Paul was one who struggled to pursue Christ in order to gain Christ (Phil. 3:8, 12). However, very few of today’s Christians, including us, are like Paul. We may be seeking Christians, but we may pursue Christ only to a certain extent, being content with a routine church life and routine work and service for Christ. Following such a routine does not enable us to endeavor to gain Christ. Because so many Christians do not pursue Christ in order to gain Him, God needs the overcomers.
The Bible shows us that, first, God tried to work with the race of Adam, but the Adamic race was a failure. Then God had a new start with another race, with Israel, the race of Abraham. Eventually, Israel also failed God. Then God went to another people—the church. However, although God has been working with the church for nearly two thousand years, God has not yet gained what He desires. Thus, as early as the first century, the Lord came in to call for overcomers (Rev. 2:7, 11, 17, 26-28; 3:5, 12, 20-21; 21:7), and today He is still sounding out the call for the overcomers. Nevertheless, even among devoted Christians it is hard to find some overcomers, some who are pursuing Christ in order to gain Him.
At the time of Joshua, there were two or three million Israelites, but there were not many Joshuas and Calebs. There were not many endeavoring ones, genuine pursuers of God. Without such ones both the good land and the Giver of the land would have been idle. Both the land and the Giver of the land needed certain ones to take the land, possess the land, and enjoy the land. Those who possessed the land did a favor to the One who gave them the land.
We today need to take and possess the land for Christ. We need to gain Christ for Christ. If we do this, we will do Christ a favor. However, if we go on living a routine Christian life and church life, we will not be able to gain the land for Christ. For this, God needs some overcomers. There are millions of real Christians on earth today, but where are the overcomers? God is calling for overcomers, but who will answer His call? Who will respond to God’s call by pursuing Christ in order to gain Christ? I hope that many among us will do Christ a favor by responding to God’s call for overcomers.
When we enjoy Christ, He makes us His possession. This is something organic. If we take Christ, possess Christ, and enjoy Christ as our all-inclusive good land, the land will become our supply. What the land supplies us will cause us to become organic.
The main thing that the land affords us is food. If we do not have food, we cannot be organic. When we labor on the land, the land will produce food. Then we eat the food that is produced by our labor on the land, and as a result we become organic.
Anything that we take into us as food transforms us organically. When the Israelites were in Egypt, they ate Egyptian food, and this food caused them to have an Egyptian constitution. Eventually, God brought them out of Egypt and into the wilderness, where they remained for forty years. Every day while they were in the wilderness they ate something heavenly—manna. The manna constituted them into a heavenly people. Eventually, the manna ceased. Regarding this, Joshua 5:12 says, “The manna ceased on that day, when they ate of the produce of the land; and there was no longer manna for the children of Israel, but they ate of the yield of the land of Canaan that year.” From that time onward, their constitution began to be different, for they began to be constituted with the produce of the good land. Thus, the children of Israel were constituted in three ways: first, in Egypt with Egyptian food; second, in the wilderness with manna; and third, in Canaan with the produce of the land. In each case they were constituted not by teachings or regulations but by what they ate.
As believers in Christ today, we also are constituted according to what we eat. If we want to be a heavenly people, we need to eat Christ as our heavenly manna. If we want to be overcomers, we need to labor on Christ as our good land. To labor on Christ means to gain Christ as our enjoyment. First, of course, we need to take the land. This requires that we dispossess the “Canaanites.” After possessing Christ as the land, we need to labor on the land. Through our labor something will be produced, and that produce will become our food, our supply. As we eat Christ as this food and enjoy Him, we will be constituted with Him, being made the same as Christ in life and nature. This is what Paul meant when he said, “For to me, to live is Christ” (Phil. 1:21).
This enjoyment of Christ will transform us metabolically and cause us to become Christ’s treasure, His possession. Paul speaks of this in Ephesians 1. In this chapter we first have God’s choosing and predestinating, and then we have Christ’s redeeming. Through the redemption of Christ, we enter into Christ as a particular kind of element, and this element becomes our enjoyment that constitutes us into God’s inheritance.
First, God comes into us to be our inheritance. When we enjoy Christ, He constitutes us to be God’s inheritance. On the one hand, we have Christ as our good land, as our possession. On the other hand, the enjoyment of this possession constitutes us with Christ, and we thereby become God’s inheritance.
The process of being constituted with Christ to become God’s inheritance is altogether organic. This means that we need to take the all-inclusive Christ as our good land and labor on Him to gain some produce, which will be our organic, transforming food. As we eat this food, we will grow and gradually mature in the divine life. We will be constituted with Christ organically, transformed by Christ as a new element. Then in an organic way we will become God’s inheritance, His treasure and possession.