As fallen ones, we may have the fallen natural concept that if we fear God, serve Him, love Him, and follow Him, we will prosper in everything; the unhealthy will become healthy and the foolish will become wise. However, God has not promised this. Hymns, #720 was written by an experienced Christian. Verse 1 and the chorus say,
God hath not promised skies always blue,
Flower-strewn pathways all our lives through;
God hath not promised sun without rain,
Joy without sorrow, peace without pain.
But God hath promised strength for the day,
Rest for the labor, light for the way,
Grace for the trials, help from above,
Unfailing sympathy, undying love.
Many times, God has placed those who love Him into trials and sufferings that they may experience more of Him. When everything is calm and peaceful, we seldom think of enjoying God and know very little about experiencing the Lord. Only when we fall into sufferings can we be humbled to trust the Lord wholeheartedly, call on Him, and enjoy Him.
This is why man often needs to be put into a situation by God to be stripped by Him. God may strip him of his health, take away his children, or remove the thing he loves most. This is a time of “weaning.” A small child is comfortable, warm, and satisfied in his mother’s bosom, but sooner or later he has to be weaned. A child suffers great sorrow during the weaning period. Very often, God “weans” us by taking away our outward blessings. Our health may leave us, we may lose our house, or our better children may die while the naughty ones remain. I have seen this happen. God may not take anything at first, but once He does, He only takes the best. He does not take the foolish children—He leaves them with us to make trouble—but He may take those who are clever, capable, and comforting. God wants to see whether we care for Him or for our children. Only God is not a suffering to us. Everything else, whatever we love, is a suffering to us. If we buy a car and love it, that car burdens us and damages us. When we buy a good house, that house puts us under bondage and brings pain to us. Even when we buy good clothes, they become a limitation to us. Whatever man loves is what damages him, but if we love God, God will not damage us. Apparently, it seems that God hurts us by taking away what we love and what, apparently, should not be taken away. Actually, He takes away what we love because we love that thing more than God. Abraham was tested by God. One day, God told Abraham to offer his son up to Him. Yet, when Abraham began to offer up his son, God said in effect, “This is good enough; you can keep him.” God no longer wanted him to offer his son. God does the same to us. If we can give all we have to God, He can also give it back to us. Therefore, we have to change our concept.
What is the living of the jubilee? The living of the jubilee is a life in which we take God instead of other things as our enjoyment and enjoy only God Himself in every situation. This is not to say that we should not study. On the contrary, we should study diligently. Neither does it mean that we should not work; we should work dutifully. Likewise, it does not mean that we should not be proper parents raising our children; rather, we should properly fulfill our responsibilities as parents. However, all these are just our living, our outward human life, which is not crucial. What is crucial is that the inward, primary factor of our human life is right. If our inward, primary factor is not right, our outward living will not be right. This primary factor is nothing other than God Himself. We must let God Himself be the primary factor within us. Only then will we know how to deal with our children, how to honor our parents, how to study, and how to work. If this primary factor directs us within, everything will simply be a duty to us, not a burden or hardship. However, if we are not directed by this primary factor, everything will become a weight and a suffering. In the end, we will become captives and even sell ourselves as slaves.
For us to live on earth today, we need to have a car for transportation and a house for lodging. We need clothing, food, and marriage. All these are necessities. Children should study diligently, be educated, finish college, and work hard. However, all these are just the duties of our human life; they should not become an encumbrance or a bondage to enslave us. However, if we do not have God as our primary factor within, we cannot avoid being under the bondage of these persons, things, and matters. We should be encouraged to get married, but we must not turn marriage into an encumbrance. When choosing a partner for marriage, our attention should not be focused on marriage, as an encumbering burden, but on God. We should also be encouraged to study, but studying should be an obligation and not a burden to us. As we are fulfilling our duty, we must have the Lord within. Often people ask me how they should choose a partner for marriage. Fifty years ago, I used to answer in many ways, but today I do not like to give suggestions. If one does not have the Lord, whomever he chooses is wrong. Even if everything seems to be right at the time of his choosing, once he is married, he may feel that he chose the wrong person.
The Christian life should be a life of fully enjoying the Lord. When we enjoy the Lord fully, He becomes our jubilee; that is, He becomes our inheritance and liberty. Not only so, the Lord also becomes our living. In such a living, we love Him to the uttermost and let Him be the Lord. Then He becomes the primary factor and center in us to lead us and govern us. In this way, when we pass through things, we will not be tormented, enslaved, or dominated by them. Instead, we will be free. I hope we can understand this word. By the Lord’s mercy today I have reached the age of eighty. I have passed through all the sweetness and bitterness of life, and I have thirty to forty children and grandchildren. Therefore, I have many troubles and many cares. Without the Lord as my primary factor and center within, I would suffer considerably. However, because the Lord is in me, I do not have any burden or hardship. Moreover, I do not put any hope in my children, my grandchildren, or my great grandchildren because I know that with hope there is disappointment. One who does not hope will not be disappointed, but the more one hopes, the more he is disappointed. Perhaps some will say, “Since this is the case, is there any meaning to human life? Let us give up.” Those who study history see the extent of the confusion among people in the world and often say that human life is hopeless. However, we may give up, but God will never give up. We can feel meaningless, but God does not. Although He has been dealing with mankind for six thousand years, He is not through. God will not give up; He is still waiting, and with Him a thousand years are like one day. God is waiting to gain us as those who have been chosen by Him, and He will work to the extent that His chosen ones on earth do not desire anything other than Him and are for nothing besides Him.
For our existence we cannot avoid having a family and a married life. We are also obligated to obtain an education and work at a job. However, all these are not our burdens; on the contrary, they are working for us that we may be perfected to enjoy the Lord even more. This is the living of the jubilee. A Christian’s life of jubilee should be a life of fully enjoying the Lord, a life that is full of joy and praises. If we cannot rejoice and praise, it proves that we are not living a normal life of the jubilee. This is why 1 Thessalonians 5:18 says, “In everything give thanks.” This is to give thanks not only in things that are successful but in all things.
The Lord came that He might save us and dispense Himself into us. If our heart is set on anything other than the Lord, that thing, whether good or bad, becomes a suffering to us. If our heart is set on our children, husband, or wife, the result is a suffering. If our heart is set on our education, business, house, or land, the outcome is misery. If our heart is set on any person, thing, or matter other than the Lord, the end is wretchedness. The unbelievers do not have the Lord; they have not received the Lord as their salvation. Hence, they can only set their heart on persons, things, and matters. However, since we have been saved and have the Lord as our center, we should set our heart on Him. When the Lord comes, He is our salvation to deliver us from sufferings. All sufferings come from the persons, things, and matters outside of the Lord. To those who are without the Lord, everything is a suffering. Whether bad things or good things, whether poverty or riches, whether being educated or uneducated, all are sufferings. However, when we have the Lord, He saves us from all these sufferings. If we take the Lord as our center, we can enjoy Him as our life of jubilee.
The living of the jubilee is a living in the enjoyment of Christ. The Lord is sovereign in everything. Everything we have is in the Lord’s sovereign hand and whatever He arranges for us cannot be wrong. In my life of following the Lord for sixty years, I can truly testify that where we go or where we stay is entirely not in our hands but in His hands. We may think that we are what we are today because of our endeavoring and struggling, but we must realize that without the Lord’s sovereign arrangement, no matter how much we struggled and endeavored, we could not be what we are. Everything is under His sovereignty. Therefore, we should empty ourselves of everything and tell the Lord, “Fill me, gain me, and possess me. Lord, no matter what the outward situation is, I just want to enjoy You. If I am healthy, I thank You. If I am not healthy, I also thank You. If I have children, I thank You, and if I am childless, I also thank You.” In this way, poverty or wealth and peace or danger are all the same to us. That is why Paul said that “as always, even now Christ will be magnified in my body, whether through life or through death” (Phil. 1:20b). For us to live is Christ, and whether we live or die, He is magnified in us all the time. In this way, we enjoy God and live the life of the jubilee. May the Lord have mercy upon us that we all may see this and learn to enjoy the Lord to such an extent.