We must allow the Lord to burn us so that we may be a continual burnt offering to burn others and be reduced to ashes to become the New Jerusalem for God’s expression, for after we are reduced to ashes, we enter into resurrection, we become precious stones, and we express God for His building.
Lord Jesus, we want to live the life of the burnt offering today by laying our hands on You to be identified with You. Oh Lord, in ourselves we cannot please God nor satisfy Him, but You are in us, and we can live one spirit with You. We open to You today. We are one with You. Live in us today. May we live the same way that You lived, a life of the burnt offering, a life fully for God’s satisfaction. Live in us a life absolutely for God and for His satisfaction so that we may be Your corporate expression, consummating in the New Jerusalem! Amen!
When we consider how we can live the life of a God-man and especially when we look at the life the Lord Jesus lived, we realise that we can’t live such a life in and by ourselves.
We may try, we may try really hard, but the result is failure, for only Christ can live the life of a God-man.
We need to realise that, as believers in Christ, we have Christ living in us, and the life of Christ within us is a life that pleases God and satisfies Him. He lived a life that is absolutely for God and for His satisfaction, and now He is in us as the Spirit of reality to guide us into all the reality of living such a life.
Christ is in us, one with us, to live a life of obedience to God, a life of complete submission to Him, and a life of total dependence on God.
In ourselves, we don’t depend on anyone except ourselves, but when we lay our hands on Christ through proper prayer, we are identified with Him, and we will live a life of total dependence on God according to the principle of the tree of life.
May we learn to open to the Lord and pray in a proper way throughout the day, praying ourselves into God, so that Christ may have a way to live in us.
As we lay our hands on Christ as our burnt offering through the proper prayer, we are joined to Him, and we become one: He is one with us and we are one with Him.
He will live in us and we will express Him, for the Lord will repeat in us the life He lived on the earth, the life of the burnt offering.
May the Lord gain such a living among us today so that He may have a corporate expression of Himself on the earth!
Allow the Lord to Burn us to be a Continual Burnt Offering and be Reduced to Ashes to Become the New Jerusalem for God’s Expression
If we consider the burnt offering, an offering fully for God’s satisfaction and delight, we see that this is completely burnt for God to obtain a sweet-smelling savour for His satisfaction.
There is the law of the burnt offering (Lev. 1:16; 6:8-13), which is that the burnt offering shall burn on the hearth, on the altar, all night until the morning.
This means that we need to take Christ as our burnt offering through the night of this age until the day that the Lord Jesus comes again.
The burnt offering signifies Christ and the life that enables us to have a living like Christ as the burnt offering. We need to take Christ as our burnt offering through proper prayer, telling the Lord,
Lord Jesus, I take You as my burnt offering. I lay my hands on You, causing myself to be identified with You and You to be identified with me. Oh Lord, in You, by You, with You, and through You, I consecrate my whole life to You to be a burnt offering. I consecrate to become Your reproduction, to live the same life that You lived so that You may live in me and be expressed through me! Amen!
The fact that the burnt offering should be kept burning means that we need to allow the Lord to burn us so that we may be a continual burnt offering to burn others and be reduced to ashes to become the New Jerusalem for God’s expression (Psa. 20:3; Lev. 1:16; 6:8-13; 1 Cor. 3:12a; Rev. 3:12; 21:2, 10-11, 18-21).
As priests, in our time with the Lord, we need to be a continual burnt offering; that is, receive the fire from the Lord and keep the fire burning. The Lord turns to ashes everything that we bring to Him, for His divine fire burns; this is His way of accepting what we offer.
May we never let the fire on the altar go out. May we fan into flame the gift of God given to us, our human spirit, which is of power and of love and of sobermindedness.
May we daily, even many times during the day, take the Lord as the burnt offering, asking Him to cause us to live a life just as He lived, a life that is absolutely for God and for God’s satisfaction.
We do this first by spending time with the Lord in the morning to consecrate ourselves to Him.
Then throughout the day, we offer Christ as our peace offering for our fellowship with God, our sin offering for the sin in our nature, the trespass offering for the sins we commit, and as the meal offering for us to eat Him and live because of Him.
We offer Christ to God as the reality of all the offerings, and the fire on the altar shall not go out.
Thank the Lord that He came to light our lamp, and now He is burning in us.
As we see in Mark 9:12, the Son of Man suffered many things and was reduced to ashes, that is, was counted as nothing.
The ashes, the result of the burnt offering, signify Christ reduced to nothing.
Since we as believers in Christ experience Christ in His experiences as the burnt offering, we are one with the Christ who has been reduced to ashes, and we also are reduced to ashes, that is, reduced to nothing, to zero (Mark 9:12; Isa. 53:3; 1 Cor. 1:28; 2 Cor. 12:11).
The more we experience Christ as the burnt offering, the more we’re identified with Him as the burnt offering to live a life for God’s satisfaction, the more we are reduced to ashes.
The more we are identified with Christ in His death, the more we will realise that we have become a heap of ashes; when we become ashes, we are no longer a natural person.
Rather, we are a person who has been crucified, terminated, and burned, and we are reduced to ashes, allowing Christ to live in us and we live Christ (Gal. 2:20).
May we bring this to the Lord in prayer and may we ask Him to bring us into the reality of these experiences today. May we allow Him to burn in us, burn all the dross of earthly love away, and reduce us to ashes.
These ashes are precious to God, for they are useful to Him, even becoming the precious materials for God’s building.
Christ was reduced to nothing, and in the eyes of those around Him He was put to death and terminated; however, after death, resurrection follows, and in resurrection, Christ was reproduced, and He builds up the Body for God’s corporate expression.
May we be willing to be conformed to the death of Christ and enter into the fellowship of His sufferings so that we may know the power of His resurrection.
As we are reduced to ashes, we become part of the New Jerusalem for God’s expression! Amen!
Lord Jesus, we take You as our burnt offering today. We lay our hands on You. You lived a life absolutely for God and for His satisfaction, and You are now in us as the life that can enable us to live the same kind of life today. We are one with You, Lord, and You are one with us. We allow You to burn us so that we may be a continual burnt offering. Amen, Lord, burn in us and burn us. May the divine fire in us never go out! We allow You to burn us so that we may be a continual burnt offering to burn others and be reduced to ashes. Oh Lord, we are one with You, and You have been reduced to ashes. May we see that, in the eyes of the world, we are reduced to ashes, but to God, this is precious and useful for His building! Praise the Lord, the more we are identified with Christ in His death, the more we realise that we have become a heap of ashes! Hallelujah, we’re no longer a natural person but a person who has been crucified, terminated, and burned! Amen, Lord, live in us today! Be expressed through us today! Amen!
Christ’s Death Brings us to an End, Reduces us to Ashes, and in Resurrection the Ashes become Precious Materials for God’s Building!
If we read the law of the burnt offering we will see that, on the one hand, the fire on the altar – which came from God – should never go out, and on the other hand, the animal that was offered on the altar was reduced to ashes.
However, these ashes were not thrown away; rather, they were put beside the altar toward the east, the place of the ashes (Lev. 1:16: 6:16).
The east is the side of the sunrise; the fact that the ashes are put beside the altar toward the east alludes to resurrection (Lev. 1:16; John 11:25; Phil. 3:10-11; 2 Cor. 1:9).
With Christ as the burnt offering, the ashes are not the end – they are the beginning!
Humanly speaking, when someone is reduced to ashes, when someone is put to death, that is the end of him, and nothing follows. Spiritually speaking, when we are one with Christ, when we are reduced to ashes, when we are conformed to the death of Christ, He comes in to live in us, and we enter into resurrection.
The more we are reduced to ashes in Christ, the more we will be put to the east, and on the east we will have the assurance that the sun will rise and that we will experience the sunrise of resurrection (Phil. 3:10-11). Praise the Lord!
In the eyes of the people in the world, ashes are nothing; in God’s eyes, being reduced to ashes is very precious. He treasures the result of our offering the burnt offering to God.
The ashes had to be carried outside the camp (6:11) by a priest wearing stately garments. God has a high regard for the result of our burnt offering, and we should share this same regard.
When we serve the Lord full time, whether by keeping our job or by dropping our job, we offer ourselves to God as a burnt offering. The result is that we are reduced to ashes, and what comes out is something that carries out God’s New Testament economy.
What we do as those serving the Lord is not merely to preach the gospel to save sinners, raise up local churches, teach the Bible, or help people to grow in life and in truth.
We build up the Body of Christ, which is a miniature of the coming New Jerusalem! To God, this is precious, but to the people in the world, this is nothing.
It seems to them that we are reduced to ashes; however, God has a high regard for these ashes. Eventually, these ashes will become the New Jerusalem (Rev. 3:12; 21:2, 10-11).
Wow, the ultimate result of being reduced to ashes by being one with Christ to live the life of a continual burnt offering is that we become the New Jerusalem!
May we have this view when we live our Christian life. May we never lose heart as we pass through experiences that help us be conformed to the death of Christ and participate in His sufferings; rather, may we know that, after death, resurrection follows.
Death brings us to an end, and resurrection follows immediately. In resurrection, we become precious materials – gold, pearl, and precious stones – for the building of the New Jerusalem (1 Cor. 3:9, 12).
When we are brought to ashes, though it may seem we are nothing in the eyes of the world, we are actually brought into the transformation of the Triune God (Rom. 12:1-2; 2 Cor. 3:18; Rev. 21:18-21).
When we are in this process of being transformed, we become precious materials for the building of the New Jerusalem.
May we not think of ourselves as being something when we are nothing. Rather, may we realise that, in the proper church life, we all are being reduced to ashes so that we may experience Christ in resurrection and be precious materials for the building of the New Jerusalem.
Hallelujah, ashes are becoming the New Jerusalem!
Lord Jesus, we give ourselves to You today to live one with You. Grant us the experiences we need for us to be conformed to the death of Christ, enter into the fellowship of His sufferings, and know the power of His resurrection! Amen, Lord, we are one with You, and even as You were reduced to nothing, so we today are reduced to ashes. Praise the Lord, being reduced to ashes is not the end: it is the beginning, for resurrection follows death! Amen, Lord, may we know the power of Your resurrection and live in resurrection one with You! Praise the Lord, the more we’re reduced to ashes, the more we have the assurance that we will experience the sunrise of resurrection! Hallelujah, eventually the ashes will become the New Jerusalem! Amen, Lord, may we experience the transformation of the Triune God so that we may become precious materials for the building of the New Jerusalem! Work Yourself into us. Live in us. Be expressed through us! Gain what You are after in us! Amen, Lord, gain the New Jerusalem!
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 Ed Marks on this topic, and portions from, Life-study of Leviticus, pp. 57-58, 208-209, by Witness Lee, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, The Great Need for a New Revival (2026 Memorial Day Blending Conference), week 3, “The God-man Living for a New Revival” – day 4.
- Hymns on this topic:
– There is no coldness, Lord, in Thee, / Oh, keep us kindled lest we bring / To our dear Lord of Calvary, / Dead ashes for our offering. / Dead ashes, husk of corn for wheat / Lord of our consecration vow, / We gather round Thy wounded feet, / We see the thorn about Thy brow. (Hymns #927 stanzas 2-3)
– Oh, may Thy Cross within me / Deepen its work and burn / In me enlarge Thy measure, / And me to ashes turn. / Oh, may Thy Spirit fill me / Each day more than before, / And may Thy living water / On me and thru me pour. (Hymns #280 stanza 4)
– Live Thyself, Lord Jesus, through me, / For my very life art Thou; / Thee I take to all my problems / As the full solution now. / Live Thyself, Lord Jesus, through me, / In all things Thy will be done; / I but a transparent vessel / To make visible the Son. / Consecrated is Thy temple, / Purged from every stain and sin; / May Thy flame of glory now be / Manifested from within. / Let the earth in solemn wonder / See my body willingly / Offered as Thy slave obedient, / Energized alone by Thee. (Hymns #403 stanzas 1-2)
