Therefore, our conclusion is that to be a good and living Christian, one must eat every day. If you want to be strong and healthy, you have no alternative but to eat. However, do not eat in a haphazard way; you must eat properly, and you must also eat at the right time. I speak this word especially to the young people. I know that without exception you all are busy. Actually, everyone is busy; no one is sitting idle. Satan will not allow anyone to sit idle. It is needless to mention that you are going to school or doing a job; even if you do not do these things the whole day, you will still be busy. However, do not let your busyness be your excuse. Rather, you should remove the word busy from your human life. Young people, I advise you to save the time you spend on making telephone calls for gossiping. That will give you plenty of time for reading the Word and eating the Lord. Actually, this does not require very much time; half an hour a day is very good.
When we eat our meals, we should eat properly, not irregularly. For instance, I set a schedule to eat three times a day—breakfast, lunch, and dinner—and I stick to the schedule firmly. Likewise, when you come to eat the Lord’s word, you must have a definite schedule. It should not be that you eat when you are happy, and you do not eat when you are not happy. Rather, you eat when you are happy, and you eat even when you are not happy. Furthermore, do not be selective in what you eat. You need to read the entire Bible. The best thing to do is to have a daily reading of some portions from the Old Testament and some from the New Testament in sequence. Begin with the first chapter of Genesis in the Old Testament and with the first chapter of Matthew in the New Testament. Obedient children eat whatever their mother serves, and they grow to be healthy. But those who are choosy in their eating are usually not healthy. I hope that you will receive my little word of exhortation.
I am telling you my experiences over scores of years. I am speaking to you not according to theology or to the teaching of Bible teachers. Rather, I am speaking to you according to the Word of God and from my experience. You all must know that the Word of God and the Spirit of God are two great means. God gives Himself to us by means of His Spirit and His breathing out. He breathes out and we must breathe in. We breathe in by praying. The best and surest prayer is to use the Lord’s words as your prayer. You do not need to study hard as to how to pray; the entire Bible is your prayer book. You can read a sentence or a verse, and then you can pray these words. This is the best prayer.
When you pray, neither be too rigid nor always fluctuating. First you must use your spirit. Contact the Lord with your spirit, and ask Him to cleanse you with His precious blood. Whenever you contact the Lord with your spirit, you will feel the need for His blood to cleanse you. You may not feel that you have sinned, but you are still defiled because you are still in the old creation, in the flesh, and in the self. Even though we have not sinned, and even though we have not done anything wrong or thought anything wrong, we are still the flesh. Since we are the flesh, we need the cleansing of the blood. As those who are of the old creation, we are filthy. Therefore, every time you come to contact the Lord by reading His word, first you must pray, “O Lord, cleanse me with Your precious blood.” The types in the Old Testament show us that whenever anyone went before God, he had to offer the sin offering and the trespass offering. Therefore, when you come to the Lord, you need to take Him as your sin offering and trespass offering, asking Him to cleanse you with His blood. Once you are cleansed, you will be enlivened in your spirit by the Spirit of the Lord.
When your spirit is made alive, you must learn not to speak according to your thought and your mind but according to your spirit. This does not mean that you do not use your mind any more. On the contrary, the more you use your spirit, the sharper your mind will be and the clearer and wiser your thoughts will become. Therefore, begin with your spirit; that is, touch the Lord from the deepest part of your being. Read and pray by means of His words. Just read and pray, pray and read, without trying too hard to be different or original or loud. When you are truly inspired, you may say, “Amen, O Lord, how good it is! How I praise You!” This kind of pray-reading will cause the word of God to be impressed into your whole being as your supply.
Paul said, “All Scripture is God-breathed and profitable for teaching, for conviction, for correction, for instruction in righteousness” (2 Tim. 3:16). When we pray-read in this way and get the Lord’s words into us, some of the words become a conviction to us, some become a teaching, some correct us, and some instruct us in righteousness. As a result, we who are men of God are made complete, fully equipped for every good work. This is different from reading the books of Confucius and Mencius and accepting their teachings on ethics and morality. Rather, we pray by means of the Word of God and the Spirit of God to take in God Himself, who is in His words and in His Spirit. In this way, His words in us not only become a supply to us, but they also convict and teach us from deep within. This is the proper way to read the Lord’s Word. May the Lord give us grace and strength and lead us to practice this every day.