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.