The words which God has spoken to us throughout the ages have become the holy Word today in our hands. The Bible is not just a sacred book, but even more it is God’s breathing out (2 Tim. 3:16). Every word in the Bible was breathed out from the mouth of God. All these words are living; they are spirit and are life. Furthermore, when we the believers in the Lord confess our sins and pray, calling on the Lord Jesus, and when we thus believe in Him and receive Him, He lives in us as our Savior. At this time, as the life-giving Spirit, He enters into our spirit. Therefore, we not only have the holy Word in our hand, but we also have the life-giving Spirit within us. These are truly two great gifts that God has given us.
We have the holy Word in our hand and the Holy Spirit in our spirit. The Word without and the Spirit within are joined together. Therefore, the only way for us believers to contact and enjoy the Lord is to read the word of the Lord by the spirit. When we read the Bible by the spirit, we touch the Lord. This is not the way a person reads the printed pages of a book with his mind; that kind of reading cannot give us the life supply. Before we open the Bible, we must have in us an attitude of hunger and thirst for the Lord, and we should pray, “Lord, I love You, I want You, and I hunger and thirst after You. Lord, I am hungry and thirsty within, and I long to be satisfied.” If we pray this way and then come to read the Bible, our emphasis will be not on our mental understanding but on our being satisfied in spirit.
Psalm 119:147 says, “I anticipated the dawn and cried out; / I hoped in Your words.” The psalmist cried and hoped, hungering and thirsting within for the Lord before reading His word. In like manner, before we read the Bible, we should also spontaneously have hope. Every day when I wake up, sometimes even before I wash, I pray, “Lord, I long for You and I love You. Before I do anything, I want to receive Your supply.” This is to cry and hope before the dawn. The psalmist anticipated the dawn to read the Lord’s word. The psalmist was an early riser, and he was also hungry and thirsty for the Lord within. This was why he cried, hoped, and anticipated the daybreak in order to read the Lord’s word. When such a person opens the Bible, he will receive a supply regardless of which verse he reads. The words of life have a positive side and a negative side. Both sides can be a supply, depending on whether or not your heart and spirit hunger and thirst for the Lord. If you hunger and thirst for the Lord, then when you come to the Bible, the words in the Bible will be to you not mere letters of an outward sacred book but rather spiritual and living words. Thus, you will spontaneously utter a prayer to the Lord. When you pray, the words of the Bible immediately enter into you. When the words of life enter into you, they become Spirit. This Spirit is life, and this life is also the supply.
Do you want to live with the Lord and enjoy the Lord’s life? Then you need to contact the Lord through His Word. If you would read the Bible in this way every morning, always contacting the Lord through His Word, what you will gain in the end is not just the word of life but even more the Lord Himself. The Lord is the Spirit, and this Spirit is hidden in the words of the Bible. The words of the Bible are a container, and the content within is the Lord Himself. Hence, if you read the printed pages with your mind, you will not be able to touch the Lord, but if you read with your spirit while crying from a hungry and thirsty heart, you will touch the Spirit in the Word. At this time, you will also spontaneously pray, and when you pray, the word will enter into your spirit to become spirit and life as your supply. In this way you will touch the Lord through His Word.
Once you contact the Lord, He immediately becomes the supply to you in your spirit. When you are weak, He supports you. When you are depressed, He uplifts you. When you are sorrowful, He makes you joyful. When you are in pain, He gives you comfort. When you are thirsty, He satisfies and waters you. If you are short of wisdom, He will become your wisdom from within. If perhaps at that very moment you have a problem that is hard to solve, and you have reached a point where you are in a dilemma, He will lead you from within. When you should advance, He will lead you to advance. When you should retreat, He will lead you to retreat. As a result, as the psalmist said, “How sweet are Your words to my taste! / Sweeter than honey to my mouth!” (Psa. 119:103). In reality, this honey is just the Lord Himself. The psalmist was able to taste the sweet Lord Himself through His word.
First Peter 2:2 says, “As newborn babes, long for the guileless milk of the word in order that by it you may grow unto salvation.” This means that we, the saved people, should long for the guileless milk of the word as a newborn babe longs for milk. This milk of the word is the word of the Bible. The milk of the word was translated into spiritual milk in the Chinese Union Version. This is wrong. The word spirit is not in the Greek text; the Greek word used here is derived from word. Therefore, it is the milk of the word, referring to the milk in the Bible. This milk is not for teaching but for nourishing people. There are many nutrients in milk. When we drink milk, we are supplied with its many nutrients.
By drinking the milk of the word, we grow in our spiritual life. Among the Chinese only children drink milk; the adults do not. But among the Americans both young and old alike drink milk. Up until today, every day I drink a glass of milk in the morning and in the evening. Therefore, even though I am not a doctor and do not know so much about nutrition, I can testify that by my doing this I definitely have a healthy body. In like manner, if you want your spiritual life to be strong, you must drink the milk of the word in the morning. Then in the evening before you go to bed, even though you may be tired and your body may not be able to bear it, you can still use a few minutes to go back to the verses you read in the morning to enjoy them, spontaneously praying, “Thank You, Lord, You have the words of eternal life.” In this way, you will not only sleep peacefully and sweetly, but you also will grow quickly in life. This is to contact the Lord through His word.