High Desert Perspective

Posted By Lynn Courtney on December 29, 2009

This series of messages was given by the author at a special conference held in Shanghai from June 11 through June 18, 1940. They were delivered in Chinese, but a sister in the Lord took notes of these messages and set them down in English. This present volume is reproduced from the English notes with no more than some necessary tidying-up added.
Scripture quotations are from the American Standard Version of the Bible (1901), unless otherwise indicated.

What Is God’s Work?
Not that I have already obtained, or am already made perfect: but I press on, if so be that I may lay hold on that for which also I was laid hold on by Christ Jesus. Brethren, I count not myself yet to have laid hold: but one thing I do, forgetting the things which are behind, and stretching forward to the things which are before, I press on toward the goal unto the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. (Phil. 3.12-14)
And working together with him. . . . (2 Cor. 6.1)

God has His work. This work is not your work or mine, nor is it the work of this mission or that group. It is God’s own work.

Genesis 1 tells us that God worked and then He rested. In the beginning God created light, living creatures, man, and so forth. None but He could do this work of creation. And today He also has His work, which is not any man’s work, and which no man is able to do. God’s work can be done by none other than God himself. The earlier we acknowledge this, the better. For man’s works, man’s thoughts, man’s methods, man’s zeal and earnestness and efforts and tireless activities have absolutely no place in what God is doing. Man can no more have a part in God’s work today than he could have had way back then in creation.

In Philippians Paul says: “That I may lay hold on that for which also I was laid hold on by Christ Jesus.” The Lord Jesus has a special, specific purpose in laying hold on us—and that specific purpose is the thing we want to lay hold of. He has a purpose, and this purpose is that He might get us and that we might be co-workers with Him. Nonetheless it is still true that we cannot do God’s work, since it all is absolutely and wholly His. But on the other hand we are His co-workers. So that on the one hand, we must recognize and acknowledge that we cannot touch with even one little finger the work of God, yet on the other hand we are called to be co-workers with Him! And this is that for which He has laid hold on us. The Lord has a definite purpose in salvation—and a clear and specific purpose in saving us—which is, that He might have us as His co-workers.

What Is God’s Work?
What then is the work of God? Ephesians gives us this more clearly than does any other book in the New Testament. Verse 4 of Chapter 1 says: “Even as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blemish before Him in love”; and in 2.7 it reads: “That in the ages to come he might show the exceeding riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.” In addition, 1.9 has this to say: “Making known unto us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He purposed in Him.”

In any church meeting we often have those who rise up and speak out of their own mind. They are not speaking in the Spirit but are “out of tune”. What they say is of little or no value. But in God’s creation as He has designed it there is nothing out of tune. Everything is for the Son, everything is out from Christ and unto Christ. Not a thing is outside of Him. For God has included all in Christ: “In him were all things created . . . All things have been created through him and unto him” (Col. 1.16). All is in perfect harmony in God’s plan. And God is going to bring everything in His creation up to this level and to this place of perfect harmony. But we can do nothing in the slightest in this; God is doing it all and will do it all.

Who Is God’s Co-Worker?
God’s co-worker is the church. In two verses quoted earlier from Ephesians we get a glimpse into the two eternities: (1) “He chose us in him before the foundation of the world”; and (2) “In the ages to come he might show the exceeding riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.” And the name of the vessel through which this is to be done is “the body of Christ”, which is the container of Christ.

Now just who is a co-worker of God? Well, it is not one who wants to work for God, one who sees a need and wants to meet it; it is not even one who gets people saved; rather is it the one who does what God has appointed him to do in His eternal purpose, and only that does he do.

If we truly see that for which we have been laid hold on by Christ Jesus, all our labors, all our former works for Him will be smashed to pieces.

The aim and object of God in everything is to reveal His Son, to manifest His Son, to “show the exceeding riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.” This is His eternal purpose. Is this your object in the work you are doing now? If it is any lower than this, then you are not a co-worker with God.

You may ask the question: How shall I know that I am working together with God? This can be easily answered. Are you satisfied with what you are doing? If you do not satisfy God’s heart, you will not be satisfied yourself. It is not a question of comparing your work with that of another. It is a matter of whether or not what you undertake is at all good—that is, good in God’s sight, acceptable to God, out from Him and in line with His eternal purpose.
Paul declares: “That I may lay hold on that for which also I was laid hold on by Christ Jesus.” We need not look around and criticize others, wondering if it can be possible that all the rest are wrong and only we few are right. This is valueless and hurtful. Never mind the others. Let us be sure ourselves to “press on toward the goal unto the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.”

What Is the Church?
When we begin to look here on earth for some thing—a church, a testimony, a movement, a doctrine, an outward visible and tangible thing, we find it becomes at once just some more “technical Christianity”. It is merely an earthly thing—dead and useless. Now the body of Christ is living and spiritual. But when it is dead, it becomes at once a thing only.
We are simply to be a grain of wheat that falls into the ground and dies and brings forth a harvest. This is repeated again and again and again throughout the ages. It is a matter ever and forever heavenly; there is never the touch of earth about it. The church is not a collection of Jews, Gentiles, British, Americans, Chinese, and so on. For does not Colossians say: “Where there cannot be Greek and Jew, circumcision and uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, bondman, freeman; but Christ is all, and in all” (3.11)?

People think as we enter heaven’s gates that in order to enter we must all have a “piece” of Christ in us—and that lets us in. This is a horrible misconception. For at heaven’s entrance stands the Cross, and on this Cross you and I were crucified. Every Jew, every Greek, every Britisher, every American, every Chinese, and so on was nailed to that cross and never got into heaven. All that gets in is Christ, nothing of us ever gains entrance. Now that is the church. Whatever in and about us that is Christ, or of Christ, is the church; whatever is of us in us—whatever is not Christ himself in us—is not the church and will never get into heaven but will instead be destroyed. That in us which is the unmixed life of Christ is all that God will ever recognize or will have anything to do with. And this element alone is that which can work together with God.

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Think of it. God will only see the clean and holy Jesus Christ when He looks at us.  That is why He sent Christ to us, and offers the Cross.  We, on our own, would never be able to stand before our Holy God.  What do you think ?

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