The bountiful supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ is for us to live Christ. In Philippians 1:19 Paul says, “I know that for me this will turn out to salvation through your petition and the bountiful supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ.” Salvation in this verse means to be sustained and strengthened to live and magnify Christ; this requires the bountiful supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ. The circumstances in which Paul found himself forced him to experience and enjoy Christ in a fuller way through the bountiful supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ. Paul’s circumstances encouraged him to live Christ and to magnify Christ.
In verse 21 Paul continues, “For to me, to live is Christ.” Paul’s life was to live Christ. If we would live Christ, we must take Him as our person and be one person with Him. He and we must be one in a practical way. In Galatians 2:20 Paul declares, “It is Christ who lives in me.” For Paul, this was not a mere doctrine; it was a fact. It should also be real to us that Christ lives in us. Furthermore, we should abide in Him and allow Him to abide in us.
Paul’s life was to live Christ. To him, to live was Christ, not the law or circumcision. He would not live the law but would live Christ, not be found in the law but be found in Christ (Phil. 3:9). Christ was not only his life within but also his living without. He lived Christ because Christ lived in him. He was one with Christ both in life and in living. He and Christ had one life and one living. They lived together as one person. Christ lived within him as his life, and he lived Christ without as His living. The normal experience of Christ is to live Him, and to live Him is to magnify Him always, regardless of the circumstances.
To live Christ is not merely to have a holy life or to live holiness. To live Christ is to live a person. We should simply live Christ. We should live a life which is Christ Himself. In our Christian life, quite often we are still the ones living our natural life. We are not living Christ. To live Christ is to let Christ Himself live from within us.
In order to live Christ, we must take Him as our person and as our life. Every morning we should pray, “Lord, I thank You for another day to practice living You. Lord, in myself I cannot do this. I ask You to remind me to live You and grant me the grace that I need for this.” God does not care for how holy, spiritual, or victorious we are in ourselves. Actually, to live in this way by self-effort is to strive to keep the law. What counts in the eyes of God is Christ and the living of Christ. We all must fight and struggle to enter into the genuine living of Christ in a practical way. God wants His people to live Christ. We should not care for holiness, spirituality, or victory as things in themselves, and we should not care for our natural virtues or attributes. Instead, we should focus our whole attention on living Christ and care only to live Christ so that He might be magnified in us.
In the book of Philippians Paul encourages us to think the one thing (2:2). This one thing is to live Christ. We should care only to live Christ and magnify Him. Instead of pursuing holiness, spirituality, or victory, we should seek to live Christ and magnify Him always with all boldness, whether through life or through death. God’s desire today is that we live Christ. We should not allow anything to distract us from the direct, personal experience of Christ. Today we need to focus our attention on the one thing—to live Christ.
When Paul was in prison, he was living Christ. Therefore, he could be found not in the law but in Christ. At any time men, angels, and demons could find him in Christ. We also need to be found by others in Christ, not simply in our good behavior. Others should sense that there is something different about us. All our relatives, friends, and colleagues should find us in Christ.
If we would be found in Christ, we must live Christ. Only when we live Christ will we be found in Him by others and by the angels and demons. However, if we are law-keepers, we will be found in the law instead of in Christ. We are not here to express the law or magnify the law; our goal is to express Christ and magnify Him. We all need to pray, “Lord, have mercy on me and rescue me not only from sinful things but also from good things, even spiritual things, that replace You in my daily life. Lord, rescue me from everything back to Yourself. I ask You to grant me the grace each day so that I may truly live You and be found in You.” May we all seek the one thing and pursue the one thing—to live Christ.
Christ is our life. We, the God-men, live a human life to express God, not by our own life, our natural life, but by the divine life of Christ in resurrection (Col. 3:4). This living of Christ includes pursuing and gaining Christ (Phil. 3:8, 12-14). If we have not gained Christ, we cannot live Him. Living Christ also includes tasting Christ for growing in Him (1 Pet. 2:2-3) and enjoying Christ as the God-allotted portion and participating in His riches in the fellowship of God (Col. 1:12). First Corinthians 1:9 says that God has called us into the fellowship of Christ, the enjoyment of Christ. If we do not gain Him or taste Him, we cannot enjoy Him and thereby live Him.
Abiding in Christ and having Him abide in us for His life to grow in fruit-bearing are also a part of living Christ (John 15:4-5). To live Christ by the divine life of Christ in resurrection is to have Christ grow in us so that we may be conformed to the image of Christ as the Firstborn among many brothers (Gal. 4:19; Rom. 8:29b). Furthermore, to live Christ includes growing into Christ in everything that we may mature in the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ (Col. 1:28b; Eph. 4:15, 13b).
For us to live Christ means that no matter what our circumstances may be, Christ is magnified in us, and we are not put to shame in anything. In the apostle’s suffering in his body, Christ was magnified; that is, Christ was shown or declared to be great (without limitation), exalted, and extolled. The apostle’s sufferings afforded him opportunity to express Christ in His unlimited greatness. The apostle would have only Christ magnified in him, not the law or circumcision. The book of Philippians is concerned with the experience of Christ. To magnify Christ under any circumstances is to experience Him with the topmost enjoyment.
If we allow the bountiful supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ to work in us, our daily living will be changed. Through the proper living, Christ will appear to be great in the eyes of others. We will be burdened to magnify Christ always and with all boldness. Through our magnifying of Christ, others will see His greatness and His unlimitedness. To magnify Christ in such a way is to live Him.
Christ is the all-inclusive life-giving Spirit. As such, He is in our spirit, and He is joined to our spirit as one mingled spirit. We need to remain in the mingled spirit, live in the mingled spirit, breathe in the mingled spirit, pray in the mingled spirit, and fellowship with Him in the mingled spirit. Christ as the Spirit in our spirit should direct us in everything. To live Christ is to live the Spirit who has entered into our spirit to become one spirit with us. Hence, to live Christ is a matter of living in our mingled spirit.
The central thought of the Bible is that God desires us to live Christ for the building up of the Body of Christ. The main point of our Christian life is to live Christ. To live Christ should be our primary goal; all the troubles in our Christian life come because of our not living Christ. We need to practice to live Christ, realizing that He is the life-giving Spirit in our spirit, until we live Christ habitually.
The climax, the highest point, of the divine revelation in the entire Bible is to live Christ. In order to live Christ, we must practice being one spirit with Him, and in order to practice being one spirit with Him, we must exercise our spirit to pray unceasingly. If we pray unceasingly from our spirit, “Lord, live in me; Lord, live through me,” we will build up a habit of not living our self but Christ; then we will live Christ habitually. The habit of living Christ is the habit of prayer. Apart from unceasingly praying, we cannot live Christ. It is only by such continual prayer, such breathing prayer, that we can live Christ spontaneously. In order to have such a prayer life, we must watch and pray, praying at every time in spirit, watching unto prayer in all petition, and persevering in prayer (Matt. 26:41; Eph. 6:18; Col. 4:2). Moreover, the foundation for us to pray is our love for the Lord. Because we love the Lord and seek Him, we like to contact Him, pray to Him, and call upon Him. Part of the secret of living Christ is telling the Lord again and again that we love Him.
Living Christ requires that we love Him to the uttermost. As we are engaged in our daily activities, our living should not be those activities but Christ. Our mind should be concentrated on Christ, but the concentration of our mind on Christ depends upon our love for Christ. This is the reason that the New Testament charges us to love Christ (Mark 12:30; Rev. 2:4-5; John 14:23; 21:15-17; 1 Pet. 1:8). If we do not love Christ, we cannot live Him; loving Him is the best way to concentrate our entire being on Him. When a young mother delivers a child, her whole living is that new baby; for her, to live is her new baby because of her love for her child. Likewise, when we love Christ to the uttermost, our entire being is occupied with Him, and we live Him. We need Christ to captivate us to an extent that even in our dreams we would live Christ.
In summary, we need to live Christ for His magnification by the bountiful supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ. We need to be saved from the failure of not living Christ and from the defeat of not magnifying Christ. The Spirit has a rich provision to supply us in full to live Christ for His magnification. The bountiful supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ contains all that the processed and consummated Triune God—embodied in the all-inclusive Christ who is realized as the all-inclusive Spirit—is, has, has accomplished, obtained, attained, and will do. This bountiful supply of the Spirit is the unsearchable riches of Christ to meet in time the need of the seekers of Christ. When we truly seek after Christ, we will receive this bountiful supply. It is by such a bountiful supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ that the seekers of Christ, as His overcomers in the consummation of this age, live Him for His magnification in the New Testament economy of God for the producing and building up of the organic Body of Christ as the counterpart of the consummated Triune God, which will consummate in the New Jerusalem as His eternal enlargement and expression for eternity.