How can we stay on the pathway of life when we come to the Word? I have been trying to do this and praying that the Lord will help me to experience life in His Word. But for so many years I came to the Bible for knowledge that even when I am in the midst of seeking the Lord, I find I have turned back to knowledge.
The most crucial matter is that you need a change in your concept. Yes, we formerly came to the Bible for knowledge, but now you must realize your need of the life supply. When you come to the Bible, don’t analyze whether you are coming for knowledge or for life. If you analyze, you are for knowledge. Just come to the Bible for the life supply. Many times this supply comes through the proper knowledge. But don’t begin to wonder what the proper knowledge is and how you can get it! Just have a change in your view of the Bible. You are coming for the supply of life. Then whether you read, pray-read, or study, the result will be that life is supplied to you.
Is it accurate to say that the blood cleanses our soul? One of the hymns we sing refers to the “soul-cleansing blood.”
The redeeming blood cleanses us from any sin or defilement. It is probably better to avoid using this term in ordinary talk, though I would not say that it is wrong. The soul means the self. The blood does cleanse us from our sins, but we do not need to call it the “soul-cleansing” blood. In our writings we try to stay away from any questionable terminology. We don’t condemn what others use, but we don’t necessarily adopt their terms either.
Could you give us a practical way to deal with our mind when we find we are distracted? I often find my mind is somewhere else, particularly when I’m in the meetings! How can I turn it back and be in my spirit?
Do not be discouraged that your efforts to stay in your spirit are a failure many times. When you first begin exercising to deduct the feelings in your mind, your will, and your emotions, you will find you are “adding” instead! Keep working on it. At first, you must exercise legally; this practice in the early stage is actually an “addition.” Eventually, however, when your “subtracting” becomes a habit, it will be spontaneous. Then you will have the real “subtraction.”
Once we are saved, we sense that something has happened deep within us. We are not the same as we were. Nonetheless, questions begin to arise: Why have we changed so little? Why is our mentality still so dark? How come our emotions are still impure? How is it that our heart is not really honest?
Regeneration means that a seed has been planted in our spirit. The divine, uncreated, eternal, unlimited life has been sown into our spirit. At first it does not occupy very much even of our spirit. For this reason we may go on in the same way as we did in the past. Even so, because of this seed we can never be the same.
Even those of us in the Lord’s recovery pay very little attention to our spirit. The best exercise in our Christian life is to call our being back to our spirit. Thinking is a distraction; rather than heed your mentality, be tuned in to your spirit. Whenever Christians seek holiness or victory, they invariably fall short. Their morality may improve somewhat, but until they realize that the Christian life is a matter in our spirit, where the life of God is realized and enjoyed, they will not succeed in living victoriously.
On a recent trip to the Northwest I was staying in a couple’s home. They put me in the best room. Everything was fine, except that when it got dark I could not find the switch to turn on the light. I groped about here and there, but my efforts to locate the switch were all in vain. Finally I had to ask. The switch turned out to be hidden behind the mirror on the dresser. It never would have occurred to me to look there!
Is not this a picture of Christians, striving to be victorious but groping in the dark because they do not know where the switch is?
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