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In this chapter we will consider twenty crucial points concerning how to enjoy God. These points will give us an accurate understanding of enjoying God.
The first point is that God has no intention that man would do something for Him, nor is His intention related to doing things for man. In other words, God’s relationship with man does not depend on doing or receiving things. God’s relationship with man is not a matter of things.
God comes to man as food in order to be man’s life and life supply. God wants to be man’s food so that He may be man’s life. God’s purpose is for man to receive Him and to enjoy Him so that He may be mingled with man and become man’s content. Thus God becomes man’s content, and man becomes God’s expression.
Man’s living, move, and work should be the issue of the mingling of God and man. Everything related to man should be a matter of two natures. Even prayer and worship should be the issue of man being mingled with God.
Man can neither find nor enjoy God apart from Christ, because all the fullness of the Godhead dwells in Christ, the Son of God, bodily (Col. 2:9).
The Lord Jesus was incarnated to bring God into man, and He died and was resurrected to bring man into God. Hence, the union of God and man and the mingling of God with man are through the incarnation, death, and resurrection of the Lord Jesus.
The death of the Lord Jesus on the cross erased the record of man’s sin before God, dealt with sin in man, and solved the problems of the flesh, the old creation, Satan, the world, and death. Since every negative thing has been dealt with through the death of the Lord Jesus on the cross, we are delivered from every negative thing when we are joined to His death and live in Him.
After resurrecting from the dead, the Lord Jesus became the life-giving Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45) and entered into heaven (Heb. 9:24). Hence, everything that God is and everything that the Lord Jesus has experienced are in the life-giving Spirit.
The Spirit possesses all that God is and has done, and now the Spirit is the seven Spirits sent forth into all the earth (Rev. 5:6).
Any person who seeks God in spirit and truthfulness (John 4:24) will touch the Spirit. When a person touches the Spirit, he touches the Lord Christ and also God.
The Spirit initially reaches man as the judging Spirit, the convicting Spirit. Hence, when man touches the Spirit, he sees that he is condemned in God’s light and therefore is convicted (16:8).
When man is convicted by the Spirit, he breathes out his sins and the self. At the same time he spontaneously breathes in the elements in the Spirit. Thus man is filled with the Spirit, with the Lord Jesus, and with God.
To breathe in the Spirit is to eat, drink, and enjoy God. The God whom we breathe becomes everything that we need.
When we breathe in God, He not only becomes everything that we need; He also operates within us to carry out His will (Phil. 2:13). God desires to operate in man by being joined with man, mingled with man, and one with man.
Prayer is a matter of breathing. Prayer is not mainly asking God to do things. Rather, prayer is to breathe out the human element and to breathe in God. This is genuine prayer.
The Bible is the expression of God. God came as food in order to be man’s life; hence, the Bible is a record of God being food to man so that He can be man’s life. Therefore, we should not read the Bible in order to receive teachings or merely to understand the truth. We should read the Bible to obtain food and thereby obtain the supply of life.
Even though the Bible consists of words, the Spirit is life in the Bible. If we do not read the Bible in the Spirit, the Bible will be dead letters to us. Therefore, we must read the Bible with our spirit and receive the Bible into our spirit.
We should muse upon and pray over what we read in the Bible in order to receive it into our spirit. This is the way to combine reading the Bible and prayer. Eventually, it will be difficult to discern whether we are reading the Bible or praying. We will read the Bible when we pray, and we will pray when we read the Bible. Thus the words in the Bible will be spirit and life to us (John 6:63).
Reading the Bible with prayer is the practical way to eat, drink, and enjoy God. If we want to enjoy God, we must read the Bible and pray. Both are indispensable. God has ordained that everything in the universe has two sides. For example, there are heaven and earth, yin and yang, male and female, inside and outside, and left and right. Likewise, in order to enjoy God, we cannot neglect reading the Bible or prayer. Both reading the Bible and prayer must be done simultaneously.
The children of Israel experienced the pillar of cloud and the pillar of fire in the wilderness (Exo. 13:21-22). The pillar of cloud signifies the Spirit, and the pillar of fire signifies the Word. The pillar of cloud and the pillar of fire are one because both are the embodiment of God, the expression of God.
God is Spirit, and God is the Word (John 4:24; 1:1); furthermore, His words are spirit (6:63). Prayer is to breathe the Spirit, and reading the Bible is to read the word of God. When we mingle our prayer with reading the Bible, we mingle the word of God with the Spirit and thus receive them into us for our enjoyment.
We can give many messages concerning the enjoyment of God, but these twenty points are a summary of enjoying God. May we grasp these points and spend time to practice them. Then we will have a clear and thorough understanding concerning the enjoyment of God.
Question: Is it true that God does not want us to do anything for Him?
Answer: God does not want man to do anything for Him. This is revealed with the tree of life in Genesis 2. The first mention of a matter in the Bible establishes the principle of that matter. The first time God presented Himself to man, He presented Himself as the tree of life for man to eat, that is, in the form of food. The tree of life unveils that God’s relationship with created man did not depend on man doing something for God or on God doing something for man. On the contrary, God desired to be food to man so that man might have life. God wanted man to eat Him and receive Him. God cared for only one thing: to enter into man and be mingled with man to become man’s content. This is the vision revealed in the first two chapters of Genesis.
The section of the Bible from Genesis 3 through Revelation 20 is not the main line of the Bible. This section is a detour that digresses from the main line. The first two chapters of Genesis should be connected directly to the last two chapters of Revelation. These four chapters of the Bible unveil how God, as the tree of life, desires to enter into man in order to be mingled with man. Hence, in the first two chapters of Genesis we see a blueprint, and in the last two chapters of Revelation we see the completion of God’s building and the fulfillment of His desire. In the last two chapters of Revelation God’s redeemed people have become a corporate new creation, the New Jerusalem. In the New Jerusalem the river of water of life flows with the tree of life growing along both sides of the river. These allegories show that the New Jerusalem is God mingled with man to be man’s content and to be expressed through man. For this reason we emphasize that the first two chapters of Genesis and the last two chapters of Revelation are connected as one line. These four chapters are the main line of the Bible.
Some might ask why the detour begins in Genesis 3. This detour begins because man was deceived by Satan to eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Consequently, Satan, as the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, entered into man and was mixed with man (vv. 1-6). Hence, there is a detour until we come to Revelation 20. In Revelation 20 God deals with and removes the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, which was mixed with man. At the end of the detour there is a turn back to the line of the tree of life. The main line of the Bible concerns the tree of life; the detour concerns God’s dealing with the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. In the main line God takes the form of food in order to be man’s life and to be mingled with man; on the detour Satan, as the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, is mixed with man. God deals with Satan and his relationship with man through the cross (John 12:31-33; 14:30; 16:11).
According to the main line of the Bible, God has no intention for man to do anything for Him, nor does He intend to do anything for man. God’s intention is to enter into man and be mingled with man to be man’s life and everything to man and then to be expressed through man. If we would see this vision, the divine life will do many things through us without our even having a sense that we have done something for God. Our only realization will be that we are eating and drinking God and that we are letting Him be our life. Even being martyred for the Lord should be an issue of His being our food and our life. If our work is as great as that of the apostle Paul, it should still be a matter of enjoying God. Our work should not be a matter of doing something for God.
If we touch God’s intention, we will realize that He does not desire to do anything for man. Rather, He desires to enter into man and be mingled with man to become man’s satisfaction, life, and everything. Many experiences will come out of our being mingled with God. On God’s side it is not a matter of doing things for man. Rather, it is a matter of His becoming man’s food and man’s life.
Question: Madame Guyon and Brother Andrew Murray spoke of fellowship with God. Is this what we are referring to as the enjoyment of God?
Answer: The experiences of Madame Guyon and Brother Andrew Murray were rich and deep. In certain aspects our experiences may not be as rich or as deep as theirs. However, the light that they received from the Lord was not complete. Hence, their fellowship to enjoy God involved human effort. Madame Guyon spent much time involved with human effort, and those who receive help from her cannot avoid being ushered into human work. Madame Guyon may be considered a genuine mystic, and when Brother Andrew Murray was raised up by the Lord at the end of the nineteenth century, he accepted the practices of the mystics and made some improvements. Therefore, the light he received concerning spiritual pursuit was more advanced than the light the mystics received. However, we can humbly say that the light he received is not as clear as what we have received. The revelation that God has given to us makes the enjoyment of God very easy. There is no need for human effort. We need only to pray, read the Bible, eat the Lord, drink the Lord, and enjoy the Lord. This is the difference between what we have seen and what Madame Guyon and Brother Andrew Murray saw.
Question: Madame Guyon’s pursuit for fellowship with the Lord was personal. Should our enjoyment of God also be personal?
Answer: The mystics paid much attention to fellowshipping with the Lord, but they made a great mistake of stressing the individual and closed aspects. The more a person is involved with the mystics, the more individualistic and closed his experience becomes, until he completely loses the principle of the Body. In recent years the Lord has shown us the principle of the Body, which is of the Body and of fellowship; this fellowship is neither individualistic nor closed. Furthermore, the Lord has shown us a way to touch Him and a simple way to speak concerning touching Him. Therefore, it does not matter whether we practice enjoying God individually or corporately. An individual can enjoy God, several people can come together to enjoy God, and we can enjoy God even in a big meeting.
Second Timothy 2:22 says that we need to pursue righteousness, faith, love, peace with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart. Ephesians 3:18 says that we need to apprehend with all the saints the breadth and length and height and depth. Hence, we should reject the individualistic and closed attitude of the mystics. If possible, we should meet with all the saints regularly in order to enjoy God. Such a practice is sweet. The more we practice, the more we will be able to enjoy God in a meeting with many people.
Half a century ago most teachings concerning spiritual pursuit stressed the individual aspect. For example, Mrs. Jessie Penn-Lewis said that spiritual warfare was a very difficult matter. We now know that the difficulty was in her fighting individually. If spiritual warfare is done in the Body, it becomes easy and effortless. Likewise, if spiritual pursuit is an individual matter, it is difficult, just as spiritual pursuit was difficult for Madame Guyon. However, if spiritual pursuit is practiced according to the principle of the Body, it becomes very easy. Therefore, as much as time allows, the saints should come together regularly for corporate pursuit.
In 1 Corinthians 14 the meetings are for absorbing and expressing God. In such meetings the saints come together to absorb God so that He may be expressed. Some saints may pray, and others may give a word of exhortation. It seems that the church has lost this practice. Some believers can touch the presence of God when they pray and read the Bible privately, but they lose His presence when they come to a meeting. As a result, prayer and reading the Bible in Christian meetings carry the flavor of a performance and lack the element of inspiration. The word inspiration in the original language implies breathing. Hence, inspiration is the breathing of the Spirit. When we come together, our praying and reading of the Bible should come from breathing the Spirit. The words of encouragement that we speak should also come from breathing the Spirit. This is the practical way to eat, drink, absorb, and express God.
