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Scripture Reading: Rev. 2:4, 7, 14-15, 17, 20, 24; 3:20; 22:14
The Bible contains a very profound thought that cannot be fathomed or perceived without revelation: God wants to enter into man to be man’s life so that He and man may have the same life, the same nature, and the living of the same kind of being — a God-man. This is neither a religious notion nor a moral concept.
God created man to be a vessel for Himself. Man is God’s vessel to contain God. Regardless of how noble and excellent you may be, you are nevertheless just a vessel for God. Only God should be your content. If you do not have God’s life and nature and if you are not filled with God, you are an empty vessel, and your human life, your living, your feeling, and your activities are all vain. They come to nothing. This is what God has planned and ordained for man.
How can God achieve His purpose? Consider the physical symbols. In order for something, such as chicken, to come into us to be our element and to be one with us, we have to eat it, digest it, and assimilate it. This is the way that it becomes our blood, our cells, and our essence.
With a view to this, the Lord said, “I am the bread of life...He who eats Me, he also shall live because of Me” (John 6:48, 57b). Only by eating the Lord can we receive God into us as our content. Not only do we need to understand, apprehend, know, love, believe, follow, and worship the Lord; even more we need to eat Him.
Christianity tells people to believe in Jesus, love the Lord, follow Christ, and serve Christ; but it has lost the goal. We do these things for the purpose of receiving the Lord into us as our life. They are the procedures to reach the goal — eating Christ.
Today the Lord wants to recover the goal. To believe in the Lord is not just for our sins to be forgiven or for us to go to heaven; rather, it is for us to receive the Lord into us so that He may be mingled with us as one essence. This is the goal. The apostle Paul said, “It is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me” (Gal. 2:20). He was even able to say, “To me, to live is Christ” (Phil. 1:21), because Christ in him was his life and his essence, and Christ had become one with him.
God’s desire for man is that man may eat Him. After God created man, He did not tell him to do anything. Instead, He placed Himself before man in the form of food to be received by man. God is edible for man to take Him in. He wants to enter into us, not only to be our life but also to be our continuing life supply.
The line of eating is consistent throughout the whole Bible. From the first two chapters of Genesis to the last chapter of Revelation, the matter of eating is repeatedly referred to. When the children of Israel were leaving Egypt, they had to eat the lamb. In the wilderness they ate the manna. After they entered into Canaan, they ate the rich produce of the land. When they offered sacrifices in their worship to God, they ate the various offerings. When the Lord Jesus came, He said that He is the bread of life and that we have to eat Him and enjoy Him. Even in the Lord’s table meetings when we remember the Lord, our emphasis should not be on meditation and worship but on eating. Concerning the bread, He told the disciples, “Take, eat; this is My body” (Matt. 26:26b). Moreover, He said, “Do this in remembrance of Me” (Luke 22:19b). Therefore, the true remembrance of the Lord is eating, which is for us to exercise our spirit to receive the Lord into us again and again. The more we eat and drink the Lord, the more real our worship to Him is. True worship is for us to open our inner being to the Lord for Him to fill and saturate us more.
Before man chose the way of eating the Lord, Satan came in. People usually say that man fell because of sin. Actually, man fell because he ate of things that were other than God. God wants man to eat God Himself, but Satan wants man to eat other things. The general term for all these other things is knowledge, which is represented by the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Christ is not knowledge but life. Man fell because he turned away from life to knowledge and from God to many things other than God. These many things are not always apparently evil (they include both good and evil), yet they all belong to death. To give up God and draw near to the many things other than God is to give up life and draw near to death.
When the Lord was on earth, many religious people came to contact Him, and what they expressed were their old religious concepts. For example, Nicodemus called Him Rabbi and wanted Him to be a teacher. The Lord shocked him by answering that man needs to be born again. What man needs is not the teaching of doctrines but another life, which is Christ Himself.
The religious leaders were often in conflict with the Lord. They stressed religious regulations, but the Lord cared only to enter into man as life. For example, He healed a man with a withered hand on the Sabbath. The religionists stressed the keeping of the Sabbath, but the Lord was concerned for the sick to be healed and for the dead to be made alive.
What the Lord encountered when He was on earth was the old religion. Today it is the same. The Christianity we encounter has fallen into religion. For example, during the time of worship, Christianity requires people to be quiet and to behave somberly; there is even music to help people to be silent.
The book of Revelation is neither for preaching the gospel nor for teaching doctrine. In Revelation the Lord gives a second call, a call to overcome. To overcome here is not to overcome our temper or to overcome sin and the world but to overcome degraded Christianity. The Lord’s call is directed to the situation of fallen Christendom. The church in Ephesus was very good in that she labored for the Lord with zeal and diligence. Nevertheless, the Lord told her to repent, for although she labored for Him, she did not love Him enough; although she did many things for Him, she did not enjoy Him sufficiently. The overcomers must overcome these conditions. The Lord wants us to enjoy Him. He said, “To him who overcomes, to him I will give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the Paradise of God” (2:7b). Right at the beginning this eating of the tree of life was there; it was the first thing, but it has been lost. Now the Lord is calling us to enjoy this matter of eating once again.
The Lord’s recovery is to recover what He ordained in the beginning. God ordained that man should eat Him, and this would become man’s destiny. Our lot is not to do this or that but to eat the Lord. For forty years in the wilderness the Israelites did nothing but gather manna and eat it every day. Eating was their occupation. Likewise, today God wants us to eat and enjoy Christ every day. It is not how much we do for the Lord but rather how much we eat the Lord. This is the Lord’s recovery.
Christianity is a religion with activities and works. There are many laboring Christians, but very few of them enjoy Christ in their spirit by eating Him. The whole church must enjoy Christ in this way. In Revelation 2 and 3, in the seven times the Lord calls for overcomers, the matter of eating is mentioned three times. The first time is with regard to eating the tree of life, the second time to eating the hidden manna, and the third time to eating the feast. These are like the three kinds of eating by the people of God in the Old Testament. Revelation 2 and 3 are for the recovery of the eating that was in the Old Testament. Christianity has lost this, and the Lord is calling us to overcome and to be recovered back to the beginning. When you eat Christ and are filled with Him, your temper is terminated, and the world is not a problem. Therefore, just take care of eating Christ.
One can never graduate from eating. Every day there is a repetition of eating. Hardships from husbands, problems from wives, and difficulties on the job can all be dealt with by eating Christ. When you eat Christ a little more, your problem will be solved. This way might seem to be too simple, but once you enter in, you will find that the more you eat Him, the sweeter He is, and the more you enjoy Him, the richer He becomes.
The Bible is a book on eating. Christians must be an eating people, and the churches must be eating churches. The brothers should eat and so should the sisters. The older ones should eat and so should the younger ones. Everyone should be eating.
The end of the book of Revelation says, “Blessed are those who wash their robes that they may have right to the tree of life” (22:14). This blessing is for those who come to the tree of life. Thus, ultimately man is destined to eat the tree of life, that is, to eat the Lord. Man will eat the Lord for eternity.
To be sure, after a person is fed, he will work. Well-fed children are very active and may even act like a destroying army. Therefore, we must first feed ourselves and then feed others. When everyone is fed, the church will be living. It is not a matter of doing things outwardly but of being alive inwardly. When we are filled by eating Christ, we become energetic. Today we do not need mere outward encouragement; we need only the inward supply.
In Revelation 2 and 3, eating is given as a promise in a positive way, while teaching is mentioned numerous times in a negative way. Eating is versus teaching. The Lord hates teaching. Perhaps you will say that the Lord does not hate correct teachings. However, how do you know which are the correct teachings? Every teaching is apparently correct. Counterfeit money appears the same as the real money; otherwise, no one would be fooled. Everyone who teaches wrong doctrine teaches it in a way so that it looks real. If you do not want to be a victim of counterfeit money, the best way is not to accept money but gold. Do not listen to any doctrine; only care for Christ. Doctrines may help us to comprehend and understand, but they cannot supply us.
Even biblical doctrines, without the Spirit in them and without Christ as their reality, are empty teachings. For example, concerning husbands loving their wives, you may have the doctrinal knowledge but not the ability to love. However, if you enjoy the living Christ by pray-reading, you can love your wife without exerting your own will. The words of the Holy Scriptures are spirit and are life. Therefore, when we are reading the Scriptures, we must call on the Lord and touch the Spirit to receive the supply.
In the Lord’s recovery we must practice calling on the Lord. When we call on the Lord, our spirit is opened, and when we breathe the Spirit in as air, we are refreshed and enlightened within. In the New Jerusalem there is only one tree of life yielding fruit for us to eat; everyone there will simply be eating daily. The church in Ephesus became degraded because she neglected the eating and was devoted to working. The Lord told her to repent. The elders and co-workers should not consider too much about how to work; they should take the lead to eat. Let us all come to keep the feast, come and dine together. What is the Lord’s recovery? Eating! What is the Lord’s way? Eating! What is it to be overcoming? Eating! What is it to be spiritual? Eating! Eating! Eating! Eating!
