Reading the Word to Contact God Himself

When we contact the Word, we need to be clear that we are contacting God Himself. Whenever we open the Bible, our first thought should be to contact the living God. The living God has breathed out all that is within Himself as the Word. All the riches within Him are breathed out in the form of the word. Every word of the Bible, from the first to the last, is the breath of God. The Bible is not for us to study philosophy or literature. It is for us to contact what God has breathed out, what He has exhaled.

Brothers and sisters, this is not a light matter. Unless we have the concept that we are coming to God and contacting Him, our focus will be wrong. The first thought we should have, the first step we should take, when we open the Scriptures is to prepare ourselves to contact God. We are reading what God has breathed out. God has breathed His breath upon these words. We should not have the thought that we are reading teachings or literature. Rather, we are altogether contacting the manifested God, the God who has revealed Himself through His speaking. The God who dwells in unapproachable light, who cannot be touched or known, has revealed Himself through the Word. In fact He Himself is the Word, and He is embodied in the Word. Now He has put the Word, which is His breath, before us. When we study the Word, contact the Word, we are actually contacting God Himself.

Many people ask why they do not receive anything when they read the Word. I would like to ask, “When you read the Word, do you have the thought that you are coming to a book of letters, or do you have the thought that you are coming to the living word that has been breathed out from God?” This thought is very crucial. Many brothers and sisters do not have this thought when they come to the Word. They think that they are reading merely words printed on paper. At the most they think that they are studying teachings, commandments, or doctrines. It is no wonder that they do not receive a living supply. We need a consciousness that the Bible is the Word of God; it is God’s speaking. God has released Himself through His speaking. He is embodied in the Bible. Hence, when we come to the Bible, we should have the consciousness that we are contacting the revealed and released God. We are not touching merely letters; we are touching the living God. We are not touching merely teachings; we are touching a God who has breathed Himself out. In order to properly approach the Word, we must have this thought and prepare ourselves accordingly.

Exercising the Spirit Rather Than the Mind

With this initial understanding we can proceed further. We need to exercise our spirit rather than our mind whenever we study the Word. This is a trying lesson for many people. They may not agree and say, “Who can study without using his mind?” It seems as if this is an unreasonable demand. But I would ask, “Is there a difference between reading the Bible and reading a newspaper?” We will derive no value from exercising our spirit to read a newspaper. We should exercise our mind when we read a newspaper, asking ourselves about the content of an article or an editorial. We need to use our mind to analyze and understand international news, politics, and financial reports. But we must take a different approach when we read the Bible. When we come to the Word, our first thought should be that God can be released through these pages because these words are the very breath of God. God has spoken and revealed Himself through these words. We need to exercise our spirit, not our mind, when we read the Bible because God is Spirit (John 4:24). We must believe that the more we turn from our mind to our spirit, our reading of the Scriptures will be proper.

A brother once said that he received much light in his study of the Bible one morning. When I asked what light he had seen, he replied that he realized that Adam lacked one rib. I asked how he came to this conclusion, and he said that as he was reading Genesis 2, he pondered on how Eve could have been made from Adam’s rib. He concluded that Adam must have lacked one rib. I pointed my finger at his head and said, “Brother, your mind has killed you! If you study the Bible in this way, you will never receive genuine light. You will forever be in darkness.”

This is not the way to study the Bible. In reading the Word, we must turn from our mind in order to release our spirit. It is very difficult for one who has never received any education, who is illiterate, to read the Bible. However, those who are able to read the Bible need to turn from their mind and exercise their spirit in order to receive any benefit. There is much to learn in this matter.

Let us use an example to see the difference between reading the Bible with the mind or with the spirit. If a person exercises only his mind when reading Genesis 1 concerning God’s creation of the heavens and the earth, he may wonder when the creation occurred. Was it six thousand years ago, or was it ten thousand years ago? There is no limit to the questions one can ask. If a person is a geologist or has books on geology, his mind will dominate. He may set the Bible aside and pull out a book on geology to investigate the subject. With ten minutes or even ten hours of this kind of reading, he will not touch God. On the contrary, he will lose God’s presence when he reads in this way. His mind will be full of knowledge, but his spirit will be dry. When he comes out of his library, he will be irritable; any slight provocation will cause him to lose his temper. This shows that his reading did not bring God into him. Rather, it brought him into his flesh. This is not an exaggeration. God’s children commonly face this difficulty when they come to the Word.

Even I studied the Bible in this way after I was saved. When I opened the New Testament to Matthew 1:1, which speaks of the son of Abraham, I asked, “Who was Abraham?” If I could not determine this, immediately I looked it up in reference books. I eventually determined that Abraham was the father of the Jews, the father of Isaac and the grandfather of Jacob. Then more questions came. Who was Isaac? Who was Jacob? I was so completely occupied with reference books that there was no time remaining to continue reading the Bible. The more I looked in reference books, the more confused I became, and the more I was distracted from the verse itself. My spirit was dry, my heart was ill-tempered, and I received no supply. If this is the way we read, there is no value to it. Many new believers and even some long-time students of the Bible have only this kind of experience.

When brothers ask me to recommend reference books, I am reluctant because my recommendation could damage them. It is better to have fewer books at our disposal when we come to the Word. It is best if we have only one book—the Bible. We do not need to refer to any other material. If there is a need for a reference, that reference should be God. When we come to the Bible, our first thought should not be that we are coming to a book on knowledge or ethics; instead, we are coming to God who has revealed Himself through His speaking. When we come to the Word, we are contacting the living God. We do not need reference material, and we do not need to struggle with our mind. We only need to contact the living God by exercising our spirit.

If we read Genesis 1:1 with the exercise of our spirit, we will worship God, saying, “Praise You. You are the beginning. Without You there is no beginning. Everything begins with You.” This will enable us to immediately touch God in our spirit, not in our mind. This is altogether a matter of our spirit touching the Spirit. We may read the verse again: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” This may prompt us to worship God, saying, “You are the Creator. Everything is of You. You are the Initiator, the Inaugurator, of everything. Without You there is no beginning. Without You there is no heaven, and there is no earth. Without You there is no universe.” This does not require the exercise of our mind. It is fully a matter of contacting the living God with our spirit. Studying the Bible in this way does not require ten minutes. Rather, our spirit can be filled in five minutes. As we leave for work in the morning, we still may be saying, “In the beginning God. In the beginning God. God created. God created. Praise You. You are the beginning of everything. You created everything.” Just a few minutes and a few words enable us to touch God. Our inner being will touch God, and we will enjoy Him.

God’s children need to see that whenever we come to His Word, we should be convicted in our heart that this Word is the speaking forth of the living God. We should not study it with our mind; instead, we should contact it with our spirit. There is no need to understand the Bible too much. Please give me the liberty to say that for many people, the more they understand the Bible, the worse their spiritual life becomes. This is not a matter of “understanding” the Bible but a matter of “contacting” the Bible. The Bible is indeed a wonderful book. The way to approach it is not to understand it but to contact it, touch it, and enjoy it.

Once a young brother asked me whether reading the Bible was useful since he did not understand much of what he read. He said, “I read the second half of the book of Exodus, and all I saw was the materials, the construction, and the dimensions of the tabernacle. The more I read, the more confused I am. What is the purpose of reading?” I answered, “Dear brother, let me suggest an experiment. Tomorrow morning when you wake up, change the way that you read, and see if there is a difference.” The next day he came to me and said, “Brother Lee, there is a difference. This morning when I opened up the book of Exodus, I still did not understand much of what I read, but I had the intention of coming to God and putting myself under His shining.” I said, “Brother, this is very precious. This is the right way.” When we read the Word, we should place ourselves under the shining of God’s light. We may read twenty-five chapters of Exodus, and our mind may lack understanding and be totally confused. However, after fifteen minutes of coming to the Word in this way, we feel as if we have passed under God’s shining. We will be inwardly refreshed, cleansed, and enlightened. This is the most valuable kind of reading.

This does not mean that we do not need to understand or remember anything when we read the Word, but understanding and memorization are secondary. Our primary need is to pass through God’s shining whenever we read the Word. The Bible is a book for us to contact rather than to understand. We contact sunshine every day even though we do not understand it. We do not understand water, but we contact it every day. To contact is one thing, and to understand is another. Similarly, to receive is one thing, and to comprehend is another. The Bible is not primarily for comprehension but for communication and reception. Whenever we read God’s Word, if we acknowledge that it is His very speaking and contact it with our spirit, our inner being will touch God and receive Him.