God Rested and was Refreshed in Man, and We Work with Him after Enjoying Him Fully

It is a divine principle that God does not ask us to work until we have had enjoyment; we first enjoy God, are filled with God, rest with God, and are saturated with God, and then we work with God and for God one with God, for God first worked and then rested and was refreshed, and we first rest and enjoy Him and then work one with Him.

Lord Jesus, we come to You to enjoy You and rest in You and with You! Hallelujah, God has done everything, and we as believers in Christ simply need to enjoy and participate in what God is and has! Amen, Lord, may our priority day by day be to enjoy God and be filled with God! May we have a full enjoyment of Christ so that we may be one with Christ in our work for God and with God! Amen!

It is quite interesting to see how God created all things; He took time to create something every day, and on the sixth day, He created man in His image and according to His likeness (Gen. 1:26).

At the end of every day, God saw that everything He did was good, and then, after man was created, He said, Very good! He was happy when man was created, for now He has man in His image and according to His likeness so that man would express God and represent Him with His authority. Wonderful!

Before man was created, however, everything had been created; God created everything for man, and now that man came into being, he simply had everything there before him! Even more, after man was created, his first day was not a day of work but a day of rest.

Man’s first day was God’s seventh day, and He rested on that day. This sets the principle for our Christian life; we first need to enjoy God, partake of what He is, and participate in what He has done for us, and then we can work with Him.

Especially today, we as believers in Christ who have been shown mercy to see something of God’s economy and we have a certain burden to serve the Lord and care for others, we want to work for the Lord, but we need to be reminded that we FIRST need to enjoy Him and then work one with Him.

Unless we are properly nourished, supplied, and rested, our work will not be proper. We will work in our strength, with our zeal, and for our own purpose.

But if we stop and enjoy the Lord, if we take Christ as our life, our person, and our everything, we will rest in Him and with Him, and He will fill us and saturate us. Praise the Lord, then we can work with God and for God by being one with God!

God Rested and was Refreshed when He Obtained Man in His Image and According to His Likeness

Does God need rest? Does God rest? According to Exodus 31:15-17, God created all things in six days, and on the seventh day He rested and was refreshed. In six days Jehovah made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day He rested and was refreshed.

Wow, God rested! Amazing, God was refreshed! We can say that God doesn’t need to rest; however, when He finished the work of creation and especially after He created man in His image and according to His likeness, God was satisfied and He rested!

Not only did He rest, He was refreshed. For someone to rest, he simply can sit for a while or lie down on the bed; to be refreshed, however, you need to eat or drink something.

Many times we refer to food and beverages as refreshment. To be refreshed, we need something to refresh us. Some may drink a Coca-Cola or a Dr Pepper, or some sweet tea or iced tea, and they are refreshed.

God was refreshed after He created all things, and especially after He finished creating man!

The Sabbath was not only a rest to God but also a refreshment to Him! God was simply refreshed. He was so happy, so satisfied, and so content that, after six days of creation and further creation,

He rested and was refreshed. He finally found something that refreshed Him; Adam, the man created in God’s image, refreshed God. God rested after His work of creation was completed.

He looked upon His handiwork, including the heavens, the earth, and all the living things, especially man, and He said, “Very good!” (see Gen. 1:31).

He considered it excellent, superb, very good. God was refreshed with man.

He created man in His own image with a spirit so that man could have fellowship with Him (Gen. 1:26; 2:7; John 4:31-34).

When a designer or creator designs and makes something, he sits back and looks at what he has created, and he rests and is refreshed.

When a craftsman makes a chair, he works on it for many days; when he finishes it, he sits on it and rests, being fully satisfied and refreshed.

Sometimes some sisters may want to make a particular garment; they choose the material and work on it, and when they finish it, they are satisfied.

Similarly, after God created man, He looked upon His handiwork – the heavens, the earth, and all the living things, and He was satisfied; therefore, He rested and was refreshed.

We human beings are made in God’s image and according to His likeness, and God is satisfied and refreshed when He looks at us. In Psalm 110 we further see that Christ, as He fights the battle, drinks from the brook by the way and is refreshed.

The brook signifies our consecration to the Lord. God is satisfied when He gains some consecrated people.

He can rest and is refreshed when a group of people in His image and according to His likeness give Him the ground in their being for Him to do what He wants to do! This is the real rest for God. And when God rests, we also rest.

When God is at peace, when He rests and is satisfied, we also rest and are satisfied. God was a “bachelor” before He created man (see Gen. 2:18, 22); He wanted man to be His wife, His bride.

He wanted man to receive God, love God, be filled with God, and express God to become His wife (2 Cor. 11:2; Eph. 5:25).

Amen, in eternity future God will have a wife, the New Jerusalem, which is called the wife of the Lamb (Rev. 21:9-10). This is why God rested and was refreshed; He saw that He would gain a wife for Himself!

Man was like a refreshing drink to quench God’s thirst and satisfy Him.

When God ended His work and began to rest, He had man as His companion.

To God, the seventh day was a day of rest and refreshment; however, to man, God’s companion, the day of rest and refreshment was the first day. We were made not to work for God but to enter into God’s rest and refreshment, into His enjoyment.

God wants man to be His companion, His counterpart; we were made in the image of God and we have a spirit to receive and contain God (John 4:24).

When we exercise our spirit to worship Him in spirit and truthfulness, we drink of Him as the living water, and God is satisfied.

When we contact the Lord and remain in the touch with the Lord, giving Him ground in our being for Him to work Himself into us and do what He wants to do in us, God is refreshed and satisfied.

Oh, to live a life on earth for God’s satisfaction, rest, and refreshment! Amen, to live one with the Lord today, even enter into His rest, His satisfaction, and His refreshment!

Thank You, Lord, for creating us in the image of God and according to God’s likeness! Hallelujah, when God created man, He was pleased, and He rested and was refreshed! Amen, God is full of rest and is refreshed when He obtains a man in His image and according to His likeness! Oh Lord, we want to enter into Your rest today. We exercise our spirit to fellowship with You so that we may be one with You. Hallelujah, God wants man to receive Him, love Him, be filled with Him, and express Him to be His wife! Praise the Lord, today God is in the process of gaining a wife, and He will gain the New Jerusalem, the wife of the Lamb! Oh Lord, we give ourselves to You today. We exercise our spirit to contact You and be filled with You! May we be like a refreshing drink to quench God’s thirst and satisfy God! May we be Your companion, joining You in Your rest and then working one with You! Oh Lord, may we daily choose to contact You and be filled with You in spirit!

After a Full Enjoyment of God and With God, we Work Together with God, One with God

It is a divine principle in God’s word that God does not ask us to work until we have had enjoyment of God; it is only after we enjoy God that we can be filled with Him and therefore work with Him and for Him.

In His case, when God created all things, He first worked, and then He rested and was refreshed. In our case, we first rest and are refreshed with God, and then we can work together with God, one with God.

God never asks us to work for Him until we have had a full enjoyment of God. He pays more attention to life than to work.

When the Lord Jesus was on earth, He sought to spend time with the Father again and again, for the basis, supply, and source of His work was His fellowship with the Father to be one with the Father in all things (Mark 1:35; Luke 5:16; 6:12; Mark 6:46).

If we believers in Christ do not know how to have enjoyment with God, how to enjoy God, and how to be filled with God, then we do not know how to work with Him and be one with Him in His work.

God doesn’t need us to try to work for Him; He doesn’t appreciate our natural effort or zeal in working for Him.

What God wants is that we spend time with Him, enjoy Him, and be filled with Him; then, after some time in His presence and after being filled with God, we can work one with God.

God first wants to supply us with Himself as our life, our enjoyment, and our everything. Then, as we are filled with God, we spontaneously are one with God and work with God.

May we be those who learn how to have enjoyment with God. May we learn how to enjoy God Himself. In our daily living, may we learn how to enjoy God. May we learn how to be filled with God.

On the one hand, we learn to empty ourselves; on the other hand, we are learning how to be filled with God (Eph. 3:19; 5:18; Acts 13:52; John 6:57).

We as human beings need to be first filled with God and saturated with God, and then we will join God in His work.

The work is not ours but His; He plans and prepares it for us, and we join Him in His work. As we spend time with Him and are filled with Him, there will be the overflow of the divine life in us, and that will be our work.

God doesn’t require us to work for Him without Him first supplying us with all that He is. May we keep this principle today. May we not profane the Sabbath. May we not disregard the principle of the Sabbath.

God wants us to enjoy Him first. We need to start this early in the morning; the first thing we should do in the morning is seek the Lord. We need to turn our heart to Him. We need to call on His name.

We need to pray and read His word. Instead of jumping into the daily activities, we should first enjoy the Lord.

When we come together to coordinate and fellowship regarding many practical things in the church life, we should always keep the principle of the Sabbath.

We do not come together to first coordinate and assign who does what and what the teams are taking care of different things. We come together to enjoy the Lord first.

First of all, we enjoy Christ! Before we talk about anything practical and before we coordinate about this or that, we first enjoy Christ. May we learn to take time to enjoy God as our rest and refreshment.

May we seek to be filled with God so that we may have the supply to be able to work for God.

May we learn and relearn how to enjoy God, how to be subjectively filled with Him, and how to be one with Him so that our work for God would be an overflow of His life in us!

Lord Jesus, thank You for not demanding us to work for God first but rather, giving Yourself to us for our enjoyment! May we see the divine principle that God wants us to enjoy Him first and then be one with Him to work for Him! Oh Lord, we want to learn and practice having enjoyment with God. May we not only know God or experience God but even more, enjoy God! Teach us how to enjoy You and how to be filled with You! Amen, Lord, we stop from our doing, our working, and our efforts, and we simply want to enjoy You! May we be filled with God to the brim so that we may be one with God in His divine work! Amen, Lord, we want to keep the principle of the Sabbath by first enjoying God and being filled with God and then working with God by being one with God! Oh, may the overflow of the fullness of the divine life in us be our work! May our work be our living! May we join with God in His work as we enjoy God and are filled with God!

References and Hymns on this Topic

• Inspiration for this article/sharing comes from the Word of God, the enjoyment in the ministry, a sharing by brother Minoru Chan on this topic, and portions from, Life-study of Exodus (msg. 172), by Witness Lee, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, The All-inclusive Christ as Revealed in Matthew (2025 Thanksgiving Blending Conference), week 5, Christ as the One Who Gives Us Rest – day 4.
• Hymns on this topic:
  – It is not resolving / Now to run the race, / But ’tis by Thy mercy / I receive Thy grace. / It is not by knowledge, / But by grace alone, / I can pass thru suff’ring / To Thine image grown. / Not by lofty phrases, / But by power Thine, / I the lost can pilot / Unto life divine. / It is not my wisdom, / But Thy Spirit, Lord, / Which alone can fit me / To fulfill Thy Word. (Hymns #751 stanzas 3-4)
  – It is this grace—Christ as our inward strength— / Which with His all-sufficiency doth fill; / It is this grace which in our spirit is, / There energizing, working out God’s will. / This grace, which is the living Christ Himself, / Is what we need and must experience; / Lord, may we know this grace and by it live, / Thyself increasingly as grace to sense. (Hymns #497 stanzas 4-5)
  – ’Tis not a movement borne of man, / But by His power moving; / ’Tis not the deeds done outwardly, / But inward action proving. / ’Tis not the work of enterprise, / But ’tis His life confessing; / ’Tis not to toil for our success, / But ’tis Himself expressing. / Our plans, our aims, our energy / We must abandon wholly, / That He may work His plan thru us, / His aim and object solely. / Ourselves, with all we are and have, / To death we must surrender, / That Christ may live Himself thru us / With riches and with splendor. (Hymns #910 stanzas 3-4)