LIVE HIM
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; don’t 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 is operating in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure” (Phil. 2:13, Gk.). 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, “Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth, that we should 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 to will and to do of His good pleasure. In eternity past He predestinated us unto sonship. Now He is working within us that we may live Him.
TAKING CHRIST AS OUR HEAD
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, “For 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 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 (John 7:18).
PEACE IN DENYING OUR WILL AND OUR GLORY
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.”
(Life Messages, Vol. 1 (#1-41), Chapter 34, by Witness Lee)
