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Scripture Reading: Col. 3:16; Eph. 5:18-20; Matt. 4:4; Jer. 15:16; Exo. 30:7-8
Colossians 3:16 says, “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to God.” Psalms are the longest songs, hymns are shorter, and spiritual songs are the shortest ones, like choruses. Verse 17 continues, “And whatever you do in word or in deed, do all things in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him.” The issue of this is in verses 18 through 20: “Wives, be subject to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord. Husbands, love your wives and do not be bitter against them. Children, obey your parents in all things, for this is well pleasing in the Lord.” Then the subsequent verses go on to speak of fathers, slaves, and masters. This indicates that all the proper things in the Christian life — such as wives submitting to their husbands, husbands loving their wives, children being under their parents, slaves serving properly, and masters treating their slaves rightly — all come out of the enjoyment of the Lord through the word in praising and thanking.
According to the context of these verses, we first have the word as the means to convey Christ to us, and we enjoy Him to such an extent that we are filled with Him. Then praises and thanks flow out like living water. From this kind of enjoyment of the Lord, submission issues from wives, love comes out from husbands, and honor for parents comes out from the children. All these different matters in the Christian walk issue out of the enjoyment of Christ.
Ephesians 5:18 through 20 confirms this same truth. These verses say, “Do not be drunk with wine, in which is dissoluteness, but be filled in spirit, speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and psalming with your heart to the Lord, giving thanks at all times for all things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to our God and Father.” Colossians 3:16 tells us to be filled with the word, while Ephesians 5 tells us to be filled in spirit. Verses 21 and 22 continue, “Being subject to one another in the fear of Christ: Wives, be subject to your own husbands as to the Lord.” Following this, Ephesians 6 continues by speaking of children, fathers and mothers, and slaves and masters (vv. 1-9). This is the same as Paul’s word in Colossians, again showing that all the proper matters of the Christian life come out of the infilling and enjoyment of the Lord.
Many Christians seem to cut off the portion concerning being filled in spirit and pick up only the portion that teaches the wives to submit to their own husbands, the husbands to love their wives, and the children, parents, slaves, and masters to be proper. However, all these things in the Christian walk issue from the enjoyment of Christ. When we are filled with Christ and enjoying Christ to the fullest extent, something flows out from this filling within. The submission of a wife and the love of a husband are outflows from the inner filling. The matter of foremost importance in Colossians 3 and Ephesians 5 is the enjoyment of Christ. If we are filled with Christ, all these other things come out spontaneously.
The Christian life is not a religious life or even merely a moral life. The Christian life is simply a life of enjoying Christ all the time. All the proper and necessary matters come out from and depend upon this enjoyment. Even the church life itself is a matter of the enjoyment of Christ. If we do not have the enjoyment of Christ, it is hard to have the church life. We can have a certain kind of religion or organization, but we cannot have the church life. The church life is the overflow of the enjoyment of Christ. This is proven in the last part of Ephesians 5, which speaks of the church (v. 32). When we all enjoy Christ to the fullest extent, the church life comes into being.
God’s intention is to give Himself to us as our enjoyment in Christ through the Spirit. Therefore, we have to know how to enjoy Christ. Then we will have the proper Christian life. Both the Christian life and the church life depend on one thing: the enjoyment of Christ. To enjoy God in Christ is simply to deal with two things — the word and the Spirit. We have the Holy Bible in our hands, and we have the Holy Spirit in our spirit. Both the Holy Bible and the Holy Spirit are the means for us to enjoy Christ. Christ is the Word, and He is the Spirit. Therefore, in order to enjoy Christ we have to deal with the word and the Spirit.
There are two different ways to read the word. One way is to read the word but not contact Christ. Too many Christians read the word without ever contacting Christ. This is the wrong way. The right way to read the word is to realize that the word is not mainly for knowledge but for food. “Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that proceeds out through the mouth of God” (Matt. 4:4). Jeremiah 15:16 says, “Your words were found and I ate them.” We need to eat the word, because the word is food.
Physical food is for our body, so we have to eat it with our body and take it into our body. In the same principle, the word is spiritual food, food for the spirit, so we have to eat it with our spirit and take it into our spirit. We all have to learn how to take the word by our spirit and into our spirit. There is no other way to do this but by praying. We must pray over, pray about, and pray with whatever we read and understand. This is something that is very much overlooked by Christians today. Many Christians read the Bible, but not many read the Bible in this way.
We need to buy physical food, prepare it by cooking, and set aside fifteen to twenty-five minutes to eat it. We should not eat too fast. We need the adequate time to eat properly. We can rush into a supermarket to buy something hastily, and we can throw something on the stove quickly, but we cannot throw something into our stomach too quickly. We need the time to chew and eat in a fine way. In the same way, we need some time day by day to take the word finely, not by exercising our mind to understand but by exercising our innermost part, our spirit. To take the word in this way, we need to pray over what we read and understand, that is, to pray-read. We must learn to pray, not in a formal way by composing a prayer but in an informal way, just as we talk with our loved ones.
Sometimes we may need to read the Bible to gain some knowledge of the Bible. We may also need to go to the dictionary to learn the meaning of new words that we find. However, this is not the main way to deal with the word. The main thing we need is to take twenty to thirty minutes, at least once a day, although three times is better, to deal with the word not merely to know it but to eat it, digest it, and transfer it into the Spirit. Do not say that you have no time to do this. If you do not have the time to spend in the word, it is better not to spend your time on a physical meal. Rather, spend one physical meal time for a spiritual meal. Do not be afraid that you will be short of one meal. I assure you that you will be more healthy. In order to be spiritually healthy, we need to take at least one spiritual meal day by day.
We cannot expect a brother to be normal and healthy in his Christian life if he does not know how to eat the Lord by dealing with the word. Regardless of how many messages we give people and of how good those messages are, if those who hear them do not know how to eat the Lord, drink the Lord, and feast on the Lord, the messages will not work for them. We may have messages on the cross and about many other things, but we still need to feed on the Lord, drink of Him, and feast on Him. This is of the greatest importance. I hope that we will all practice this day by day, especially in the morning. We need to spend at least ten minutes with the Lord to feast on Him by eating the word.
The way to eat the word is first not to read too much. Our time in the word is not to buy something from the supermarket; it is to eat a breakfast. Therefore, we should not take too much, just an adequate portion. Second, we should not try to understand too much. At other times we may need to exercise our mind by reading, but our time for eating the word is not for exercising our mind. We should simply read and understand whatever we can understand. We need not try to understand more than that; this will frustrate us. If we read a few verses or even half of a chapter and do not understand it, we should leave it and continue to read. Perhaps in the following verses we will understand something.
Third, once we understand something, we should ponder over it a little. I do not like to use the word meditate, because that word has been wrongly used. Sometimes to meditate is merely to exercise the mind. In that case, it is better not to meditate. When some Christians meditate too much, they travel throughout the whole Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, back to the Psalms, and then back to Genesis. That does not help. However, when we are inspired with something from the word, we should consider it.
Then, fourth, right away we should pray over what we understand. It is by this kind of prayer that we have a fresh contact not only with the word but also with the Lord Himself through the word. Eventually, the Lord and the word, the word and the Lord, become one to us. In this way, our prayer and reading will be mingled. While we read and consider, we speak something to the Lord, and while we are speaking something to the Lord, we ponder on the word and consider what we understand. This is praying and reading, reading and praying, mingled together.
Matthew 8:1 to 4 says that the Lord Jesus “came down from the mountain” and healed a leper. When we read this portion, we may be inspired that the Lord came down from the mountain. Then we can say, “I praise You, Lord, that You have come down from the mountain. You have come down to the place where I am. O Lord, come down once again today that I may be healed. If You come, my leprosy will go away.” It may not be possible to read and pray in this way for an hour, but to take twenty minutes is possible. Try to do this in the morning and again during the day. I would suggest, especially to the young ones, that you keep a small Bible in your pocket. Throughout the day or during recess or rest you can open it and read two or three verses. Then you will get something, and you can pray over it.
Some may ask, “How can I read and pray? If I read, I have to open my eyes, but if I pray, I have to close them.” Forget about opening or closing your eyes. If you need to close your eyes, close them spontaneously, but if you do not need to close them, do not make that a form. Even when we close our eyes, we still can “read,” because the word has already gotten into us.
It is very convenient to have the word within us. Many times people do not realize that I am reading the word, because I am not reading a Bible outwardly. However, many times I “read” inwardly. I recall Romans 8:1 and 2: “There is now then no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has freed me in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and of death.” Spontaneously I say to the Lord, “Praise You, I am in Christ. Hallelujah, I am not in Los Angeles; I am in Christ!” When I am bothered by something, I say, “I am not in this place. I am in Christ. Praise the Lord! Hallelujah! I am in Christ.” We have to be beside ourselves in this way to say, “Oh, praise the Lord, the Spirit of life! O Lord, You are the Spirit of life, and this life-giving Spirit is in me. With this Spirit there is the liberating law, setting me free from the law of sin and of death.” We can also turn to the enemy and say, “Satan, I am not afraid of you any more. I have another One who is stronger than you. If you come to fight with me, you will be defeated.” This is the living way to read the word.
Ten minutes before dinner is served, we can come to the word to read and pray. By the time dinner comes, we already will have had a good meal, eating the word and feeding on the Lord. Try this; you will see the difference in your Christian life. Your Christian life will be different from what you had in the past. You will know how to feed on the Lord and feed on the word. Eventually, you will be filled with the word and with the Spirit. It will be hard to differentiate between the word and the Spirit. In Colossians 3:16 the word of Christ fills us, but in Ephesians 5:18 we are filled in spirit. These two — the word and the Spirit — are one. When we are filled with the word, we are filled with the Spirit.
It is wrong to be filled with the word but not with the Spirit. Do not forget this formula: “The word without the Spirit is knowledge. Knowledge without life is death. When death becomes old, it has a stench.” Always reading without eating, without praying, merely amasses knowledge in letters. The letter kills (2 Cor. 3:6), and death brings its stench. Therefore, we have to transfer the word into the Spirit. Whenever we have the Spirit, we have life, and when we have life, we have a sweet fragrance. The sweet odor of Christ will constantly spread within us (2 Cor. 2:15). The secret, the key, is to transfer the word to the Spirit by praying. This does not mean that we should not read and study the word to gain knowledge. We all need to do this, just as we need to go to the supermarket to buy groceries and store them up. However, that is not all. We need to eat.
We may know much about the Bible, but how much have we eaten? This is the problem among Christians. We are not accustomed to eating, so we must now learn how to do it. This is why I have a burden to stress the matter of our eating. If someone does not have the desire to eat, he is sick. Only sick people do not have an appetite. Such a one must pray that the Lord would cure him. Healthy Christians, however, must practice to eat. Even if you feel you are clear about this, you still need more practice.
Psalm 35:1 and 2 say, “Strive, O Jehovah, with those who strive with me; / Battle against those who battle against me. / Take hold of buckler and shield, / And rise up as my help.” It is not very easy to apply a passage like this, except if under the Lord’s sovereignty we have a case like the psalmist’s. If we do not have such a case, we need not apply these two verses to ourselves. We should not try to force anything. If there is something in verses like these to digest, then we can digest it. Otherwise, we can simply go on to the following verses. There is no need to get something from every verse. The Bible is very rich; if we continue to read, we will get something eventually. It might be that on one morning we receive nothing from a particular passage, but a few months later when we have the need, the Spirit will bring it back to our understanding. At that time we can pray in a better way.
When we eat physical food, we should not swallow it too quickly. We have to chew it for a certain amount of time. In the same way, when we read and pray with the word, we should not read too quickly, and neither should we compose formal prayers. We simply should read and talk to the Lord in a spontaneous way. When I was young, I was very religious. Whenever I prayed, I felt I had to kneel down and speak properly. This was too religious and formal. Later I realized that the Lord does not honor this. Rather, He honors that we know how to contact Him and eat Him. On the one hand, we should not be light, loose, and wild, but on the other hand, we should forget about formality and religion and simply be spontaneous. Sometimes we may read the word in the garden or in the car, sometimes we may sit to read and speak to the Lord, and at other times we may have to kneel down to read and speak to the Lord. We simply should contact the Lord by talking with Him in a very spontaneous way, yet in the spirit, to absorb Him by reading and praying, that is, by talking to the Lord based on what we have read and understood.
If we try to do this, we will see the difference in our Christian life. Many problems will be solved spontaneously by this kind of eating, because we will digest many spiritual “vitamins” that deal with the problems and swallow up death. There are many problems that we cannot solve and that no one can help us to solve. Likewise, there are many questions that no one can answer for us. However, simply by feasting on the Lord in this way, the inner supply and nourishment will take care of all our problems. The nourishment will solve the problems. The vitamins will meet the need and kill the germs.
At one time I felt that I had a problem with my eyes. By the evening time it was hard for me to see or to read. When I contacted an eye specialist, he told me that I needed to eat something with vitamin A. I said to him, “There is something wrong with my seeing. Why are you talking to me about eating?” He laughed and said, “Just go buy some vitamins or cod liver oil pills and take them daily. After three days you will see the difference.” I learned from that experience. The problem was not that I could not see; the problem was that I was short of vitamin A. In the same principle, many problems in our Christian life are due to one thing — we are short of Christ. I do not mean that we are short of the knowledge of Christ. We may have too much knowledge of Christ. We are short not of the “prescription” but of the “vitamin” itself. We simply need to take more Christ. Then we will be well. Do not argue with this; simply go to try it. Then you will be thankful for this word.
In the type of the tabernacle, dealing with the lamps and burning the incense go together. Exodus 30:7 and 8 say, “Aaron shall burn on it fragrant incense; every morning when he dresses the lamps he shall burn it. And when Aaron sets up the lamps at twilight, he shall burn it, a perpetual incense before Jehovah throughout your generations.” In the morning the priest burned the incense when he dressed the lamps, and in the evening he burned the incense again when he set up the lamps. Moreover, the incense was not for one day, one month, one year, or one generation only; it was a constant, continual, perpetual incense before Jehovah throughout all generations. This means that all day as we deal with the lamps, we need to burn the incense.
Burning the incense is a type of our prayer, with Christ as the incense offered to God, and lighting the lamps is a type of our dealing with the Word, that is, our reading of the Bible. Here we have a principle. Whenever we light the lamps, we have to burn the incense. That is, whenever we deal with the word in a proper way to receive light, we have to pray and offer incense to God. It is only by this kind of prayer that the word we read and understand can be transferred into the Spirit and become life to us.
Many of us read the Bible, but I am concerned that we may not read the Bible in this living way. I would recommend to you this living way. From now on, we should read the word in this way and help others to contact the Lord day by day by reading in such a way. This will cause a change among us.
John 14:1 through 3 says, “Do not let your heart be troubled; believe into God, believe also into Me. In My Father’s house are many abodes; if it were not so, I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I am coming again and will receive you to Myself, so that where I am you also may be.” This is a good portion of the word to pray with. To pray over this portion requires a certain amount of practice, development, and consideration. We should not go too fast here. We need to taste this portion by “chewing” it. We may say, “Lord, I thank You that You went to pave the way, prepare a place, and gain the ground that I may be in the Father, that I may be in the place where You are. Lord, I do realize that today I am in the place where You are, yet I need more realization of this. Grant me more and more to experience that I am in the Father, just as You are.” We should learn to apply such a portion by saying, “Lord, today keep me in the place where You are. Now I am going to my office. Keep me in the Father. Grant me the sense that I am with You in the Father all the time.” When we take the word in this way, it is not merely words in black and white letters. Rather, it is living. It is in this way that we exercise our spirit and have a fresh contact with the Lord. In this way it is easy to use our spirit to pray.
As we practice to take the word in this way, we should learn to pray not merely from our knowledge but by exercising our spirit to say something from within to the Lord, to have a real contact with the Lord. We need to exercise the spirit to bring ourselves into the presence of the Lord and speak something in His presence directly, face to face. This is real prayer, not merely a prayer for affairs, business, or burdens, but a prayer to contact and digest the Lord. This is the way to feed on the Lord through the word. At the same time, while we are praying, we are drinking of the Lord.
John 5 begins, “After these things there was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. Now there is in Jerusalem near the Sheep gate a pool, which is called in Hebrew Bethesda, having five porticoes” (vv. 1-2). This chapter is a good piece of “meat” and needs an adequate development. Since this portion is so rich, we may speak with the Lord ten, twenty, or even thirty minutes in prayer. We may say, “Lord, in that day there was a feast. I thank You that today God is my feast. In Jerusalem there was a pool with five porticoes. Today You are my Jerusalem, and You are my pool. There is no need for me to lie in the porticoes. Now I am in You; I am in Christ. There is no need for me to wait like an impotent man for the angel. You are the Angel, who has come to the place where I am. You are also the water. There is no need for me to wait for the stirring of the water. You are stirring all the time. Lord, praise You; whenever You stir, I am cured. You are also the real Sabbath to me. Lord, I praise You that today with You I have a Sabbath, a feast, a pool, an angel, the water, and the stirring.”
Following this, we can apply this portion, praying, “Lord, cause me to realize all this. There is no need for me to go to heaven. You came here already, and now You are with me. You do not require or demand anything. You only supply and impart. There is no need for me to do anything or change anything. You simply impart something to me in the place where I am.” If we read and pray in this way, the Bible will be a different book. It will be a living book.
We should not let a passage of the word like this go by too quickly. Perhaps the next morning we can come back to the same portion. Then we will have something more. We may pray, “Lord, I ask not only for myself but for many poor ones.” We will have the burden to care for others, and we will have some genuine intercession for others. This is the living way to read the word. We all need to do this. Just as we need a meal to live physically, we also need a meal to live spiritually. We need to feed and to feast, to take something of the Lord into our spirit.
Our prayer with the word must not be formal. When we are formal, we become religious. Often we confuse being formal and religious with being spiritual. The more we practice the living way to read the word, the more we will be genuinely spiritual and the less we will be formal and religious. If we practice this way for only half a year, we will be able to open to the same chapters and verses we read today but speak to the Lord in a different way. This will prove that we are more in the spirit and not as religious as we used to be.
It may be hard for some to know the difference between being religious and being genuinely spiritual in digesting, realizing, and applying a passage of the word. To be religious means that we know what pleases God and that we expect to be that or do that. We may pray, “Lord, help me to do that.” Nearly all Christians who read Luke 21:1 to 4, for example, spontaneously ask the Lord to help them to be like the impoverished widow who cast her two coins into the treasury. On the one hand, there is nothing wrong with such a prayer, but on the other hand, it is a religious prayer.
There is no need to have a vision from the Lord to have this kind of religious concept. Even the worldly people who do not know Christ and are against Christ, when they read this portion will say, “This widow is right. If I would be a Christian, I would be like this widow.” However, those worldly people have no vision. If we have the proper vision from the word, we will see that it is not a matter of offering more or less; it is a matter of doing something in the presence of the Lord. The proper vision relates to the presence of the Lord, not to being like the widow. We should pray, “Lord, help me to be in Your presence. Whatever I do, I would do it in Your presence.” Whatever we do in the presence of the Lord is right. What matters is that we live, walk, and do things in the presence of the Lord. “Lord, grant me the mercy that I may always walk and live in the sense of Your presence.”
To understand this small portion of the word in a way that is not natural and religious requires a vision. When we come to the word, we must not try to understand it in a natural way. If we come to understand the word in a religious way, we need not read the word at all, because we already have a religious concept. To try to please God by offering more “coins” with greater sincerity does not require the word of God. We already had this thought in our mind even before we were saved. We should not bring religious concepts like this to the word. We need to forget them. To exercise our spirit and deny our self includes dropping all our natural and religious concepts when we come to the word.
We must come to the word without any natural understanding. Sometimes when a certain understanding comes to us, we have to check, “Is this the natural concept? Is this a religious concept?” If we practice in this way, we will learn to have discernment. Then when we come to a passage like Luke 21, we will see the vision of the presence of the Lord, and we will pray, “Lord, in whatever I do, grant me the mercy and grace that I would do it in the sense of Your presence. I would do it at Your feet. I would do it under Your watching. Whatever I do must be approved by Your presence.”
Through these messages we have become clear about the proper way to read and pray. However, we all need more practice.
