Many saints have learned the teaching that we have been crucified and resurrected and that we now need to reckon ourselves crucified and resurrected. I did much reckoning when I was young. However, today I have seen that the way is not to reckon but to take in the word and touch the Spirit. Because Christ’s death and the effectiveness of His death are in the word and in the Spirit, when we receive the word and touch the Spirit, we enjoy and participate in Christ’s death and its effectiveness. Being crucified with Christ is not a matter of knowledge or reckoning; it is a matter of taking in the word and touching the Spirit because within the word and within the Spirit are the death of Christ and the effectiveness of His death.
If we do not open the Bible for a month or even a week, yet we attempt to reckon ourselves dead, we will still be very alive in many sinful things. Day after day there is no killing power within us because we do not take the word into us. If we do not eat physical food for a week, we will be susceptible to many diseases. As long as we eat the proper food, we will have the killing element, the natural antibiotics, to kill the germs. If we do not eat properly for a period of time, there will be a lack of the killing element in our body. Many negative germs will begin to work, and we will become sick. We need a daily killing not only in our physical life but also in our spiritual life. As long as we are on the earth, many spiritual germs will enter into us through the things we see in the sinful environment that surrounds us. Therefore, we daily need the inward killing of the spiritual antibiotics to kill the spiritual germs within us. This killing power is in the word and in the Spirit. When we read the Bible and pray, taking in the word and touching the Spirit, we receive the killing element of the death of Christ.
If a brother does not read the Bible for one month, he may often lose his temper with his wife. It will not be necessary to ask him whether or not he has read the Bible regularly; we can simply ask his wife, “How has your husband’s temper been?” If she replies that he has frequently lost his temper, we will know that the brother has not been reading the Bible daily, because the negative things within him have become prevailing. He lacks the killing element because he does not take in the word. We need to legally spend at least ten minutes in the Bible every morning. If the brother begins to spend only ten minutes per day in the Word, perhaps after only a week his wife will say, “Praise the Lord! My husband has had a wonderful change. He did not lose his temper once this week.” Moreover, when we read the Bible, we surely will pray. No one eats and does not drink. Everyone who eats also drinks. By reading the Bible and praying, we take in the word and touch the Spirit, both of which contain Christ, His death, and His resurrection. It is in this way that we abide in the vine.
First John 2:27 says, “His anointing teaches you.” The word teaches indicates that the moving of the compound Spirit is full of meaning. However, we need the proper knowledge of the Bible to understand the meaning of the Spirit’s moving. For this reason, we all need to read the Bible to accumulate the necessary knowledge. Children must be taught the meaning of certain words before they can be expected to fully understand their parents. The anointing teaches us within, but if we do not have the adequate knowledge of the Bible, we will not understand the meaning of the moving within us. The Spirit moves with meaning, with some significance, but we need the spiritual knowledge to understand it.
We need to read the Bible to receive the spiritual education necessary to become spiritually qualified to understand the teaching of the anointing. If a person speaks to us in a language we do not know, although we hear the sounds of the person’s speaking, we will not understand the meaning. Because we lack the necessary knowledge and education, we are not qualified to understand the person’s speaking. However, if we know the language, we will understand the person’s speaking. We need to spend time in the Word to accumulate biblical knowledge so that we will become spiritually qualified and prepared to understand the teaching of the anointing. A brother who was recently saved can understand only a little of the teaching of the anointing within him, but a brother who has been saved and has read the Word for many years can understand much more when the anointing moves within him. The anointing within these two brothers may be the same, but their understanding will differ greatly because their preparation differs. This is the reason that we all need to spend time in the Word.
Reading the Word is never a waste of time. I encourage the saints to be legal about their Bible reading. When Brother Watchmen Nee was young, he decided to read the New Testament once a week for one year. He was able to do this by carrying a small Bible with him everywhere he went. Whenever he was unoccupied for any amount of time, he would read a few lines. After reading the New Testament fifty-two times in such a way, a clear knowledge of the Word was surely wrought into his being. When the compound Spirit anoints such a person, he understands the full meaning of the anointing. We will never feel that we have read the Bible too much. By reading the Bible, we accumulate the knowledge we need to understand the teaching of the anointing, which enables us to abide in the Lord.