Holding to Truth

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7 Ways to Gain Christ as Your Enjoyment Every Day

God wants us to daily gain Christ for our enjoyment.

7 Ways to Gain Christ as Your Enjoyment 3

Gaining Christ is not only so we will be satisfied but so that God’s eternal purpose can be fulfilled through us!

Yet, to many of us, God’s great plan may still be a mystery.

How marvelous that through the Old Testament typology—God’s “picture book”—He shows us how He wants us to gain Christ for our enjoyment!  Specifically, God  uses the picture of the good land of Canaan (Deut. 8:7-9) to portray how unsearchably rich Christ is to us (Eph. 3:18, 8).

Such an all-inclusive Christ is not only for us to receive but for us to walk in (Col. 2:6), implying to gain and possess (Josh. 1:3).

By reading the book of Deuteronomy from this perspective we can see that God’s intention for the children of Israel also applies to us.  His desire was that they would enter into the good land, live in the land, labor on the land and reap some produce of the land to offer to God and to enjoy together with His people.

Their labor on the land first issued in the temple, as God’s dwelling place for His expression.  Second, it issued in  the city, Jerusalem, as God’s kingdom, for His dominion.

In this same way, we need to receive and gain Christ with an issue—the church as God’s dwelling place and His kingdom (Eph. 2:21-22; Rom. 14:17).

Then how can we labor on Christ as our good land to gain Him for our enjoyment to fulfill God’s purpose?

First, we must receive Christ, before we can daily gain Christ as our enjoyment 

In Colossians 2:6, Paul encouraged us saying,

“As you have received the Christ Jesus the Lord, walk in Him.”

Receiving Christ is the base for your enjoying Him. That’s the beginning. John 1:12 says,

“But as many as received Him, to them He gave the authority to become children of God, to those who believe into His name.”

If you have never done so, please stop and pray,

“Lord Jesus! Thank you that as the eternal God you became a genuine, perfect man to die for my sins. I believe that You not only died to redeem me, but also resurrected to give me eternal life. Come into me. Enliven my spirit. I receive You right now, believing into Your name. Thank you for saving me!”

If you have prayed to receive the Lord Jesus, you are eternally saved. But this is only the beginning!

It is like receiving an inheritance.  You then need to enjoy it, to apply it.

The children of Israel each received an allotment of the good land, but they still needed to daily labor on their portion of that land in order to grow something not only for their own enjoyment but for offering to God.

Now let us apply this Old Testament picture to our present day Christian practice.

Here are seven ways we can labor on Christ to gain Christ for our enjoyment

1. Consecrate sincerely

First, to gain Christ we need to consecrate ourselves to the Lord every morning. As the Israelites were commanded to offer the burnt offering to God each day, we need to offer ourselves as a living sacrifice to God for His satisfaction daily (Rom. 12:1).  Our consecration is not to do some great work for God but for the purpose of simply enjoying and experiencing Him (Phil. 3:13-14).

May we be daily touched by Christ’s sacrificial love, to live to Him—a consecrated life.  As 2 Corinthians 5:14-15 says,

“For the love of Christ constrains us because we have judged this, that One died for all, therefore all died; and He died for all that those who live may no longer live to themselves but to Him who died for them and has been raised.”

Here are a couple of my favorite hymns on consecration to enrich your consecrating prayers:  Thy mighty love , O God, constraineth me  and Take my life, and let it be (with chorus).

2. Fellowship with the Lord privately

Second, each day, preferable first thing in the morning, we need to spend private time to fellowship with the Lord in an intimate way.  This is a time to turn our heart to the Lord, tell the Lord we love Him, and open fully to Him for His speaking and filling.

Matthew 6:6 says,

“But you, when you pray, enter into your private room, and shut your door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will repay you.”

Even the Lord Jesus, standing as a man on the earth, set aside private times to fellowship His heavenly Father (Matt. 14:23; Luke 5:16).

Here are two of my favorite hymns for morning fellowship with the Lord:  I come to Thee, dear Lord  and I come to His presence afresh. (Make sure to click “view lyrics”.)

I really encourage you to pray over the lyrics of these two hymns in order to enjoy a more personal, private, and affectionate fellowship with the Lord in the morning. Such a practice has greatly enriched my Christian life and made the Lord Jesus more precious to me.

3. Enjoy the Lord in His word early

Third, to gain Christ, we need to enjoy the Lord in His word each morning. After consecrating ourselves to the Lord and opening ourselves to Him in fellowship, we need to come to His Word for nourishment (Matt. 4:4; 1 Tim. 4:6).

Psalm 119:147 says,

“I anticipated the dawn and cried out. I hope in your words.”

First, cry out to Him from your deepest part, your spirit, by calling on the Lord Jesus. Then turn the words of the Scriptures into your personal prayer, mingled with your thanksgiving and praise to the Lord. You can even sing the Word for more enjoyment.

Such a practice will not only feed you but make you joyful (Jer. 15:16). I can testify to the tremendous benefit of spending regular time with the Lord in His word each morning.

Here is a post on pray-reading the word to be nourished.  Here is also a hymn that has helped me appreciate the practice of mingling prayer and the word: My heart is hungry, my spirit doth thirst.  I especially recommend praying over the lyrics to stanzas 6-8.

The main thing is to come to the Lord when you come to His word. Jesus said, “I am the bread of life. He who comes to Me shall by no means hunger.” We miss the food if we come to the Scripture without coming to the Lord Himself (John 5:39-40).

4. Deal with sins thoroughly

Fourth, to gain Christ we need to deal thoroughly with any sins interrupting our fellowship with the Lord. First John 1:7 and 9 say,

“But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from every sin….If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

We don’t need to be introspective, but just be open to the Lord’s light (v. 7). When we come into His presence and sense guilt on our conscience, we should immediately confess to Him.  You may also want read this post on praying confessing prayers.

Confessing our sins, wrongdoings, failures, and shortcomings is the best exhaling. This enables us to breathe in His Spirit as the fresh air to revive us.  Such a sin-dealing life will keep us from becoming spiritually old and stale.  Here a couple of my favorite hymns for praying confessing prayers:  O Lord, breathe Thy Spirit on me and Spring up, well, with water.

5. Maintain fellowship with the Lord by praying continually

Fifth, we need to maintain our fellowship with the Lord moment by moment by a life of prayer. We may have had a good start with the Lord in the morning, but it is easy to lose our fellowship with Him.

All the things we face in the world around us—the news, our family, employment, school, etc. can quickly draw us away.  But living a life of prayer keeps the divine “power switch on,” that is, it maintains the fellowship between us and the Lord Jesus.

Throughout the day, keep your conversation with the Lord going. Speak to Him about anything and everything.  Even when you think you have nothing to pray, speak short words to the Lord like: O Lord Jesus; I love You Lord; thank you for Your grace; Lord You are so good!

Here is a short spiritual song, that expresses such a life of prayer: O Lord, I love You, I really love You.

6. Be saturated with the Lord’s word daily

Sixth, we need to go on to redeem our time and expend our energy soaking in God’s word daily. Colossians 3:16 says,

“Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to God.”

We are not merely talking about filling our mind with Bible teachings.

Since all Scripture is God-breathed (2 Tim. 3:16), its essence is the Spirit. Hence, we need to contact the Spirit of the Scriptures with our spirit whenever we come to the Bible (Eph. 6:17-18). We also need to use our mind along with our spirit to “treasure up God’s words in our heart (Psa. 119:11).

Such a practice includes reading the Bible, musing on the Word and studying the Word with much prayer. In this way we will be soaked in God’s word and able to become a man of God with the breath of God—one equipped to be a good minister of Christ Jesus (1 Tim. 4:6).

7. Be filled in spirit unceasingly

Seventh, to gain Christ we need to redeem our time to be filled in spirit by singing to the Lord, rejoicing always, praying unceasingly and giving thanks in everything (1 Thes. 5:16-19). This point is the instant practice, the continuation of what I said in point 5.  May it become like our unconscious breathing, contacting the Lord to gain Him for our enjoyment constantly.

In 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18, Paul said,

“Always rejoice, unceasingly pray, in everything give thanks for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.”

You can also sing these verses as a spiritual song: Always rejoice.

7 Ways to Gain Christ - Summary

If you’ve been impressed with any of these seven ways to gain Christ as your enjoyment, please take a moment to leave a comment.

References and Further Reading:

  • This post was inspired from my enjoyment of Message 6 of the Crystallization-Study of Deuteronomy and is based on the ministry Witness Lee.
  • For more appreciation of this topic  you may enjoy reading Lee’s classic book The All-inclusive Christ. You can read it online at Ministrybooks.org or download the eBook for free from BiblesforAmerica.org/books..

About Tom Smith

Hi. My name is Tom Smith. I'm the writer behind Holding to Truth in Love, and I love the Lord Jesus and His life-giving Word. Please feel free to send me an e-mail through the contact page if you have any questions. I hope you'd take a moment to subscribe to the Holding to Truth blog. Then you'll be sure not to miss a post. Thanks!

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