Day: August 28, 2022

Let us forget about reading the Word merely for knowledge. Let us practice taking the Word as the expression of Christ and as the conveyer of Christ by exercising our spirit to contact the Word, taking the Word as Christ Himself and making Christ the reality of the Word. Then this Word will become our nourishment. The divisions among the Lord’s children arose from the knowledge of the Bible in the letter. We all need to be delivered from the letter to the experience of Christ as the life-giving Spirit. We need a deliverance from the mere knowledge of letters to be brought back to the centrality, universality, and reality of the Word of God—the living Christ.

PRAYING IN THE SPIRIT WITH THE PRAYER OF CHRIST

We have to learn how to exercise our spirit to contact Christ as the life-giving Spirit by prayer. James 5:17 says, “Elijah was a man of like feeling with us, and he earnestly prayed that it would not rain; and it did not rain on the earth for three years and six months.” In this verse earnestly prayed literally means “prayed in prayer.” Many times we pray, but we do not pray in prayer or with prayer. There must be a prayer in our prayer just like the wheel within the wheel in Ezekiel 1:16. When we are going to preach the gospel, we should be moving in the Lord’s move. When we are ministering the Word, we should be ministering in the Lord’s ministry. When we are praying, we should be praying in prayer. This means that when we pray, the Holy Spirit must be praying within our prayer. A prayer from the Lord was given to Elijah in which he prayed. He did not pray in his feeling, thought, intention, mood, or in any kind of motivation from circumstances or situations for the fulfilling of his purpose. [179] He prayed in the prayer and with the prayer given to him by the Lord for the accomplishing of God’s will. Within our prayer there must be a prayer of Christ. Andrew Murray said that the best prayer is one in which Christ prays within us to the Christ in the heavens. While we are praying, Christ must be praying within us.

Ephesians 6:18 tells us that we need to receive the word of God “by means of all prayer and petition, praying at every time in spirit.” The Lord is the Spirit, and we have to contact Him by praying in our spirit. He is the life-giving Spirit indwelling our spirit, so we have to exercise our spirit to pray. In our spirit there is another Spirit praying. Our spirit is the outer wheel, and the divine Spirit in our spirit praying is the inner wheel. While we are praying by exercising our spirit, there is another One praying within our spirit, another Spirit. This Spirit is the life-giving Spirit, Christ Himself. The wheel within the wheel in Ezekiel 1 typifies the divine Spirit in our human spirit.

Some may ask how they could know that Christ is praying within them while they are praying. When one is eating some fruit, he may exclaim that it is delicious. If someone were to ask him how he knows it is delicious, he could only respond that what he is eating tastes delicious. We know that Christ is praying within us while we are praying because of the taste within. The more we pray with Christ’s prayer, the more we are refreshed, the more we are watered, the more we are anointed, and the more we are strengthened. But sometimes when we pray, it is another story. When we do not pray with Christ’s prayer, the more we pray, the more we are empty and dried up. When we pray without the prayer of Christ within us, we are like a machine without oil. There is no smoothness in the machine’s operation, and it will burn up due to the lack of oil. When we pray apart from Christ, we are exhausted. Prayer then becomes a real labor to us. This is because we are praying by ourselves and moving with an empty wheel. We may pray according to our mentality, our own inclination, our own emotions, and our own desires and not care for the Spirit in our spirit. Thus, the more we pray in this way, the more we are dried up with no watering, no anointing, no oiling, no refreshing, and no strengthening. We have to learn to drop this way of praying.

Matthew 6:33 says, “Seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.” When we pray, we should not focus on our needs. Our Father knows all the things that [180] we need, and He will add these to us. We should leave our needs in His hands. He knows what we need better than we do. Husbands should not pray too much concerning their wives, and the wives should not pray too much concerning their husbands. In our prayer we have to take care of contacting the Lord Himself. We have to take care of honoring Him, praising Him, exalting Him, and glorifying Him. Then all our needs will be taken care of.

Many times in my prayer I simply did not have the liberty to pray for so many things. According to my intention, I wanted to pray for my relatives and for certain people, but when I knelt down to pray, something within me was going in another direction. Thus, I had to make a decision whether I would go along with my own direction to pray or pray according to His direction. If I prayed according to my own direction, the more I prayed, the more I would be dried up within. But if I forgot about my own direction and prayed according to His direction, the more I prayed, the more I would be refreshed and burning in spirit. Then the more I prayed, the more He prayed. This is the reality of the wheel within the wheel in Ezekiel 1. This is the way to pray in the Lord. By praying in the Lord we will be watered, refreshed, and strengthened. We will drink of the Lord, and our spirit will be open to Him by our prayer. By this kind of prayer, He has a way to flow out from within us. First, we will be watered, and then this water will flow out to others.

May we all be brought into the experience of Christ praying within us. We need to drive our “car” along the map given to us in this chapter. The best way for us to enjoy the Lord is to read the Word, realizing that He is the reality of the Word and taking Him, contacting Him, by exercising our spirit. Then we need to learn to pray in the spirit with Him praying in our prayer.

THE NEED TO LEARN THE PRINCIPLE OF PRAYER

We need to consider the prayer of the Lord in John 17 and the two prayers of the apostle Paul in Ephesians (1:17-23; 3:14-19). We need to read these three prayers to learn the principle of prayer. This will help us to be brought into the realization of how the Lord prayed in the spirit and how the apostle Paul prayed in the spirit. In John 17:1 the Lord prayed to the Father, “Glorify Your Son that the Son may glorify You.” The Lord began His prayer with God’s glory from the Holy of Holies. In verse 11 the Lord addressed the Father as [181] “Holy Father.” This indicates that He had come out from the Holy of Holies to the Holy Place.

By the end of this prayer in verse 25 He called the Father “Righteous Father.” At the beginning of John 17 is the glorified Father, in the middle is the holy Father, and at the end is the righteous Father. This points to God’s glory, His holiness, and His righteousness. The Lord started His prayer from the Holy of Holies and came through the Holy Place to the outer court in order to bring people into the Triune God.

CHAPTER TWELVE

HOW TO FEAST ON THE TREE OF LIFE 
THROUGH PRAYER

Scripture Reading: James 5:17; Ezek. 1:16; Eph. 6:17-18; Matt. 6:33; John 17:1, 11, 25

THE DIVINE CONCEPT CONCERNING 
THE WORD OF GOD

Before we go on to see how to feed on the Lord and how to drink of the Lord by prayer, we need to see some more passages showing us what our concept should be regarding the Word of God. Our concept concerning the Word of God is that the Word is merely composed of teachings and instructions, but the divine concept concerning the Word of God is that the word from the Lord is food for us to feed on for our nourishment. Matthew 4:4 says, “Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that proceeds out through the mouth of God.” The divine concept concerning God’s Word is that it is food by which we are not only taught but also nourished. Jeremiah 15:16 says, “Your words were found and I ate them.” Jeremiah took the word as food to eat. First Corinthians 3:1-2a says, “I, brothers, was not able to speak to you as to spiritual men, but as to fleshy, as to infants in Christ. I gave you milk to drink, not solid food.” The apostle Paul’s concept concerning the Word was that the Word was either milk or solid food. Milk or solid food is something for us to feed on in order to be nourished. Hebrews 5:12-14 says, “When because of the time you ought to be teachers, you have need again for someone to teach you what the rudiments of the beginning of the oracles of God are and have become those who have need of milk and not of solid food. For everyone who partakes of milk is inexperienced in the word of righteousness, for he is an infant; but solid food is for the full-grown, who because of practice have their faculties exercised for discriminating between both good and evil.” The Word is nourishment as milk for the young ones and as solid food for the mature ones. First Peter 2:2 says, “As newborn babes, long for the guileless [176] milk of the word in order that by it you may grow unto salvation.” All these passages confirm that we need our concept renewed concerning the Word of God. The natural concept concerning the Word is that it is a certain kind of teaching or doctrine, but the divine concept is that the Word of God is food to nourish our spirit.

Two passages from the Scripture show us that the Word is food to nourish us in the spirit. John 6:63 says, “The words which I have spoken to you are spirit and are life.” In Colossians 3:16 the infilling of spiritual life that overflows in praising and singing is related to the Word, whereas in its parallel passage, Ephesians 5:18-20, the infilling of spiritual life is related to the Spirit. This indicates that the Word and the Spirit are identical (John 6:63b). When we are filled with the Word, we are filled with the Spirit. It is rather hard for anyone to be filled with the Spirit without being filled with the Word. The Lord is the life-giving Spirit, and the Word is also the Spirit. We have to deal with the Word as the Spirit and in our spirit. The Word as the Lord is spiritual food to feed our spirit. If we take the Word only into our soul, it becomes mere knowledge to us. But if we take the Word into our spirit and take it as the Spirit, the Word becomes our spiritual food. Whether the Word is mere knowledge to us or food depends on how we take it and depends on what part of our being we exercise to take it. We have to take the Word into our spirit by exercising our spirit. Then the Word will become life in us.

EXERCISING OUR SPIRIT TO CONTACT THE LIVING 
CHRIST AS THE REALITY OF THE WORD OF GOD

The Bible does teach us certain things, such as Ephesians 6:1, which says, “Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right.” Without the little phrase in the Lord or the phrase in Christ in other Scripture passages, the teaching of the Bible would be merely ethical and not divine. But the Bible is a divine teaching with the divine nature. In the Lord indicates to obey the parents: (1) by being one with the Lord, (2) not by yourselves but by the Lord, and (3) not according to your concept but according to the Lord’s word. The Bible says that the wives should be subject to their own husbands, but we must look at the context of this teaching in Ephesians 5. Verses 18 through 22 say, “Do not be drunk with wine, in which is dissoluteness, but be filled in spirit, speaking to one another in [177] 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, being subject to one another in the fear of Christ: Wives, be subject to your own husbands as to the Lord.” A wife should submit to her husband in the condition of being filled in spirit and of being in the fear of Christ. We should not isolate the Word from the Spirit or from Christ. If the wives are to submit to their own husbands, they first have to be filled with the Holy Spirit, and then they have to be in the fear of Christ. Then Christ Himself will be the reality of their submission to their husbands. It will not be their doing, their behavior, their conduct, but it will be the overflow of Christ from within them. The reality of the Word of God is Christ as the Spirit. The Word should not be divorced or isolated from Christ. The Word is the very expression of Christ. Whenever we read the Bible, we have to receive it in the spirit as an expression of Christ in order to make Christ the reality of that word.

In 1 Timothy and Titus there are instructions regarding the eldership (1 Tim. 3:1-7; Titus 1:5-9). A careful reading of these books will bring one into the realization that the eldership can only be realized in the spirit by taking Christ as the reality of the eldership. The eldership is not a matter of the elders being merely good, moral, or ethical, but the eldership is something spiritual with Christ as the reality. The Word is the means to convey Christ to us. Without Christ as the content of the Word, the Word is empty to us. All the words in the Bible are means to convey Christ into us.

Whenever we come to contact the Word, to deal with the Word, we have to realize that the Word is the expression of Christ, and we need to contact Christ in the spirit as the reality of the Word. Then the Word will not be divorced from the Lord or isolated from Christ. Then we will have the reality of the Word, which is Christ Himself. But we cannot do this by merely exercising our soul. The more we exercise our soul to contact the Word, the more we will isolate the Word from Christ. The problem with many Bible students is that they have isolated the Word from Christ by reading it merely in the mind or with the mind. When we read the Word, we will spontaneously understand something with our mind, but then we have to turn what we understand in our mind into the spirit by praying, by taking Christ as the reality of the Word. This is the proper way to [178] take the Word. We all need to come back to Christ Himself, taking Christ as the reality of the Word in the spirit. What the Word conveys must be Christ. If the Word instructs us, the reality of that instruction is Christ Himself. The reality of submission is Christ. Even if one could submit on his own, that would not mean anything in the eyes of God. What God values is Christ Himself. Our submission must be Christ. Because the reality of all the instructions and teachings in the Word must be Christ Himself, we have to deal with the Word in the spirit, by the spirit, and through the spirit. Christ is the centrality and universality of all the things spoken by God in His Word, so we have to exercise our spirit to take Him as the reality in our spirit.