth and dies, this very death stirs up the life power within. This illustration, which the Lord gave in John 12:24, is of a crucified life in resurrection.
The Father’s pleasure is that we fall into the earth and die, i.e., that we live a crucified life. When we die, the inner power of life will be energized. Death ushers in the resurrection power. “Lord, open my eyes to see that my will and my glory have to be put aside. Then show me that You are the resurrection power within me. I praise You that I am not a lifeless stone. I am a grain of wheat. Within me You are the resurrection power. Lord, give me the vision that if I die, You live. I am here before You.” The Lord will work in us the willingness. It does not come from ourselves.
In Luke 12:50 He said, “I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how am I pressed until it is accomplished!” He was saying that until He entered into death, He was pressed, or restricted. Death released Him. In us the Lord Jesus again has a baptism to be baptized with. Our humanity is a restriction, just as the resurrection life in the Lord Jesus was restrained when He was in the flesh. The death of the cross broke the shell of the grain of wheat and released the inner resurrection life.
We need to be conformed to the death of Christ. This breaks the shell of our humanity so that the resurrection life may come forth. From this life comes “much fruit” (John 12:24). The saints will be edified, the church built up, and God’s eternal purpose accomplished.
What is the good pleasure of God? He wants you to live a crucified life in resurrection. He wants you to enter into the death of Christ and remain there to be conformed to it. This will shatter every part of your humanity. “We have this treasure in earthen vessels that the excellency of the power may be of God and not out of us” (2 Cor. 4:7). The treasure is released when the earthen vessel is shattered.
“We who are alive are always being delivered unto death for Jesus’ sake that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. So then death operates in us, but life in you” (vv. 11-12). As this death works upon us, the life within goes to others. If you are a sinner, this life will save you. If you are a believer, this life will edify you.
What the Lord is seeking to recover is a crucified life in resurrection. May we all see that the resurrection power is waiting within us for a chance to be released. We must remain in the death of Christ and be conformed to it. This death will stir up and usher in the resurrection power. The result will be nourishment, building up, and the fulfillment of God’s eternal purpose. This is the life that pleases God.
He longs for the life that He imparted into us at our new birth to be expressed. Where can God find on this earth those who are men of God? Who will lay aside the human life to express the divine life? It can only be those who deny their own will and their own glory, as the pattern of the Lord Jesus reveals. In ourselves there is no possibility of realizing this. That is why we must pray for Him to make us willing. He is working in us “the willing and the working for His good pleasure” (Phil. 2:13). We were marked out to be His sons even before we were created. As we live this crucified life in resurrection, day by day His eternal purpose is being fulfilled. We are among those human beings who are learning to live a divine life.
