CHAPTER ONE
ENJOYING GOD
Scripture Reading: Psa. 42:1-2; 34:8; 36:7-9; 84:1-2; 90:1; 91:1
In these messages I have a burden to speak concerning the way to enjoy God. This is a practical and intimate concern in the spiritual life of a Christian. We will spend some time to consider how a Christian can enjoy God.
GOD BEING ENJOYABLE
Some may consider the thought of enjoying God to be unusual, but the Bible clearly says that we can taste God. Psalm 34:8 says that we should taste and see that Jehovah is good. The Lord Jesus also said that He is our food; He is the bread of life. Because food is an enjoyment to us, His being food and bread must mean that He can be enjoyed by us.
A sweet thought recorded in the Word of God is that God is not only near us but that He has even given Himself to us to be our enjoyment. This shows the intimate relationship God has with us. When we enjoy our meals, the food we eat enters into us and becomes a part of us. Before we eat, the food is not a part of us, but after we take it in, it becomes our nutritional supply and strength. In addition, after passing through a process of metabolism, it becomes our inward element. The food we eat becomes a part of us, and we live by it. The relationship between food and our physical body is similar to the relationship between God and our entire being.
Psalm 23 is a favorite psalm among God’s children; hence, it is difficult to find a Christian who does not know the words the Lord is my Shepherd. God, however, is not merely a Shepherd who leads us, protects us, and cares for us. God is more intimate than a shepherd. If He were merely a shepherd, He could care for us and shepherd us only in an outward way; He would be unable to enter into us to become a part of us. He could not become us. However, the Bible shows that God gives Himself to us for our enjoyment and works Himself into us. He can enter into us to be our life, our strength, our food, and our living water. He can meet the need of every part of our being. Those who have experienced God know that He is truly our enjoyment. We can enjoy God in His sovereign arrangements and provisions, and we can enjoy Him as the varied supply to our inward being.
Man is composed of a spirit within, a body without, and a soul between his spirit and body. When God is within us, He can supply the needs of our spirit, soul, and body. God can satisfy the needs of our spirit by supplying us from within our spirit. He can satisfy the needs of our soul, or our psyche, from within our soul. He can also satisfy the needs of our body by supplying us in our body. Although our God is invisible, untouchable, and intangible, those who have experienced God can testify that they enjoy Him in their spirit, in their soul, and even in their body. What a glorious blessing this is!
Since God is so intimately related to us, the Bible uses many ways to describe and illustrate our enjoyment of God. Let us briefly consider some of them.
God Being Our Life
God is our life. Immediately after creating man in Genesis, God placed man in front of the tree of life (2:8-9). At the end of Revelation the tree of life is still present (22:2). The tree of life signifies God Himself. God is the source of life. When God says that He wants man to come to the tree of life, He means that He wants man to touch Him. God wants to enter into man to be his life.
Life is something very close and crucial to man. It can even be said that life is man himself. Without life it is impossible for man to be a man. The Bible shows that God desires to be man’s life. Hence, we can say boldly that if a person does not have God within him as life, he has not come up to the standard of a human being. The life a person has determines the kind of person he is. Those with a lower life are lower, and those with a higher life are higher. The life we possess in our natural constitution, our natural life, is a lower life; it is impossible for us to be a higher person with only this life. In order to be a higher person, we must have a higher kind of life. God’s life is the highest life. Hence, it is impossible for anyone to be a higher person if he does not receive God as the highest life.
A higher kind of man is noble, holy, loving, and patient, possessing no meanness or pettiness in his heart. Although there is a certain degree of magnanimity and tolerance in man’s natural life, these virtues are limited. In order to be unlimitedly high, a person must receive the unlimited God as the highest life. When the infinite God enters into us and becomes the highest life within us, we become persons of an infinitely high standard. We can love what others cannot love, we can endure what others cannot endure, and we can forgive what others cannot forgive. We possess a nobleness and a holiness that no mere human being possesses.
Everyone who has the life of God can be unlimitedly high. A person who has God as his life should have a standard that is infinitely high. While others may say that a certain matter is overwhelming, those with God as their life can bear it joyfully. When others find a matter intolerable, those with God can gladly and willingly tolerate it. A person with God is a high person, an unlimited person. It is impossible to attain to this high living with only the natural life that man possesses. This living can be attained only when one takes God’s highest life as his life. This highest life is the immeasurably high God Himself. He is life, and He is also the source of life. He not only dispenses His life into us but also enters into us to be our very life. He does not enter into us to be our life in small increments. On the contrary, He has fully entered into us. Day by day and moment by moment, He is in us as our life. Hence, we can enjoy Him every day. We can taste Him moment by moment.
We know the importance of air to human life. A man can be without food for seven or eight days, and he can be without water one or two days. However, if he is without air for five minutes, he will cease to exist. Air is vital to human life, and it is the most available item for man’s enjoyment. We can breathe on the street and in houses. We can breathe in cars and in airplanes. We breathe when we are conscious of it, and we breathe when we are not conscious of it. We breathe while we are listening to a message and in our sleep. If we have a measure of spiritual experience, we will realize that God is just like air to us. God is Spirit, and the Spirit is like air. In the original language of the Bible, in both Hebrew in the Old Testament and Greek in the New Testament, wind, breath, and spirit are the same word. Spirit is breath, and breath is wind. God is Spirit, and God is also breath. The Bible describes the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost as a rushing violent wind, which was God Himself (Acts 2:2-4). The Lord Jesus also came to the disciples on the evening of His resurrection and breathed into them, saying, “Receive the Holy Spirit” (John 20:22). The Spirit is likened to breath. This Spirit is also the very God Himself. When God enters into us to be our enjoyment, He enters as the Spirit, and this Spirit is like wind and breath. Whether we open to Him or turn away from Him, He remains our enjoyment. Wherever we are and no matter the time, God as the Spirit is available to us for our enjoyment. We can touch and taste this Spirit. When the Spirit enters into us, He becomes the Spirit of life. This Spirit of life, this breath of life, strengthens our spirit and spreads from our spirit to our heart, which includes the soul, and from our soul to our body. In this way our whole being is saturated with the Spirit as breath; that is, we are full of the presence of the Spirit. This is the practical way to enjoy God.