In the type of the tabernacle, dealing with the lamps and burning the incense go together. Exodus 30:7 and 8 say, “And Aaron shall burn on it fragrant incense; every morning when he dresses the lamps he shall burn it. And when Aaron sets up the lamps at twilight, he shall burn it, a perpetual incense before Jehovah throughout your generations.” In the morning the priest burned the incense when he dressed the lamps, and in the evening he burned the incense again when he set up the lamps. Moreover, the incense was not for one day, one month, one year, or one generation only; it was a constant, continual, perpetual incense before Jehovah throughout all generations. This means that all day as we deal with the lamps, we need to burn the incense.
Burning the incense is a type of our prayer, with Christ as the incense offered to God, and lighting the lamps is a type of our dealing with the Word, that is, our reading of the Bible. Here we have a principle. Whenever we light the lamps, we have to burn the incense. That is, whenever we deal with the word in a proper way to receive light, we have to pray and offer incense to God. It is only by this kind of prayer that the word we read and understand can be transferred into the Spirit and become life to us.
Many of us read the Bible, but I am concerned that we may not read the Bible in this living way. I would recommend to you this living way. From now on, we should read the word in this way and help others to contact the Lord day by day by reading in such a way. This will cause a change among us.
John 14:1 through 3 says, “Do not let your heart be troubled; believe into God, believe also into Me. In My Father’s house are many abodes; if it were not so, I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I am coming again and will receive you to Myself, so that where I am you also may be.” This is a good portion of the word to pray with. To pray over this portion requires a certain amount of practice, development, and consideration. We should not go too fast here. We need to taste this portion by “chewing” it. We may say, “Lord, I thank You that You went to pave the way, prepare a place, and gain the ground that I may be in the Father, that I may be in the place where You are. Lord, I do realize that today I am in the place where You are, yet I need more realization of this. Grant me more and more to experience that I am in the Father, just as You are.” We should learn to apply such a portion by saying, “Lord, today keep me in the place where You are. Now I am going to my office. Keep me in the Father. Grant me the sense that I am with You in the Father all the time.” When we take the word in this way, it is not merely words in black and white letters. Rather, it is living. It is in this way that we exercise our spirit and have a fresh contact with the Lord. In this way it is easy to use our spirit to pray.
As we practice to take the word in this way, we should learn to pray not merely from our knowledge but by exercising our spirit to say something from within to the Lord, to have a real contact with the Lord. We need to exercise the spirit to bring ourselves into the presence of the Lord and speak something in His presence directly, face to face. This is real prayer, not merely a prayer for affairs, business, or burdens, but a prayer to contact and digest the Lord. This is the way to feed on the Lord through the word. At the same time, while we are praying, we are drinking of the Lord.
John 5 begins, “After these things there was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. Now there is in Jerusalem near the sheepgate a pool, which is called in Hebrew Bethesda, having five porticoes.” (vv. 1-2). This chapter is a good piece of “meat” and needs an adequate development. Since this portion is so rich, we may speak with the Lord ten, twenty, or even thirty minutes in prayer. We may say, “Lord, in that day there was a feast. I thank You that today God is my feast. In Jerusalem there was a pool with five porches. Today You are my Jerusalem, and You are my pool. There is no need for me to lie in the porches. Now I am in You; I am in Christ. There is no need for me to wait like an impotent man for the angel. You are the Angel, who has come to the place where I am. You are also the water. There is no need for me to wait for the stirring of the water. You are stirring all the time. Lord, praise You; whenever You stir, I am cured. You are also the real Sabbath to me. Lord, I praise You that today with You I have a Sabbath, a feast, a pool, an angel, the water, and the stirring.”
Following this, we can apply this portion, praying, “Lord, cause me to realize all this. There is no need for me to go to heaven. You came here already, and now You are with me. You do not require or demand anything. You only supply and impart. There is no need for me to do anything or change anything. You simply impart something to me in the place where I am.” If we read and pray in this way, the Bible will be a different book. It will be a living book.
We should not let a passage of the word like this go by too quickly. Perhaps the next morning we can come back to the same portion. Then we will have something more. We may pray, “Lord, I ask not only for myself but for many poor ones.” We will have the burden to care for others, and we will have some genuine intercession for others. This is the living way to read the word. We all need to do this. Just as we need a meal to live physically, we also need a meal to live spiritually. We need to feed and to feast, to take something of the Lord into our spirit.
Our prayer with the word must not be formal. When we are formal, we become religious. Often we confuse being formal and religious with being spiritual. The more we practice the living way to read the word, the more we will be genuinely spiritual and the less we will be formal and religious. If we practice this way for only half a year, we will be able to open to the same chapters and verses we read today but speak to the Lord in a different way. This will prove that we are more in the spirit and not as religious as we used to be.
It may be hard for some to know the difference between being religious and being genuinely spiritual in digesting, realizing, and applying a passage of the word. To be religious means that we know what pleases God and that we expect to be that or do that. We may pray, “Lord, help me to do that.” Nearly all Christians who read Luke 21:1 to 4, for example, spontaneously ask the Lord to help them to be like the impoverished widow who cast her two coins into the treasury. On the one hand, there is nothing wrong with such a prayer, but on the other hand, it is a religious prayer.
There is no need to have a vision from the Lord to have this kind of religious concept. Even the worldly people who do not know Christ and are against Christ, when they read this portion will say, “This widow is right. If I would be a Christian, I would be like this widow.” However, those worldly people have no vision. If we have the proper vision from the word, we will see that it is not a matter of offering more or less; it is a matter of doing something in the presence of the Lord. The proper vision relates to the presence of the Lord, not to being like the widow. We should pray, “Lord, help me to be in Your presence. Whatever I do, I would do it in Your presence.” Whatever we do in the presence of the Lord is right. What matters is that we live, walk, and do things in the presence of the Lord. “Lord, grant me the mercy that I may always walk and live in the sense of Your presence.”
To understand this small portion of the word in a way that is not natural and religious requires a vision. When we come to the word, we must not try to understand it in a natural way. If we come to understand the word in a religious way, we need not read the word at all, because we already have a religious concept. To try to please God by offering more “coins” with greater sincerity does not require the word of God. We already had this thought in our mind even before we were saved. We should not bring religious concepts like this to the word. We need to forget them. To exercise our spirit and deny our self includes dropping all our natural and religious concepts when we come to the word.
We must come to the word without any natural understanding. Sometimes when a certain understanding comes to us, we have to check, “Is this the natural concept? Is this a religious concept?” If we practice in this way, we will learn to have discernment. Then when we come to a passage like Luke 21, we will see the vision of the presence of the Lord, and we will pray, “Lord, in whatever I do, grant me the mercy and grace that I would do it in the sense of Your presence. I would do it at Your feet. I would do it under Your watching. Whatever I do must be approved by Your presence.”
Through these messages we have become clear about the proper way to read and pray. However, we all need more practice.