Paying the Price to Gain Christ

God’s plan in creating man in His image and according to His likeness is that, God could come into man, live in man, and that man could express and represent God on this earth. This plan of God was partially fulfilled in Genesis as Jacob was transformed to Isreal and expressed God. In addition, Joseph, after passing thtough many sufferings, reigned in life, literally ruling over the entire Egypt at his time. 

And God said, Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of heaven and over the cattle and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth. (Genesis 1:26, RecVer)

From the reigning aspect of the life of Joseph, we could see that to gain food, four kinds of price need to be paid. The people who came to Joseph for food paid four kinds of prices: their money, their cattle, their land, and themselves.  These four items cover all the prices we need to pay today. When we pay with our money, cattle, lands, and ourselves, we receive all four types of supply. Money represents convenience, cattle represents the means of livelihood, and land represents the source of supply. And finally, the giving of their lives for food represent the consecration of one's life fully to the Lord.

And there was no food in all the land, for the famine was so very severe that the land of Egypt and the land of Canaan languished because of the famine. And Joseph collected all the money that was to be found in the land of Egypt and in the land of Canaan for the grain which they bought, and Joseph brought the money into Pharaoh’s house. And when the money from the land of Egypt and from the land of Canaan had been spent, all the Egyptians came to Joseph saying, Give us food, for why should we die in your presence? For our money is gone. And Joseph said, Bring your livestock, and I will give you food in exchange for your livestock, if your money is gone. And they brought their livestock to Joseph, and Joseph gave them food in exchange for the horses and for the flocks of sheep and for the herds of cattle and for the donkeys; and he fed them with food in exchange for all their livestock that year. And when that year had ended, they came to him the second year and said to him, We cannot hide from my lord that our money has been spent, and the herds of cattle are my lord’s. There is nothing left in the sight of my lord except our bodies and our lands. Why should we die before your eyes, both we and our land? Buy us and our land in exchange for food, and we and our land will become servants to Pharaoh. And give us seed that we may live and not die, and that the land may not be desolate. (Genesis 47:13-19, RecVer)

In the spiritual application today, we need to consecrate our whole life to the Lord in detail by paying the four kinds of prices. This entails our consecration in giving up all that we have, only to gain Christ as life. Surely, many things that we love and many things convenient to us may be exchanged for gaining Christ as our food and life. Our paying the price to come to the word of God, spending time in prayer, attending the various church meetings, preaching the gospel, and shepherdig the new ones, are different aspects of paying the price. No pay, no gain. No price, no value. 

In the conclusion of the Life-study meeting on Genesis last Tuesday, we learned and fellowshipped this important matter to all the saints so that we all can pay the price to gain Christ. Only in this way, can we gain Christ and be constituted with Christ to express Him and represent Him wherever He placed us. What a glorious ending of the Life-study of Genesis!

Lord, grace us to pay the price to gain Christ and be Your expression and representation in this earth.