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Many brothers and sisters are surprised that we have held so many conferences this year. There was a conference in February, and this is our second conference in March. Some may wonder why we are speaking so much concerning enjoying God. This subject is indeed inexhaustible. In fact, the whole Bible is on this subject. In this conference, however, our emphasis will be on how to practice the enjoyment of God.
Although the saints in the church in Taipei are willing to eat, drink, and enjoy God, they feel challenged because they do not know how to eat, drink, and enjoy God. How does one read the Bible in a way that touches God? How does one pray in a way that breathes in God? Many brothers and sisters still do not know the key to these practices. For this reason we will now concentrate on the practice of enjoying God. We will cover some crucial points related to our practice. In the following chapters we will first consider the practice of enjoying God through reading the Bible and then the practice of enjoying God through prayer.
Concerning the practice of reading the Bible, we need to point out a few basic matters.
When we realize that God’s relationship with man is based on His being food to man, our reading of the Bible will be greatly affected. In order to enjoy God when reading the Bible, we need to understand that God’s way is to satisfy man as food. In this way He can be fully mingled with man and be life and everything to man. This is a very basic matter.
We read the Bible in order to pursue God so that we can have a proper relationship with Him. Our reading of the Bible calibrates and adjusts our relationship with God. In His relationship with man, God is food to man. Hence, in our relationship with God, we should receive Him as food. We have said this many times. Strictly speaking, God does not want us to worship Him or to serve Him. He does not want us to do anything for Him. Worshipping Him, serving Him, or doing things for Him are secondary. His primary desire is to be food to us. He wants us to be filled with Him before we do anything for Him. He wants to be our food in order to fill us before we engage in any work. We must understand this point. Many people do not know how to read the Bible because they do not have a proper understanding of this basic concept.
A brother may say that he reads the Bible in order to know God’s desire and walk according to His desire. Even though the brother’s intention is good, and his words are worthy of praise, they reveal that according to his concept, God is looking for people who would please Him. This concept is a problem.
We must remember that God’s way is to be food to man. He has no intention for man to do anything for Him. He gave us the Bible for us to enjoy Him as food. He does not want us to be under any regulations. May every child of God clearly see this matter so that he can boldly say, “I read the Bible in order to eat God. My need is to eat, eat, and eat. I am hungry, and I need to be fed. God is my food, and He is my satisfaction. He has made Himself available through His Word. When I read the Word, I am eating God.” Whenever we read the Bible, we must have a simple and definite understanding that our purpose is to eat, drink, and enjoy God, because God is food.
We also need to know that the Bible is God’s very expression. The Bible is God’s word, His word is His breath, and His breath is His expression. Hence, whenever we read the Bible, we need to have a clear understanding that it is God’s expression. God is expressed in the Bible. When we touch this book, we should not touch merely doctrines or words; rather, we should touch God Himself. God is Spirit, and He is also the Word. When we pray, we are breathing in God, and when we read, we are eating and drinking God.
The prophet Jeremiah said that he found and ate God’s words (Jer. 15:16). The Lord Jesus said that man shall not live on bread alone but on every word that proceeds out through the mouth of God (Matt. 4:4). Hence, eating God’s words is not a new idea invented by us. It is a concept that can be found in the Bible.
If we read the Bible merely as doctrines and facts, we make it a book of letters. Since the Bible is the word of God, and the Lord said that His words are Spirit, if we contact the Bible with our spirit, it becomes spirit, and we eat it. The same Bible can be letter, or it can be spirit to us. Whether it is letter or spirit depends on how we read it. If we read it merely with our mind, it is letter, but if we contact it with our spirit, it is spirit.
The Bible clearly says that the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life (2 Cor. 3:6). We should never think that the Bible is always a profitable book. Many people have been harmed by the Bible. This statement seems very bold. Can the Bible truly harm someone? Strictly speaking, the Bible does not harm anyone; a person is harmed by his mind. When a person studies the Bible with his mind, the Bible immediately becomes the letter that kills. This is what harms a person. If we want to receive life, we must use our spirit because only the spirit gives life. We need to contact the Bible with our spirit. It is only in our spirit that the Bible becomes God’s living word. It is only in our spirit that it is spirit and life.
I hope that the brothers and sisters clearly see this basic point. We must understand that the Bible is God’s breath; it is His expression. Therefore, when we read this book, we are touching the expression of God. We should not study it as a book of doctrines. We are contacting God. May we all clearly see this point.
It may seem difficult to exercise our spirit and not our mind when reading the Bible. This may bother some of us. We may wonder how we can read something without exercising our mind. Nevertheless, we are saying that we should not exercise our mind in reading the Bible. Exercising our spirit and not our mind does not mean that we should absolutely forget about our mind. Rather, it means that we should touch this book with the deepest part of our being and not merely understand or ponder over it with our mind. Even though we use our eyes to read and our mind to memorize, these are not the main organs that we use. The main organ is our spirit; we read the Bible mainly with our spirit.
If we exercise only our eyes and our mind but not our spirit, the words of the Bible will not become spirit. They will not be initiated by the Spirit. The Bible then becomes a book of letters in our hand. It is something dead. This is the meaning of reading with our mind. However, if we touch the words of the Bible with our spirit and not merely read it with our eyes, we will contact the Word with our spirit. Our reading, listening, and memorizing should merely cooperate with our spirit. The main thing is to exercise the spirit. Then the Bible will be spirit and life to us.
Here is an illustration. The Chinese sages say that if a man’s heart is not in what he is doing, he can look but not see anything, listen but not hear anything, and eat but not taste anything. This is what happens when his heart is not in what he is doing. This means that we must look and listen with our whole heart. It is true that we need to exercise our eyes and our ears, but we will neither see nor hear without the exercise of our heart. In order to apprehend something, we need to exercise our heart as well as our eyes and ears. In the same way, when we read the Bible, it is possible for us to “look without seeing, listen without hearing, and eat without tasting.” This, however, is not because our heart is absent; rather, it is the result of not exercising our spirit but casting it aside and studying merely with our mind. This is what it means to read the Bible without exercising the spirit. If we want to read the Bible, we must exercise our spirit. Our spirit must take the lead, and the activity of our mind must be restricted.
The mind is always a bothersome thing. It often wanders to different places and causes us to fantasize. When we are reading Genesis, our mind may wander to Revelation, and when we are reading Revelation, our mind may return to Genesis. It jumps faster than electricity. When we are not reading the Bible, our mind does not wander, but once we open the Bible, the imagination begins to operate and all kinds of thoughts come. Therefore, in reading the Bible, we must restrict our mind, that is, gird our thoughts and exercise our spirit. When reading, we must allow our spirit to take the lead and not be carried away by our thoughts. We must reject our thoughts when we read the Bible. Some may think that this is contradictory, but if we practice, we will realize that it is not contradictory. We can reject our thoughts while we are reading the Bible. We can stay away from our mind and use our spirit.
Many have the problem of reading the Bible with their mind. This is our problem when we study the Word. We think about God instead of eating and drinking Him. In a sense, we are thinking about bread instead of eating it; we even consider our imagining to be our eating. Some people think about the word instead of eating the word. They read the Bible and still feel empty in their spirit.
Some brothers and sisters may try to trap me by saying, “Brother Lee, didn’t you say that we need to meditate? Why are you now saying that we should eat and not think?” If a brother exercises mainly his mind to read the Bible, his mind will wander from the New Testament to the Old Testament and from the Old Testament back to the New Testament. After reading, he thinks that he has obtained something, but what he has received is in his mind, not in his spirit. He has obtained knowledge in his mind, but there is no supply or satisfaction in his spirit. This is the common problem. Either we do not read the Bible, or we fall into the trap of our mind when we read. Most of us do not remain continually in our spirit when we read the Bible.
Some may understand this fellowship in theory, but they do not know how to practice it. They may not know how to restrict their mind and exercise their spirit, allowing it to take the lead when they read the Bible. A brother may be touched in his inner being and moved when he reads Romans 4:17, which says that God gives life to the dead and calls the things not being as being. Then he may immediately exercise his mind to understand this verse. He is pursuing the doctrine of this verse. Because he does not realize the weakness of the mind, he is unconsciously distracted even though he had a good beginning. Although his mind may have more ideas, his spirit is empty.
The proper way for a person to read the Bible is to guard his thoughts when touched by a verse. A person should not ask what it means to give life to the dead or to call the things not being as being. Rather, he should simply eat the Word and receive it into his spirit. He should immediately exercise his spirit to pray, saying, “Lord, You give life to the dead, and You call the things not being as being. I thank You that You are inside me and have become everything to me.” When he prays in this way, he is contacting God with his spirit rather than considering doctrines with his mind. He might not understand much, but his spirit has eaten and enjoyed God because he has touched God. This is what it means to read the Bible with our spirit.
Whenever we read the Bible, we must guard ourselves against arguing over doctrines. We will not touch God if we study doctrines, because we are exercising our mind. If something touches our spirit, we must control our mind. It is true that when reading a verse, we may be led to consider a second verse. However, this must be initiated by the Spirit; we should not initiate it. We must control our thoughts and not consider doctrine when we read the Word. Rather, we should exercise our spirit, and turn the word that has touched us into prayer so that we can breathe in God. While we are praying and breathing, the Spirit may point out our true condition. When reading Romans 4:17, the Spirit may point out that we are dead and that we are in a state of “not being.” We should respond immediately and pray, “God, that is right! I am in a dead condition, a condition of ‘not being.’ But I praise and thank You because the deadness and the nothingness afford a basis for Your resurrection life to abound.” In such a prayer we are not exercising our mind; rather, we are taking the Word as food and eating it with our spirit. In this way we will discover that God is the element within this food. We are contacting and enjoying God.
In another situation the Holy Spirit may point out that instead of being dead and nothing, we are alive and full of many things. We have not died and have not been brought to the point of nothingness. For this reason God cannot work in us; He cannot manifest the power of resurrection within us. We may respond, “Lord, be merciful to me! I have not been brought to the point of death, to absolute desperation. I still have my natural strength. I am neither like Abraham nor like Sarah.” We do not need to memorize these prayers. Such prayers will be given to us by the Spirit as we breathe in God.
This is different from merely studying doctrine. As a verse touches us, we should digest it with our spirit and turn it into prayer. When we pray in this way, and the Spirit speaks to us, we should again turn the words into prayer. In the end, we will be inwardly satisfied even though we may not understand much doctrine.
Brothers and sisters, this is a crucial point. If we do not practice this, we will not eat much God when we read the Bible; we will not receive much genuine supply in our spirit. We may be familiar with the Bible, knowing how one verse relates to another, but our spirit will be empty. We will not have received the supply. Hence, we must always guard against our mind when we read the Word to enjoy God. We must guard against studying doctrine. We must exercise to be limited by our spirit, and we must exercise our spirit to breathe in God by means of the Word. We should pray and digest the words of the Bible with our spirit.
If we read a portion that we do not understand, we should let it go. Even if we understand what we read, we should not consider it. Whether or not we understand a passage, we should not spend time to consider it; rather, we should restrict our mind. We should not dwell on our thoughts, nor should we try to understand too much. These are the activities of the mind. We must learn to be restricted by our spirit even when we understand what we are reading. We should exercise our spirit and turn the Word into prayer. In this way we will enjoy God through the Word.
