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Scripture Reading: 1 Pet. 2:2; John 5:39-40; 6:63-68; 14:21, 23; Psa. 119:103, 105, 130, 147-148
Prayer: Lord, thank You for the constant cleansing of Your precious blood that we may receive mercy from You again to enter into Your Word. Lord, we take You once again as our sin offering and as our trespass offering. By the precious blood that You shed as the offering, we come forward boldly before You. We ask that You open Your Word to us. We ask also that You open Yourself to us, and we desire to open our whole being to You. May there be good fellowship between You and us. Lord, bring each one of us into the spirit and into Your grace. We pray that You will give us the word of grace that we may be nourished, supplied, enlightened, strengthened, and comforted within.
Lord, we beseech You to give each one of us a living word. What we need is Your word, not man’s word. Our speaking can neither help nor supply life to others. Lord, only You Yourself and Your word are the source of life to man. We pray that You will supply us so that each one of us may not go home empty-handed but may receive a supply, go home fully filled, and be full of You within, full of light, full of grace, and full of peace. Lord, anoint each one of us and be with each one of us. Bless the future of every one of us, and remember our families and our undertakings. We commit all these matters into Your gracious hand. In Your victorious name we pray, Amen.
I truly have a burden to show you from the Bible, the Lord’s word, what the Lord’s salvation is. What we have spoken in the past again and again from many sides all converges at this central point. Although many people have taken the Bible as a sacred writing, everyone reads according to his own way, so the understanding differs one from another. Much of our understanding of the Bible is natural and religious concepts. We think that as human beings existing in the universe, we certainly need to worship a God who is in heaven, and then once we worship this God who is in heaven, He becomes our restriction. As a young boy, I studied in an old elementary school where we had a class on “self-cultivation,” which was actually a religious subject. The purpose of religion is to regulate man’s heart. One good thing about religion is that it regulates and restricts the human heart. Because the human heart is too wild, like a horse running wild that easily causes problems, mankind needs religion to restrict the heart.
Today I want to tell you that the salvation revealed to us in the Bible is not religion but the living God Himself. This living God is the sovereign Lord who created the heavens, the earth, and all things. The heavens, the earth, and all things did not come out of themselves but were created by God, the Creator of the heavens and the earth. In order to save us and to enter into us as our life, this God Himself came to be our salvation. Over nineteen hundred years ago He came to this earth to be a man. He came to be born of a virgin in a manger. Then He grew up in a poor family in Nazareth of Galilee, and He passed through thirty years of human living in that poor family.
When He was thirty years of age, He went throughout the land doing the work of announcing God. He announced God to people, and He also lived out and expressed God for men to see. He worked in this way for three and a half years to announce and express God. Then He went to the cross to die for man and man’s sin, shedding His precious blood to accomplish redemption. He was buried, and after three days He was resurrected from the dead. Since He was God, He possessed eternal life, against which death cannot prevail; thus, it was not possible for Him to be held by death. When He went into death, He entered voluntarily in order to accomplish redemption. After accomplishing His great redemptive work, He walked out of death and was resurrected.
In resurrection He became the life-giving Spirit. Now He is not only our Redeemer and our Savior, but even more He is our Lord of life. This Lord of life is the life-giving Spirit. Today He is the Lord of the universe, our Redeemer, and our Savior. Moreover, He is the life-giving Spirit who enters into all those who believe into Him to be their life and life supply. This is the salvation revealed to us in the Bible.
This is not a religion but the living God as our redemption and our salvation. Moreover, He is the life-giving Spirit, who has entered into us to be our life. Today this Savior not only is seated in the heavens but also lives in us. The most central revelation in the New Testament is that the Lord of the universe, who created the heavens and the earth, became our Redeemer and our Savior and that today, as the all-inclusive life-giving Spirit, He dwells in our spirit to be our life.
Many dear Christians pay attention to the fact that our Lord Jesus is our Redeemer and our Savior. Regrettably, they neglect the fact that this Lord Jesus, who is our Redeemer and Savior, is also today the life-giving Spirit, who has entered into our spirit to be our life. Because of such negligence, I am particularly burdened to help people see from the Bible that the Lord Jesus is not only our Redeemer and Savior but that He is also the life-giving Spirit who dwells in our spirit, living with us moment by moment and supplying us unceasingly.
Since this Redeemer, this Savior, is in our spirit to be our life, we should contact Him and enjoy Him to receive His supply. The Bible uses many figures to tell us how we should contact and enjoy the Lord. First, the Bible says that this Savior of ours is food to us; as the bread that we can feed on, He can be received into us for our supply. This is like taking our meals. Meal after meal we receive the life supply into our stomach to supply the need of our entire body.
Sometimes, not understanding what we speak, some may say, “You are belittling the Lord Jesus by such a teaching. How can the Lord Jesus, who is the great Savior, become a small piece of bread to be taken into your stomach? Your words are blasphemous.” Actually, they do not understand that this is not our own word but the word of the Lord Jesus in the Bible. In John 6:35 the Lord Jesus said, “I am the bread of life.” Since He is the bread of life, He is to be eaten; He is edible.
We all know that, as Gentiles, the Canaanites were despised by the Jews. To the Jews the Canaanites were like dogs. One day when the Lord Jesus was proclaiming God on the earth to carry out God’s salvation, a Canaanite woman came to seek help from Him. The Lord said, “It is not good to take the children’s bread and throw it to the little dogs” (Matt. 15:26). The children are the Jews, who are God’s chosen people. The bread of the children no doubt refers to the Lord Himself. The Lord came as the bread of life to be enjoyed by God’s chosen people.
The Lord said that it is not good to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs. This word indicates that not only the Jews considered the Canaanites as dogs, but even the Lord Jesus, figuratively speaking, likened this Canaanite woman to a dog. The Lord seemed to be saying, “You, who are a Canaanite dog, are trying to take a bite of Me, but I am the bread for the children, not for you.” However, this Canaanite woman answered very wonderfully. She said, “Yes, Lord, for even the little dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their masters’ table” (v. 27). This is very meaningful. How can the bread become the crumbs under the table? Because the naughty children are unruly and disorderly, when they eat their meal, the food they are eating goes under the table instead of getting into their stomach. Therefore, what the Canaanite woman meant was, “Lord, I am neither a chosen one of God nor a child of God. Consider me then as a dog. The dogs also have their portion; the things on top of the table are the children’s portion, whereas the things under the table are the dogs’ portion. If the children eat the bread on top of the table, then as a dog, can I not eat the crumbs that are under the table?” When the Lord heard this, He was moved. This answer touched His heart. Hence, He immediately did something for her and was gracious to her.
This is what I have been speaking all these years. Some people, not having seen this light in the Bible, have criticized, saying, “You liken the Lord Jesus to a small piece of bread. Such a teaching is a blasphemy to the Lord Jesus!” Actually, the Lord Jesus is not only great but also small. He is both the greatest and the smallest wonderful One. In Christianity there is a famous hymn that says, “How marvelous! How great Thou art!” Although that is a very good hymn, there is the need to write another hymn that says, “How marvelous! How small Thou art!” If the Lord were not small, He could not be eaten and get into us. Anything that can be eaten must be small. The Lord is small in order to enter into man to be man’s life and life supply.
Upon hearing this word, the faultfinders might say, “You see, according to what they say, the Lord Jesus is so much smaller than they are, and they are bigger than the Lord Jesus.” Today we are not here to argue but just to let all men see that when the Bible speaks of the Lord Jesus as our supply within, it uses all kinds of words and parables. The Bible says that He is the tree of life to be food for man to eat; it says that He is also the living water to be water for man to drink. The Lord Jesus Himself told the Samaritan woman, “Everyone who drinks of this water shall thirst again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall by no means thirst forever” (John 4:13-14). If the criticizers hear this word, they will consider this word as altogether derogatory, since to them it makes the Lord Jesus completely worthless. This is because they do not know how much it pleases the Lord Jesus to be the spiritual food to the believers and to supply them within. It is for this reason that the Lord Jesus spoke using so many figures.
The Lord Jesus came into the midst of His disciples on the night of His resurrection and breathed into them, saying, “Receive the Holy Spirit” (20:22). The word Spirit in Greek is pneuma, meaning “breath.” Therefore, Receive the Holy Spirit can also be translated as “Receive the Holy Breath.” This means that the breath which the Lord breathed is the Spirit. This indicates that in the Gospel of John the Lord Jesus is revealed as our bread, our food, our living water, and also our spiritual air.
According to our physical body, we have three great necessities in order to live: food, water, and air. Without taking any food, a person will die in eight days; without drinking water, he will die in three days. However, without breathing in air, he will be finished in only five minutes. Therefore, if a person wants to die quickly, the best way is to stop breathing. However, it is hard to stop breathing because God created man in such a way that it is hard for him to stop breathing. To breathe or not to breathe is not up to you. You have to breathe even if you do not want to. Therefore physically, man must breathe, and of course, he also needs to drink and eat for his existence.
Likewise, for our spiritual life we need the Lord Jesus to be our food, our living water, and even the more, our air. All these are figures of speech, using physical and visible things to describe the spiritual and invisible reality. The Lord Jesus is our spiritual life, food, drink, and air; we cannot be separated from Him even for one moment. If we leave Him for only five minutes, we will die. Because of this, in the Gospel of John the Lord Jesus told us repeatedly, “Abide in Me and I in you” (15:4).
In 1968 I was invited to speak in Indiana, and my topic was on our abiding in the Lord and the Lord’s abiding in us. While I was speaking, one sister rose up to interrupt me, saying, “Please tell me, how can we abide in the Lord, and how can the Lord abide in us?” I replied, “Physically, we are living in air, and air is also living in us. This is why we are alive. In like manner, today the Lord is the Spirit, the pneuma, that is, the breath. He abides in us, and we also abide in Him. It is thus that we have breath and life and thereby live.”
The words that God has spoken to us throughout the ages have become the holy Word today in our hands. The Bible is not just a sacred book, but even more it is God’s breathing out (2 Tim. 3:16). Every word in the Bible was breathed out from the mouth of God. All these words are living; they are spirit and are life. Furthermore, when we the believers in the Lord confess our sins and pray, calling on the Lord Jesus, and when we thus believe in Him and receive Him, He lives in us as our Savior. At this time, as the life-giving Spirit, He enters into our spirit. Therefore, we not only have the holy Word in our hand, but we also have the life-giving Spirit within us. These are truly two great gifts that God has given us.
We have the holy Word in our hand and the Holy Spirit in our spirit. The Word without and the Spirit within are joined together. Therefore, the only way for us believers to contact and enjoy the Lord is to read the word of the Lord by the spirit. When we read the Bible by the spirit, we touch the Lord. This is not the way a person reads the printed pages of a book with his mind; that kind of reading cannot give us the life supply. Before we open the Bible, we must have in us an attitude of hunger and thirst for the Lord, and we should pray, “Lord, I love You, I want You, and I hunger and thirst after You. Lord, I am hungry and thirsty within, and I long to be satisfied.” If we pray this way and then come to read the Bible, our emphasis will be not on our mental understanding but on our being satisfied in spirit.
Psalm 119:147 says, “I anticipated the dawn and cried out; / I hoped in Your words.” The psalmist cried out and hoped, hungering and thirsting within for the Lord before reading His words. In like manner, before we read the Bible, we should also spontaneously have hope. Every day when I wake up, sometimes even before I wash, I pray, “Lord, I long for You and I love You. Before I do anything, I want to receive Your supply.” This is to cry out and hope before the dawn. The psalmist anticipated the dawn to read the Lord’s words. The psalmist was an early riser, and he was also hungry and thirsty for the Lord within. This is why he cried out, hoped, and anticipated the daybreak in order to read the Lord’s words. When such a person opens the Bible, he will receive a supply regardless of which verse he reads. The words of life have a positive side and a negative side. Both sides can be a supply, depending on whether or not your heart and spirit hunger and thirst for the Lord. If you hunger and thirst for the Lord, when you come to the Bible, the words in the Bible will be to you not mere letters of an outward sacred book but rather spiritual and living words. Thus, you will spontaneously utter a prayer to the Lord. When you pray, the words of the Bible immediately enter into you. When the words of life enter into you, they become Spirit. This Spirit is life, and this life is also the supply.
Do you want to live with the Lord and enjoy the Lord’s life? Then you need to contact the Lord through His Word. If you would read the Bible in this way every morning, always contacting the Lord through His Word, what you will gain in the end is not just the word of life but even more the Lord Himself. The Lord is the Spirit, and this Spirit is hidden in the words of the Bible. The words of the Bible are a container, and the content within is the Lord Himself. Hence, if you read the printed pages with your mind, you will not be able to touch the Lord, but if you read with your spirit while crying from a hungry and thirsty heart, you will touch the Spirit in the word. At this time you will also spontaneously pray, and when you pray, the word will enter into your spirit to become spirit and life as your supply. In this way you will touch the Lord through His Word.
Once you contact the Lord, He immediately becomes the supply to you in your spirit. When you are weak, He supports you. When you are depressed, He uplifts you. When you are sorrowful, He makes you joyful. When you are in pain, He gives you comfort. When you are thirsty, He satisfies and waters you. If you are short of wisdom, He will become your wisdom from within. If perhaps at that very moment you have a problem that is hard to solve, and you have reached a point where you are in a dilemma, He will lead you from within. When you should advance, He will lead you to advance. When you should retreat, He will lead you to retreat. As a result, as the psalmist said, “How sweet are Your words to my taste! / Sweeter than honey to my mouth!” (Psa. 119:103). In reality, this honey is just the Lord Himself. The psalmist was able to taste the sweet Lord Himself through His word.
First Peter 2:2 says, “As newborn babes, long for the guileless milk of the word in order that by it you may grow unto salvation.” This means that we, the saved people, should long for the guileless milk of the word as a newborn babe longs for milk. This milk of the word is the word of the Bible. The phrase milk of the word was translated into “spiritual milk” in the Chinese Union Version. This is wrong. The word spirit is not in the Greek text; the Greek word used here is derived from word. Therefore, it is the milk of the word, referring to the milk in the Bible. This milk is not for teaching but for nourishing people. There are many nutrients in milk. When we drink milk, we are supplied with its many nutrients.
By drinking the milk of the word, we grow in our spiritual life. Among the Chinese, only the children drink milk; the adults do not. But among the Americans, both young and old alike drink milk. Up until today, every day I drink a glass of milk in the morning and in the evening. Even though I am not a doctor and do not know so much about nutrition, I can testify that by my doing this I definitely have a healthy body. In like manner, if you want your spiritual life to be strong, you must drink the milk of the word in the morning. Then in the evening before you go to bed, even though you may be tired and your body may not be able to bear it, you can still use a few minutes to go back to the verses you read in the morning to enjoy them, spontaneously praying, “Thank You, Lord, You have the words of eternal life.” In this way you will not only sleep peacefully and sweetly, but you also will grow quickly in life. This is to contact the Lord through His Word.
In Psalm 119:103 the psalmist says, “How sweet are Your words to my taste! / Sweeter than honey to my mouth!” What an enjoyment! Because of such an enjoyment, the function is manifested. Verse 105 goes on to say, “Your word is a lamp to my feet / And a light to my path.” One of the elements in the Lord’s word is light. When the Bible mentions light, it refers to the source of life. There is life only if there is light. Where there is darkness, there is death, but where there is brightness, there is life. Darkness brings in death, whereas light brings in life. The word of the Lord is a lamp to our feet and a light to our path, bringing life along with it so that we may receive a supply within.
Then the psalmist goes on to say, “The opening of Your words gives light, / Imparting understanding to the simple” (v. 130). The Chinese Bible renders simple as “foolish.” The people of the world are all foolish, living all the day long in a muddled and befuddled condition. Young people are young fools, and old people are old fools; men are foolish, and women are also foolish. Only one kind of person in this world is not foolish, and this is one who eats the Lord’s word. One who eats the Lord’s word has the Lord’s word in him, on the one hand, to be a lamp to his feet and a light to his path and, on the other hand, to shine over him and enlighten him, giving him understanding to apprehend what human life is — what it is to be a parent, to be a child, to fear God, and to live before men a life that is pleasing to God. This causes a foolish person to become a person of understanding. It is not surprising at all for the psalmist to say that he anticipated the dawning of the morning, cried out, and hoped for the Lord’s word, putting the Lord’s word within himself to ponder over. All these speak of the function of the Lord’s word.
Moreover, when we come to the New Testament, the Lord spoke an even more wonderful word. He said in the Gospel of John that His words are spirit and are life. When we receive the Lord’s word, we receive the Lord Himself. As a result, what we get are the Spirit and life. In 14:21 He said, “He who has My commandments and keeps them, he is the one who loves Me; and he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and will manifest Myself to him.” This manifestation is a supply. The Lord’s manifestation is all our supply. When the Lord leaves, our supply becomes short. Therefore, we must have the Lord’s manifestation to have His supply. To have the Lord’s manifestation, we must love Him and keep His word. Furthermore, the Lord went on to say in verse 23, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word, and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make an abode with him.” This is not only His manifestation but even His making an abode with us. His manifestation is only for the moment, but His abiding with us is forever.
In 15:4 the Lord said, “Abide in Me and I in you.” In verse 7 He changed the I into My words, saying, “If you abide in Me and My words abide in you.” This proves that this word is a living word, which is the Lord Himself. Thus, when the Lord abides in us, His words also abide in us. This word is sweet and shining, and it gives understanding to men. This word is God Himself manifested to us as the Spirit and life. Furthermore, this word is He Himself abiding in us to be our supply so that we may enjoy all His riches. All these depend on our having a heart that loves Him and a spirit that hungers and thirsts for Him.
Every day and every moment, we need to tell the Lord, “Lord, I love You, I want You, and I want to contact You through Your Word.” Then open the Bible, and whether it is morning, noon, or evening, you can contact Him and enjoy Him through His Word in this way. Even while waiting for a ride or riding in a car, you can also do some reading. In school or in the office, you can also use some free time to read a few verses. When you contact the Lord’s word, with just a few words by the spirit the Lord’s word will immediately enter into your spirit and touch your spirit. Then spontaneously you will pray. You may pray according to the Lord’s word or turn the word into application. In any case, once you pray, your spirit will be supplied and will touch the Lord.
This is to enjoy the Lord, which is also to drink the milk of the word. This will cause you to have all kinds of supply within for you to be enlightened, to be led, and to know how to live before the Lord. As a result, your life will grow. This is the proper way to live with the Lord and enjoy the Lord’s life, and this is also our normal Christian life.
