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Scripture Reading: Rom. 9:23; John 6:51; 7:37-38; 2 Cor. 13:14; Matt. 28:19; 1 Cor. 15:45; John 20:22; 2 Cor. 3:17; John 6:63
God’s central thought and eternal intention is to work Himself into us to become life to us and even to become everything to us. To accomplish this intention, God created man as a vessel (Rom. 9:23). A vessel is made for the purpose of containing something. Thus, in order for the purpose of its creation to be fulfilled, a vessel must be filled with something. Since man was created as a vessel, we need to consider what man was made to contain. With what was man meant to be filled? Man was made to contain God. We are containers of God, and God must be our content. This is why human beings often have a sense of emptiness within. We feel empty because we were made to contain God, and if we do not have God within us, we are merely empty vessels. This is why we need to believe in the Lord Jesus. To believe in the Lord Jesus is not merely to believe that He is our Savior; to believe in the Lord Jesus is to receive Him into our spirit (John 1:12). When we believe in the Lord Jesus, God in Christ as the Spirit enters into our spirit and begins to dwell within us. We are containers, and the Triune God — the Father in the Son as the Spirit — is the content within us. As the content within us, the Triune God wants to fill us with Himself in order to become our life and everything. When we are completely filled with God in this way, God will be our content, and we will be satisfied.
After we have believed in the Lord Jesus and received Him into us, we can be filled with Him by eating and drinking Him. The Gospel of John reveals that the Lord is the heavenly bread for us to feed upon and the living water for us to drink (6:51; 7:37-38). Also, Matthew 4:4 tells us that we should not live on bread alone but on every word that proceeds out through the mouth of God. God’s word is the expression of God Himself. Thus, to take in God’s word is to take in God Himself.
We who have believed in the Lord Jesus have the Lord dwelling within us (Rom. 8:10; 2 Cor. 13:5). Since we have received the Lord into us, the question is, “How do we partake of the Lord day by day and moment by moment as our food, drink, and life supply?” This is the question that we will address in this message. This question is mysterious, divine, heavenly, spiritual, and eternal, yet the answer is actually quite simple. To understand the way for us to unceasingly partake of the Lord as our food, drink, and life supply, we must see that God is triune.
The Bible reveals that God is the Father, the Son, and the Spirit (2 Cor. 13:14), yet this does not mean that there are three Gods. There is only one God (1 Cor. 8:4), yet this one God is three — the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. He is the Triune God. We can see the matter of the Triune God in Matthew 28:19, which says, “Go therefore and disciple all the nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” The Lord’s charge to us is that we would disciple all the nations. Concerning those among the nations who receive the Lord, the Lord instructed us to baptize them into “the name.” The Lord did not use the plural form of the word name, saying that we should baptize the nations into the names; instead, He used the singular form, name. The three of the Divine Trinity — the Father, the Son, and the Spirit — have one name. They are three, yet They have only one name. This indicates clearly that God is triune.
In a limited way, water is a helpful illustration of the Divine Trinity. Suppose we have a large piece of ice. Ice is very solid. Suppose, however, that we leave the ice in the sun for an hour. If we do this, after an hour the ice will melt and become water. Furthermore, suppose we leave the water outside for an entire day. If we do this, at the end of the day the water will be gone. After a day in the sun, the water will turn into vapor. Over the course of the day, we will have ice, then water, and then vapor, but can we say that these are three different items? We cannot say this, because the ice, water, and vapor are the same substance in three distinct forms.
We can apply this illustration to our partaking of the Triune God. If you have a large chunk of ice, it would be very difficult to take it into you. If you allow the ice to melt and become water, it will be easier for you to take it in. If you allow the water to become vapor, it will be even easier to take it into you. When water becomes vapor, you can very easily breathe it into you. Thus, we can say that in order to partake of the water, it has to pass through three steps. First, it is ice; second, it is water; and third, it is vapor. Similarly, our God has passed through a process of three steps in order to make Himself available for us to partake of Him and receive Him into us. In the first step God the Father is the fountain, the source, of the Divine Trinity (cf. Psa. 36:9; Jer. 2:13). In the second step God the Son is the embodiment and expression of the Triune God (Col. 2:9; John 1:18). Through incarnation the Son as the complete Triune God became flesh (1:1, 14) in order to bring God into man and to accomplish our redemption through His crucifixion on the cross. In the third step God the Spirit is the realization of the Son, who is the embodiment of the Father (14:16-20, 10). In His resurrection the Son as the last Adam, a man in the flesh, became the life-giving Spirit to be the consummation of the processed Triune God (1 Cor. 15:45). This all-inclusive life-giving Spirit is like water vapor, and we can breathe Him in (John 20:22).
Because the Lord is the Spirit (2 Cor. 3:17), our partaking of Him is not limited by time or space. Wherever we are and whenever we desire, we can simply breathe Him in. All we need to do is to “tune” our heart and our spirit to Him. I use the word tune because the Spirit can also be likened to the radio waves in the air. Whenever we tune our heart and spirit to Him, we have the sense that we are being touched within. The Holy Spirit comes and touches our heart. We all need to have this experience. When we repent, confess our sins, sincerely turn our heart to the Lord, and believe in Him, we sense that we are being touched within and that something is moving within us. This is the moving of the Spirit within us.
The Spirit is like the vapor in the illustration of the ice, the water, and the vapor. In this regard, we can say that the Spirit is the last “form” of the Triune God. He is the consummation of the Triune God, and today it is easy for us to breathe Him in. When we tune our heart to Him, He comes into our spirit, and we have the sense that we have been touched within. At times we even sense that there is a speaking within us. This speaking comes not from outside of us but from within us. This speaking is the divine visitation of the Triune God. God the Father comes to us in God the Son as God the Spirit.
It is wonderful that we have this divine person dwelling within us. The very Triune God of this universe is within us, and He will never leave us. The question now is how to deal with Him. How do we deal with, contact, and enjoy this wonderful One who is dwelling within us? How do we take Him as our life and everything in a practical way in our daily life? The Triune God being within us is not a matter of doctrine; it is very real and practical. Thus, we must consider how we should deal with, contact, and enjoy Him within us.
The first thing we must do is love the Lord. In the Gospel of John the Lord did not ask us to do many outward things. Rather, He asked us to do two things — to believe into Him and to love Him. After He had risen from the dead, the Lord asked Peter, “Simon, son of John, do you love Me more than these?” Then the Lord asked Peter two more times, “Simon, son of John, do you love Me?” (21:15-17). I believe that the Lord is asking us this question today. Do we love the Lord? It is a pity if we do not love Him. We all must love the Lord. I believe that within every believer there is a longing to love the Lord. Even backsliding believers have this longing and have some love for the Lord within them. We all have such a longing and such a love in our heart. Our love for the Lord may be very small, but even though we may have only a little love for Him in our heart, this is sufficient. This small amount of love is like a seed that will eventually grow. All of us must love the Lord. I have traveled to many places on this earth, and I have observed that every Christian has something within him that is calling and even demanding that he love the Lord. Each of us has such a sense within — something urging and demanding that we love the Lord. We must take care of this feeling and respond to this inner voice. We need to answer this call and tell the Lord, “Lord, I must love You, and I do love You, but my love for You is very small. Cause me to love You more.” We all must pray to the Lord concerning our love for Him.
In addition to loving the Lord, we must consecrate ourselves to Him. At least once in our life we must consecrate ourselves to the Lord in a definite way. We all must pass through this crisis. If we have never consecrated ourselves to the Lord in a definite way, we must do so now. We must go to the Lord and tell Him, “Lord, I have been bought by You. You have purchased me with Your precious blood, and I have been ransomed and redeemed by You. Lord, I am Yours. I belong to You, so I hand myself over to You. Because I love You, I offer myself to You.” Many of us may have done this before, but if some years have passed since the last time we consecrated ourselves to the Lord, then we must do it again; we must renew our consecration. After we have consecrated ourselves to the Lord, He will have the ground to operate in us. The Lord will have the ground within us, and He will begin to move and speak in us. In addition, we will have the ground to contact the Lord and to enter into fellowship with Him.
In addition to loving the Lord and consecrating ourselves to Him, we must spend time in His Word. Every morning we must open His Word. We do not need to read too much; we should simply open the Word and read it with our heart and our spirit. We may know how to read the Word with our mind, and we may even know how to read the Word with our heart, but do we know how to read the Word with our spirit? Second Corinthians 3:17 states that the Lord is the Spirit, and John 6:63 reveals that the Lord’s words are spirit. To read the Word with our spirit means that when we come to the Word, we need to contact it with the innermost part of our being. We must contact the Word with the deepest part of our being, and we must not merely understand the Word but sense the Word. We must not only understand the Word with our mind and love it with our heart; we must also sense it with our spirit. There is a great difference between reading the Word and reading the newspaper. To read the newspaper, we only need to use our eyes to see the words and our mind to understand them. To properly read the Word, however, requires something more. To properly read the Word we also need to use our heart to love the Word and our spirit to contact and sense the Word.
This matter of sensing the Word may be unfamiliar to many. Some may wonder what this means and how we can use our spirit to sense the Word. To sense the Word with our spirit requires that we not only read the Word but also pray over the Word. After reading a verse or two, we need to spend some time to pray with the verse and concerning the verse. For example, suppose we read Luke 18:19, which says, “Jesus said to him, Why do you call Me good? No one is good except One — God.” After reading this verse, we need to pray about it. We may pray, “Lord, Your Word says that no one is good. Thus, I am not good. No one is good except God Himself. Lord, I do praise You. You are the only One who is good. There is nothing within me that is good.” After praying in this way, we may continue to pray, “Lord, since there is no good in me, please save me from trusting in myself, and teach me how to enjoy You and trust in You. You are the only One who is good.” By praying with the Word and concerning the Word in this way, we exercise our spirit, and by exercising our spirit in this way, we contact the Lord in the Word. Instead of merely reading the Word with our mind, we can exercise our spirit by praying over the Word. We can pray, “O Lord, no one in this universe is good except One — God. God is the only One who is good.” Of course, we need to understand what this verse means, but even more we need to exercise our heart to love this verse and our spirit to contact the Lord in this verse. We should immediately turn our reading into prayer, praying, “Lord, this is so wonderful. No one is good, not even me. Only You are good. Lord, I thank You that You are the only One who is good. Cause me to realize that I am not good and that there is nothing within me that is good. Save me from having any confidence in myself and from trusting in myself. Teach me to trust in You, to take You as my life, and to live by You. You are the only One who is good.” This is the way to come to the Word — to turn all our reading into praying. By doing this, we exercise our spirit and contact the Lord in the Word. This is the simplest and most effective way to read the Word.
Every believer should read through the whole Bible in a quick way at least once so as to get an overview. Then, after reading quickly, he should go back and digest every verse in a slow way, verse by verse. The first kind of reading can be likened to going to the supermarket, purchasing a great amount of food, and bringing this food home and storing it. The second kind of reading can be likened to cooking and eating the food little by little every day. Every day we should eat a little food at breakfast, a little at lunch, and a little at dinner. In like manner, every day we need to take a little of the Word into us. If possible, we should rise up every morning and spend some time to contact the Lord by reading His Word in a living way. Every day we should spend ten minutes to come to the Lord early in the morning. In those ten minutes we do not need to read too many verses, nor do we need to think too much about what we are reading. Instead, we should simply read a few verses and pray over them. By taking a little of the Word into us every day, the Word of God will be our food, and we will live by it.
If we pray over the Word every day, we will sense the presence of the Lord and the anointing of the Holy Spirit. In addition, we will learn how to pray from our spirit. In the past we may have prayed solely from our memory or from our mind, but by praying over a few verses every day, we will learn to pray from our spirit. To pray from our spirit is to pray from our inner sense. Instead of merely praying what we have memorized or what we are thinking, we pray according to the sense that is within us. We can illustrate this in the following way. Suppose a certain brother’s mother becomes sick. This brother may be concerned about his mother, but when he comes to contact the Lord, he should forget about his mother’s sickness. He should forget about everything and simply come to the Lord, praying to the Lord not according to what is in his mind but by using the Word and by praying according to his deep inner sense. He should pray according to his inner feeling, not according to his memory. If he does this, the more he prays, the more he will sense the presence of the Lord. Eventually, while he is in the presence of the Lord, the Lord within him will remind him to pray for his mother. Then, when this brother prays for his mother, his prayer will not be out of his self but out of the Lord who is within him.
By reading the Word and praying to the Lord in this way, we can contact the Lord and be contacted by Him. The Lord can speak many things to us, bring us into His presence, enlighten us, and show us all our weaknesses, faults, and defilements. When He shows us these things, we must confess to Him. Then He will cleanse us with His precious blood and purge our conscience, making it bright and pure. As a result, our conscience will be fully at peace, and our spirit will be living and prevailing. Consequently, we will have the living anointing within us all day long. We will be able to fellowship and converse with the Lord continually, and as we do this, gradually we will be filled with the Lord until our whole being is full of the Holy Spirit. This is truly wonderful.
The sisters know that the best way to cause their children to grow is to feed them. We Christians also grow by feeding. We grow by feeding on the Lord, and we feed on the Lord by reading the Word in a living way and by praying to the Lord with the Word. This is absolutely not a matter of doctrine. If we take this matter as a doctrine, it will not benefit us. Rather than being a doctrine, this word is a direction for us to take and practice. We all should endeavor to practice. Every morning we should try our best to rise up fifteen minutes earlier than we usually do. Then we can use these fifteen minutes to spend some time with the Lord and to read His Word. We can read at least one to two verses and at most nine to ten verses. We can read in a silent way with a sincere heart and pray about what we read. In fact, we can even pray with what we read. Then we should spend some time to pray in a prevailing way according to our inner sense. If we follow these instructions, we will genuinely contact the Lord. It is wonderful if we have more time, but we should spend at least fifteen minutes to read the Word and pray to the Lord in this way.
If we spend fifteen minutes every morning to contact the Lord in this way, there will be many results. We will experience the infilling and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, and spiritual gifts, light, life, and power will flow out of us. When children eat well, they experience change and growth every day. However, Christians today remain the same because they are starving spiritually. The majority of Christians merely come to “church” and sit in the congregation as “pew members.” From time to time they have the opportunity to pray a little. When they do, they pray according to their environment, situation, and circumstances, or solely from their memory or natural mentality. Most Christians simply do not know how to exercise their spirit. Even when they read the Word, they exercise only their mind, and the result is that they have many peculiar thoughts. The goal of our reading of the Word, however, is not to receive peculiar thoughts but to contact the Lord.
The Lord is the Spirit, and the Lord is in His Word. Thus, when we pray and read the Word, we do so not to receive knowledge, doctrines, and teachings but to contact the Lord and to be fed by Him. We need to feed on the Lord through the Word and to contact the Lord through prevailing prayer. Then the Lord will speak to us, reveal Himself to us, and bring us into the light, exposing to us our real condition. Then we will know the Lord and ourselves in a real way. We will also experience the Lord, enjoy the Lord, and be filled with Him. This will cause us to grow and will release many positive blessings. If we spend fifteen minutes every day to read the Word and contact the Lord, then after a few weeks even the meetings of the church will be changed. They will become rich, powerful, strong, and living, and in such an atmosphere many sinners will be brought to the Lord. The secret, the key, to all these wonderful things is to contact the Lord through reading the Word and praying in a prevailing way.
In some places that I visit, I ask the brothers to sign their names on a piece of paper, promising that they will spend fifteen minutes with the Lord in the morning. After the brothers who are willing sign this piece of paper, I keep it, and after two weeks I write a letter to each brother asking him whether or not he has kept his promise. Often, brothers have written me back, telling me how wonderful their experience has been. I hope that all of us would make such a decision to spend time with the Lord in the morning to read His Word and to pray to Him in a prevailing way. We should tell the Lord, “Lord, I love You, so starting tomorrow I will try to learn to rise up a little earlier in the morning to spend some time with You to read Your Word and to pray in a living, new way.” May we all endeavor to enter into this practice.
Question: Is there some significance to spending this time with the Lord in the morning? Is there a particular reason that you mention the morning?
Answer: All our environments and circumstances are different; therefore, for some saints it is very difficult to have this time in the morning. If this is the case, you should spend this time with the Lord in the evening. It is better to do it in the evening than not at all. There is, however, a reason why I encourage you to have this time in the morning. In the morning everything is fresh and new. In the evening after working the whole day, you may be tired, so it may be difficult to contact the Lord in a fresh and living way. Someone once asked George Müller why it is necessary to spend time with the Lord in the morning. Müller answered that in the Old Testament the children of Israel were instructed to offer the fat of the sacrifice to the Lord and not the dung (Exo. 29:13-14; Lev. 4:8-12). Müller went on to say that spending time with the Lord late in the evening is like offering the dung to the Lord, but spending time with the Lord in the morning is like offering the Lord the fat. This is because the morning time is the best time. In the Old Testament the children of Israel had to collect manna every day during the time that they were in the wilderness. When did Jehovah tell them to collect the manna? He told them to do so in the morning. The entire Bible is also filled with examples of the Lord’s seekers rising early to contact Him (Gen. 19:27; 21:14; 22:3; 28:18; Exo. 8:20; 9:13; 24:4; 34:4; Josh. 3:1; 6:12; 7:16; 8:10; Judg. 6:38; 1 Sam. 1:19; 15:12; 17:20; Job 1:5; Mark 16:9; Luke 24:22; John 20:1; Acts 5:21).
In the past years in the Far East, we have strongly emphasized our need to spend time with the Lord in the morning. We call this the “morning watch.” Every Christian should rise up early in the morning to keep the morning watch, spending time with the Lord by reading the Word and praying. If we do this, the Lord will speak to each one of us, and the churches where we are will be greatly improved.
Question: Is the Lord waiting for us to take action, or should we wait for the Lord to take action?
Answer: We must realize that the Lord has been waiting for us for generations. Thus, if we realize that we are vessels and that the Lord desires to fill us with Himself, we should take action to contact Him. The Lord wants to fill us with Himself, but we need to cooperate with the Lord. The way that we do this is by loving Him, consecrating ourselves to Him, and contacting Him in His Word every day. The best time for us to do this is early in the morning. If we do this, we will grow in the Lord in a very quick way.
During the first seven years of my Christian life, I did not make any improvement. I went to Christian meetings five times a week — in the morning, afternoon, and evening on the Lord’s Day and in the evening on Tuesdays and Thursdays — and I studied the Scriptures diligently with my mind. Yet during those seven years I did not make any improvement. Then, after seven years of no improvement, in one year I improved a great deal. How did this happen? This happened because in the eighth year I was helped to learn how to contact the Lord in a living way by reading the Word prayerfully and praying to the Lord in a prevailing way. When I learned how to do this, the Lord began to speak many things to me. He touched me, purged me, cleansed me, transformed me, and called me. It was also in that year that the Lord raised me up to begin to speak for Him. This was how my service in the ministry began. According to the Lord’s grace, I can testify that I never attended a Bible school, nor was I taught by a minister or preacher. Instead, one day I was helped by the Lord’s children to learn how to contact the Lord in a living way. Many spiritual things have issued from contacting the Lord in this way. Thus, I have the assurance that if the saints will practice to contact the Lord in this living way, many blessings will result. There will be gifts, power, strength, preaching, edifying, and light. Moreover, this will produce the genuine church life. The Lord is living, real, and available, and He is waiting for us to enjoy Him, receive Him, and experience Him.
Question: When you spend time with the Lord in the morning, do you simply pray according to what you feel, and is it possible to have this time without reading the Bible?
Answer: When you come to the Lord in the morning, you should do two things — read and pray. It is possible to spend time with the Lord without reading the Bible, but it is better to do some reading. You should read a few verses and then try to pray concerning them according to your understanding of them. If you do not understand what the verses are saying, you should not be bothered. If you understand the verses, you can pray over them, but if not, you can simply pass over the verses and go on to the next verses. Perhaps when you come to these verses again after two years, you will understand them and will be able to pray over them. Do not try to understand. If you have some understanding concerning the verses that you read, take the verses and pray over them; if you do not have any understanding, simply continue reading. If you practice to pray while you are reading, this will nourish your spirit. Learn to pray while you are reading and to read while you are praying.
We must also learn to pray from our innermost part. We should not pray in a shallow, superficial way but in a deep way from the deepest part of our being. If we pray in this way while reading the Word, we will contact and enjoy the Lord. He will be our life supply, and we will feed on Him. Before you go to work, you eat breakfast, and the food that you eat in the morning energizes you and enables you to live during the day. This is something physical. In like manner, we need to eat spiritual food to energize our spirit and to cause us to grow spiritually.
Question: Is the ability to be mingled with God limited to only a few believers?
Answer: No, it is not. It is for everyone. I have seen thousands of believers meeting together and enjoying the Lord in this way. Even those who are unlearned have been “burned” by the Lord and used by the Lord to bring many sinners to Him. They have even become leading, functioning members in the church. As long as we contact the Lord in this way morning by morning, the Lord will burn us and set us on fire. Before we can use an iron to press our clothes, we must plug the iron into an electrical outlet. When the iron is plugged in, the electricity “burns” the iron. In like manner, every morning we need to get “plugged” into the Lord by contacting Him.
Question: Romans 8:26 says, “In like manner the Spirit also joins in to help us in our weakness, for we do not know for what we should pray as is fitting, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.” Is this the kind of prayer of which you are speaking?
Answer: Yes, sometimes this is the only way that we can pray. Sometimes we have a sense or a burden deep within us, yet we do not know how to utter it. In this situation we just groan, saying, “O Lord, O Lord.” This is the most prevailing kind of prayer. The more we groan in this way, the more we sense the anointing within us. This is to pray unutterable prayers from our spirit.
Question: Do you find that it is easier today for you to contact the Lord than it was years ago?
Answer: The way that I am describing to you is the easiest way to contact the Lord; there is no easier way. Of course, after practicing this way for a while, you will get used to it, and it will become your habit. Then you will be able to contact the Lord in this way even while you are driving or at work. If the sisters practice to contact the Lord in this way in the morning, eventually they will be able to contact the Lord in this way while they are taking care of their household affairs or while they are cooking in the kitchen. The main need of Christians today is to contact the Lord in a living way. If you ask me what has kept me pursuing and serving the Lord, I would say that it is this one matter — contacting the Lord in a living way by reading and praying over His Word.
Today we need to cooperate with the Lord and give Him an opportunity to be everything to us. The Lord is like the air that we breathe. There is fresh air all around us, but we must exercise our lungs to breathe in this air. When we cooperate with the air by breathing it in, we allow the air to become our portion. Similarly, we need to exercise our being to contact the Lord in a living way so that He can become everything to us.
Our Lord is not a doctrine or a teaching, and the Christian life is not a matter of doctrine and teaching. Our Lord is a living person, and this living person is the Christian life. Christ is living, real, rich, infinite, and available, yet He needs us to cooperate, enjoy, take, and experience Him. If we do this, many things will happen. If you allow the Lord to burn you, all your neighbors will be burned. There will be a fire in your neighborhood, and perhaps one of your neighbors will become a genuine Peter — one who will be used by the Lord to bring one thousand people to the Lord.
I have the deep sense that many of the Lord’s children are good brothers and sisters with sincere hearts for the Lord, but I also sense that they have a great need. They do not need to be taught more doctrine. This does not work. The one thing that they need is to take this word and to practice contacting the living Lord every day. If the believers in a certain place would practice to contact the Lord in this way every morning and then would come together in the evening and on the Lord’s Day to express, exalt, and exhibit the Christ whom they have experienced, they would become a most wonderful church. We must contact the Lord in the morning and then come together in the evening and on the Lord’s Day to fellowship with one another and to share the Christ whom we have experienced as an exhibition and a testimony to the whole universe. We must also preach to our neighbors the very Christ whom we experience and exalt. If we do all these things, the result will be wonderful. The disciples who were used by the Lord on the day of Pentecost were merely Galilean fisherman. They were small, unlearned people, yet the Lord used them. Why did the Lord use them? He used them because they contacted Him in a prevailing way and gave Him a free way to move through them. This is what we need today. We do not need more teaching; the Lord Himself will be our living teaching, our living message. He will speak in us in a living way, and then we will be able to speak for Him. We need to enter into the real Christian life, which is a life of contacting the Lord in His Word and of giving Him the freedom to move through us. May the Lord bring us all into such a life.
