DOING EVERYTHING WITH CHRIST
In times past you may have tried to find out the Lord’s will for your life. You may have been concerned to distinguish between right and wrong. You may have spent time praying about what you should do and should not do. Dear ones, drop this kind of attitude. It is in the realm of the Old Testament commandments.
Turn from that way to pay your full attention to Christ. If you are going to speak, don’t ask, “Lord, is it Your will that I speak? Lord, what should I say?” Rather pray in a simple way, “Lord, are You going to speak? I do not care for right and wrong, for speaking or not speaking. I only care that it is You that is speaking.” If you are at an end regarding your wife, pray, “Lord, I’m getting mad at my wife. Are You mad at her too?” He will not be; thus the door will be closed on your anger.
Learn not to do anything without the Lord. Do everything with Him. In God’s economy it is not a question of what to do and what not to do. The vital question is, who does it—you or He? Even love, if it springs from you, is not acceptable to God. Whether it is love or hate, it must be Christ who is loving or hating.
THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE TREE OF LIFE
Why does the tree of life still appear in the closing book of the Bible? God wants to remind us that His intention for man will surely be realized. Man’s disobedience caused only a temporary interruption. God’s unchanging desire is to be received into His creature as food that the two may be one. His thought was not that man might behave decently and honor Him as the Creator with suitable worship. No! The tree was there declaring, “Here is God’s life. Take this life into you and live by it.”
When Christ came, once again God was presenting Himself to man in an edible form. “He who eats Me shall also live because of Me” (John 6:57). What we eat is assimilated by our bodies and becomes part of us. In a similar way, by receiving God’s life into us, He becomes us and we become His expression.
We partake of the tree of life when we open to receive Christ in His Word. He is our food and drink even in the New Jerusalem.
(Life Messages, Vol. 1 (#1-41), Chapter 26, by Witness Lee)
