The Lord is the bread of life for us to eat, and we can eat Him as such a bread by pray-reading His word and by allowing the word to have the thoroughfare in our being as we say Amen to the Lord’s speaking.
Whenever we read the Bible, we need to come to the Lord for life and eat the bread of life, which is Christ Himself.
May we never separate the word of God from the Lord Himself; rather, may we first come to the Lord and then come to His word.
The Bible is a book like no other: it contains many words, many sentences, many chapters, and many books, but it is a book of life, and the way to read this book is together with its Author, God Himself.
If we don’t have a fresh contact with the Lord as we read His word, it will be very easy for us to get knowledge or doctrines but miss the supply of life.
The Bible is a book of food, spiritual food, divine and mystical food; when we come to food, we need to use our mouth to eat, so when we come to the word of God, we need to use our mouth to pray over the word, say Amen to the word, and allow the Word to have a thoroughfare in all the inward parts of our being.
Before we read the Bible, we need to stop and spend a minute or two to pray; it makes a big difference if we pray before we read the word, and if we have an attitude of prayer as we read the Bible.
The Lord Jesus said that He came so that we may have life; He came so that we may receive, enjoy, be filled with, and be saturated with the divine life.
Our view in coming to the Bible shouldn’t just be to read it and seek to understand it; we shouldn’t merely ask ourselves, What does God want from me according to His word?
Rather, when we read the Word we should also pray, and mix our reading with our faith and our prayer. It is very easy to come to the Bible, however, to try to find God’s will for us, yet not contact the Lord as we read the Bible! Oh Lord Jesus!
God’s words are not merely for our mind but for our inner being to eat, digest, and assimilate, so that this divine food and supply would come into us and constitute our inner being.
The Lord Jesus lived by eating the Father’s words, and even while outwardly fasting He prayed and enjoyed the word of God, every word that proceeds out through the mouth of God (Matt. 4:4).
Amen, we can live by every word which proceeds out through the mouth of God, and this word can fill us, constitute us, and cause us to live a life for the fulfilment of God’s purpose!
Eating the Lord as the Bread of Life by Pray-reading the Word of God with the Exercise of our Spirit
What does it mean for us to eat the Lord? He said that He is the bread of life (John 6:35, 48), the heavenly bread (vv. 41, 50, 51, 58), the bread of God (v. 3), the living bread (v. 51), and the true bread (v. 32), and if we don’t partake of Him we have no part with Him.
He is the bread with eternal life; He is the true bread, the real bread, even the reality of the food we eat daily so that He can give us the real life, the divine life.
The way we can eat the Lord as the bread of life is by feeding on Him as the word of God.
The flesh profits nothing – it is the Spirit who gives life, and the words that the Lord speaks to us are spirit and are life.
When we come to the word of God, we need to use the right organ to not only read but also eat the Lord as the bread of life in His word.
We need to exercise our spirit to pray-read the word of God so that we may eat the Lord as the bread of life.
He was incarnated to be our food; He came down out of heaven to give us life, and through death and resurrection He became a life-giving Spirit who is embodied in His word for us to eat Him.
The way to eat the Lord is to pray the Word; to pray-read the Word of God ist o exercise our spirit to eat the word (Eph. 6:17-18).
We should not depend or rely on our understanding as we read the Bible; we should not try to compose long prayers based on our understanding of the word; we should simply take the word, make it our prayer, and pray it back to the Lord with the exercise of our spirit and our amen!
Every word of the Scriptures is good for food – every word is good for our prayerful reading!
No matter how much we are advanced in the Lord, no matter how much experience we have of Him and how long we have been in the church life, we still need to daily – even many times a day – pray-read the word of God to eat the Lord as the bread of life.
Praying over the word of God is not something we have invented but rather something that was practiced by many of the Lord’s seeking ones.
David received the word of God that it will be his seed that will build God a house, and he prayed God’s word back to Him (see 2 Sam. 7).
Mary received the word of God that she will be the mother of Christ, the Messiah, and she prayed this word back to God, asking that it would be done to her according to His word.
The Lord Jesus prayed the word of God so much that, even though He was physically hungry, thirsty, and tired, what came out of Him as the devil tempted Him was just the word of God which He enjoyed (see Matt. 4).
Paul encourages us to take the word of God by means of all prayer and petition, singing with grace and speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs (see Eph. 6).
Andrew Murray prayed the Bible as he read it, and George Muller read it on his knees and prayed.
The more we pray-read the word of God, the more we eat the Lord Jesus as the bread of life.
The more we eat God’s words, the more we will be constituted and saturated with Christ, and He will be formed in us (Gal. 4:19), He will make His home in our heart (Eph. 3:17), and He will make us the one new man (Col. 3:4, 10-11).
Lord Jesus, we want to eat You as the bread of life by exercising our spirit to pray-read the word of God. Amen, Lord, You are the bread of life for us to eat, digest, assimilate, and be constituted with. We call on Your name and we pray over Your word to take You in as our divine supply. Teach us to pray and read the word. We are open to You, Lord, as we come to Your word, so that we may be nourished and supplied with the bread of life. We want to be constituted and saturated with Christ as we eat God’s words every day!
Having a Proper Spiritual Digestion as we Eat the Lord: Opening our Being to Him and Giving Him the Thoroughfare
Along with our eating the Lord in His word, we need to also have a proper spiritual digestion.
Humanly speaking, if our digestive system works properly (which it usually does), the food we eat is being digested and assimilated into our being, becoming part of the fibres of our being.
Spiritually speaking, however, we need to cooperate with the Lord as we eat Him in His word so that the word we eat would be digested and assimilated into our being.
As we eat the Lord Jesus, we need to have proper spiritual digestion (Ezek. 2:8 – 3:3; Jer. 15:16; Rev. 10:9-10); the process of eating the Lord is not completed without a proper digestion.
If we have a good digestion, there will be a thoroughfare for the food to get into every part of our inward being (Eph. 3:16-17).
When Jeremiah ate the word, they became the joy and rejoicing of his heart.
When Ezekiel ate the scroll, it tasted sweet in the mouth and bitter in the stomach.
When we eat the word of God by pray-reading the word, there is an effect on our being – there’s a digestion that follows.
This means that the word has to have a thoroughfare in our being, a free passage into every part of our inner being.
Indigestion means that there is no way for Christ as the spiritual food to get into our inward parts (see Heb. 3:12-13, 15; 4:2).
This means that even though we may read the Bible, not every reading of the Bible may be beneficial.
Yes, we need to read the Bible every day, but we may read it and get more knowledge, we may dispute with others about it, and even “beat others” with the Bible!
This is not God’s intention; He desires that His word would feed us, constitute us, and nourish us.
In Heb. 4:2 Paul said that the word didn’t profit the Jewish people because they did not mix it with their faith; rather, they had a heart of unbelief and they doubted. Oh Lord!
Some people may read the Bible and find all kinds of “inconsistencies” and such things…if we don’t exercise our spirit of faith, the word of God does not profit us!
Oh, may we allow the word to have a thoroughfare in our being!
May we keep our whole being with all our inward parts open to the Lord so that the spiritual food will have a thoroughfare within us!
If we do this, we will have a proper spiritual digestion and assimilation, and we will absorb Christ as our spiritual nourishment; in this way, He will become our constituent (Col. 3:4; 10-11).
How crucial it is for us to be kept in the word of God and have His fresh speaking every day!
Even during these troubled days, as the coronavirus pandemic is all over the earth and the evil heart of men is being exposed more and more, the Lord still continues to speak to us, and we can still fellowship in His word.
Without the Lord’s fresh speaking, we would come to an end – we would be just like the rest.
May we seize the opportunities to not just read the word but eat the Word of God by means of pray-reading, and may we say Amen to the Word of God!
Sometimes the word of God exposes our situation, condemns certain things in us, and limits us from doing something or going somewhere; we need to allow the Lord a clear way within us, and we need to ask Him to have a free course within us.
The proper pray-reading of the word of God brings many things of the Lord into us; we need to give Him a free course within us so that we may have the best spiritual digestion, assimilating what we have pray-read.
Whether we understand or not what we pray-read in the Bible, it always brings something of the Lord into us; to Him we must say Amen, allowing Him to deal with things, remove things, move things around, and have more ground in our being.
As we pray over the word of God, this word becomes living and operative in our being, and it divides the soul and the spirit; the living word of God operates in us to adjust us, move in us, and supply us.
On one hand the Lord as the bread of life in His word supplies us, and on the other, He gives us a sensation not to say certain things, not to go do a particular thing, and not to think this way or that way.
The Lord within us speaks to us; the living word of God in our being – His words in us that are fresh and present – is Spirit and is life, and He operates in our being.
May we allow the Lord the thoroughfare in us and say Amen to His inner speaking by His word!
If we do this, we are what we eat; if we eat God as our food, we will become one with God and even become God in life and in nature but not in the Godhead (John 1:1, 14; 6:32-33, 48, 51, 57).
We will eat Him and live because of Him, for as we eat Him as the bread of life, He is being digested and assimilated into us, and we become the same as He is in our very constitution! Hallelujah!
Lord Jesus, clear a way within us as we pray-read Your word; have a free course within us to move, operate, and deal with what You have to deal with. We say Amen to Your word. We say Amen to Your living, spoken, moving, inner operating word. May Christ as the spiritual food get into our inward parts and constitute us with the element of God. We want to keep our whole being with all our inward parts open to You, Lord, so that the spiritual food will have a thoroughfare within us. May there be a proper digestion and assimilation of the living Christ we eat in His word, so that we may absorb Christ as spiritual nourishment and He will become our very constituent! Amen, Lord, we want to eat You in Your word by pray-reading Your word and allowing Your word to have a thoroughfare in our being so that we may become the same as You are in life and nature but not in the Godhead!
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Sources of inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message by James Lee for this week, and portions from, Collected Works of Witness Lee, 1971, vol. 4, “Enjoying the Riches of Christ for the Building Up of the Church as the Body of Christ,” p. 39, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Crystallization Study of Jeremiah and Lamentations, week 4, God’s Words — the Divine Supply as Food.
- Hymns on this topic:
– What a wonderful change in my living is wrought / By saying Amen to God’s Word. / More of Christ into me at each instance is brought / By saying Amen to His Word. (Hymns #1219)
– Jesus is the living Spirit / And the living Word; / When we touch Him by pray-reading / We receive this Lord. (Hymns #1142)
– Thy Word in spirit we must eat / And to our inmost part receive; / ’Tis by our spirit’s exercise / To pray with what our minds perceive. / Thy Word remaining in our mind / Is only knowledge burdensome, / But when it to the spirit goes / Then life and spirit it becomes. (Hymns #814)
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