The Precious Word of God, Message Two
The Bible—God’s Breathing
Day 4
B. Life—eternal life not only swallows up death but also renders the life supply
1 Corinthians 15:54b …the word which is written will come to pass, “Death has been swallowed up unto victory.”
1 Peter 1:23 Having been regenerated not of corruptible seed but of incorruptible, through the living and abiding word of God.
Hebrews 4:12 For the word of God is living and operative and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing even to the dividing of soul and spirit and of joints and marrow, and able to discern the thoughts and intentions of the heart.
Song – Jesus, O living Word of God (For the whole song go to: https://www.hymnal.net/en/hymn/ns/74)
Jesus, O living Word of God,
Wash me and cleanse me with Your blood
So You can speak to me.
Just let me hear Your words of grace,
Just let me see Your radiant face,
Beholding constantly.
Jesus, living Word,
My heart thirsts for Thee;
Of Thee I’d eat and drink,
Enjoy Thee thoroughly.
Use the outline points, verses and hymn above for your prayer to spend time with the Lord in the Word in the morning. After your prayer time, jot down in your notebook one or two things that the Lord touched you with.
Reading Portion
The Bible is the Word of God, the expression of God. God expresses Himself in order that He may enter into us to be our life. God is so mysterious that without the Word, it would be very difficult to contact Him. Thankfully, He is the Word. When we touch and contact the Word, we can touch and contact God. Therefore, in order for us to contact God and enjoy Him as life, we must read the Bible. However, when we read the Bible, we must be careful not to fall into the temptation of merely studying with our mind. We must have the firm realization that the Bible is the expression of God. Therefore, we need to use our heart and spirit to contact the words in the Bible. If we do this, we will be inwardly satisfied, restful, and watered. When we read the Bible, our goal should be to contact God.
The Word Being outside of Us and the Spirit Being within Us
In actuality, the Word is the Spirit, and the Spirit is the Word. Outside of us, the Spirit is embodied in the Word; inside of us, the Word is realized as the Spirit. Whenever we receive the words of the Bible into our being, these words become spirit and life and are realized as the Spirit. Although the words in 2 Corinthians 6:14 seemingly speak only of not being dissimilarly yoked with unbelievers, we can sense the operation of the Spirit in us when we read this verse. As soon as these words enter into us, we realize them as the Spirit.
When the words of the Bible become the Spirit in us and operate in us, they are life to us. Even though the Bible is a book of life, this is not readily apparent because outwardly the Bible appears to be just a book. The words in the Bible must be read and received into us so that the words in the Bible can become life to us through the operating Spirit. The Lord said, “The words which I have spoken to you are spirit and are life” (John 6:63). This shows that His words are life only when they are spirit to us. If the Bible is merely words to us, it will not be life to us. The words in the Bible must become the Spirit to us, and then they also will be life. The words in the Bible become the Spirit when they enter into us. Strictly speaking, if the Bible is only a book in our hands, its words will not be life to us but rather letter, because they are only in our mind. The words in the Bible will become the Spirit to us when we read the Bible with our spirit and allow the words in the Bible to touch our spirit and enter into us.
Experiencing God as the Word and as the Spirit
If we desire to know God and experience Him as our life, we must experience Him as both the Word and the Spirit, because today He is in His words and also in the Spirit. Touching God and contacting God is not something that should be abstract to us. Rather, it is something that can be genuine and real if we calm down our outer man, rein in our mind, and exercise our spirit to read and contact the Lord in the Word. Then His Word will become the Spirit operating in us. In this way we will contact God in our spirit.
I hope that we will learn to use the Bible outside of us and to contact the Spirit within us. We are truly rich! We have the Spirit in us, and we also have the Bible in our hand. The riches in these two items are inexhaustible! For two thousand years no one has exhausted these riches; the more a person touches them, the richer they become…. The riches that we have received cannot be exhausted in our experience. We do not possess silver and gold (Acts 3:6), but we have something much more valuable; we have the Word and the Spirit. (Leading the Young People with the Word and the Spirit, Chapter 14)
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