«　WEEK 5　DAY 5　»

　　Col. 1:12 …The Father,…has qualified you for a share of the allotted portion of the saints in the light. 2:6-7 As therefore you have received the Christ, Jesus the Lord, walk in Him, having been rooted and being built up in Him…

　　Eph. 3:8 To me, less than the least of all saints, was this grace given to announce to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ as the gospel.

　　In Colossians Paul employs the concept of the all-inclusive land….This “allotted portion” (1:12) is the all-inclusive Christ for our enjoyment….When Paul was writing the Epistle to the Colossians, he no doubt had in mind the picture of the allotting of the good land to the children of Israel (Josh. 14:1). He used the word portion with the Old Testament record of the land as the background. God gave His chosen people, the children of Israel, the good land for their inheritance for their enjoyment…. Just as the land of Canaan was everything to the children of Israel, so Christ, the reality of the type of the good land, is everything to us.

　　The New Testament believers’ inheritance, their allotted portion, is not a physical land; it is the all-inclusive Christ as the life-giving Spirit (Col. 2:6-7; Gal. 3:14). He is the allotted portion of the saints as their divine inheritance for their enjoyment. The riches of the good land typify the unsearchable riches of Christ in the different aspects of His bountiful supply to His believers in His Spirit (Deut. 8:7-10; Eph. 3:8; Phil. 1:19). By enjoying the riches of the land, the believers in Christ are built up to be His Body as the house of God and the kingdom of God (Eph. 1:22-23; 2:21-22; 1 Tim. 3:15; Matt. 16:18-19; Rom. 14:17). (The Conclusion of the New Testament, pp. 467, 3534)

　　In order to have genuine growth [of God in us], we must first be rooted in Christ, our good land. This implies that Christ is our soil, our earth. Otherwise, how could we be rooted in Him? We are plants rooted in Christ as the soil. Therefore, Christ, the processed, all-inclusive Triune God, is our land. Praise the Lord that we have been planted! Having been planted into Christ, we are now rooted in the living Christ who is our good land.

　　Christ is the fertile soil in which we, the plants, are growing. This soil is living and moving. Because we have been rooted into Christ as such a living soil, we move when He moves, for we walk in Him. Thus, our walking is not actually ours; it is His. Such a walking in Christ as the good land is also our growing. To grow is to walk in this way. Therefore, when we walk in Christ, we grow in Him.

　　We are living plants rooted in Christ as our soil. Christ is moving, and because we are in Him, we walk as He moves. However, those Christians who have no heart to seek the Lord do not walk when Christ moves. They do not cooperate with Him in His moving. But as those who love the Lord and pursue Him, we should always cooperate with Him and say “Amen” whenever He moves. We should be very active and aggressive in Him. Through this experience of walking in Christ, we absorb the riches of Christ.

　　Our walking in Christ is the cooperation we render to Him in His activity. By cooperating with Him in this way, we spontaneously absorb His riches into our being. What we absorb of Christ into us—the element of the riches of Himself as the soil—becomes the increase of God within us….This increase of God within us is what we mean by the growth of God.

　　When we realize that we have been rooted in Him, we shall automatically walk in Him. According to Colossians 2:6 and 7, the rooting must precede the walking. Having been rooted in Christ, we now walk in Him. We simply remain in Christ, and He does the walking. Thus, His walking becomes our walking. (Life-study of Colossians, pp. 380-382)

　　Further Reading: The Conclusion of the New Testament, msgs. 24, 44, 352; Life-study of Colossians, msgs. 7, 20-21, 44, 46-48, 51-53, 55