Exercise our Spirit over God’s Word for the Written Word to become the Applied Word

In our experience as believers in Christ, the written word of God needs to become the living word spoken by God to us which is applied to us by and in the Spirit to become our subjective faith; we need to turn the Bible into a book that is full of life, light, spirit, and nourishment by reading and receiving it in a spirit and atmosphere of prayer. Amen!

All believers in Christ have two men living in them – the old man and the new man. The old man is of Adam, through our natural birth from our parents; the new man is of Christ by a new birth, by regeneration with the divine life.

Our Christian life is a life of living by the new man and in the new man; we need to daily practice putting off the old man and putting on the new man as we are being renewed in the spirit of our mind.

According to God’s economy, the book of Proverbs shouldn’t be used to cultivate and build up our old man but to build up and cultivate our regenerated new man.

How can this be? How can a book filled with proverbs become something that builds not merely our knowledge but our inner man? We need to discover the secret of turning the words in the Bible into Spirit and life.

The Lord Jesus said in John 6:63 that the words that He speaks to us are spirit and are life; the flesh profits nothing, but when we eat the Lord’s words, we get the spirit and we get the life.

This means that, whenever we come to the word of God, we need to come to the Lord Himself; we need to learn to exercise our spirit as we read the word of God and take in the word of God by means of all prayer and petition.

This is to cultivate and foster the new man in our being; it is to develop, to improve, and to cause it to be renewed in and with the word of God by means of all prayer and petition.

We must be clear that, whenever we come to the Bible, especially to the book of Proverbs, we need to come to the Lord in His word by contacting Him in spirit, and we will get not merely knowledge but even more, spiritual nourishment.

The written word of God has to become the living word of God, and this living word has to become the applied word to our life; this written word becoming the living word becoming the applied word of the Spirit is actually faith.

Praise the Lord, we are a new creation – a new man in Christ, and by enjoying the Lord in His word, we can exercise to foster, nurture, and develop our inner man, so that we may live not merely by our knowledge of God or by our own human wisdom but by the new man!

Exercising our Spirit over God’s Word so that the Written Word becomes the Living Word and the Applied Word by the Spirit

Praise the Lord for our mingled spirit! As believers in Christ, our spirit is mingled with the Triune God; in our spirit, there is the marvellous, wonderful, processed, all-inclusive, sevenfold intensified, life-giving Spirit (see Phil. 1:19; Rev. 4:5; 5:6; 1 Cor. 15:45; 2 Cor. 3:6; Rom. 8:16).

We are not here as Christians trying our best to obey what the Bible says, having the church as a social life for us to encourage one another.

All genuine believers in Christ have a mingled spirit – their human spirit is mingled with the divine Spirit, and this divine Spirit is so rich, so wonderful, and so all-inclusive!

When we exercise our spirit to contact Christ as the living Word of God (John 1:1; 5:39-40) in the written word of God (10:35), He becomes the applied word of God as the Spirit to us (Eph. 6:17-18).

According to Rom. 10:17, faith comes out of the hearing of the word; for us to have faith and be organically linked to God, we need to hear the Word of God.

Thank the Lord that we have the Bible, the word of God! In today’s messy situation in the world, with all the fake news and social media out there, in all these things happening around us, we have the steadfast, firm, true, and solid word of God.

When we read or hear the Bible, faith is infused into us.

The written word of God in the Bible becomes the living word of God when it is spoken to us or when we hear it from the Lord in our contact with Him.

Then, when this living word is applied to us and received by us, it becomes the applied word, the word of the Spirit, which is the source of our faith.

Our faith is not based on a set of doctrines in the Bible; our faith is based on being infused with the living word of God which becomes the applied word of God to our being.

When we merely read the Bible without contacting the Lord, without calling on His name and praying to Him, we may gain some knowledge, but the word doesn’t become living to us.

When we pray over the word of God, mingling our reading of the word with our prayer, the written word of God becomes the living word of God, and when we receive this word into us, it becomes the applied word of God.

When we call on the Lord and pray over His word, we have the deep sensation that Christ is living in us; then, we can take the word of God and make it our prayer, and this word becomes the applied word of God to us, being the source of our faith.

We all can testify that many times in our Christian life, maybe even daily, we had such an experience; we came to the word of God, we called on the Lord’s name and opened to Him, and we pray-read the word, with the result that the written word became the living word to us.

Furthermore, as we said Amen to His word and welcomed it, the Lord had a way to apply His word to our being.

This means that He in us can do what we can’t do in ourselves; our God is the One who calls things not being as being (Rom. 4:17).

The source of faith is God in His written word contacted as the living word and applied as the word of the Spirit so that we can gain more of the Triune God!

When we do this, He will call things not being as being, and He gives life to the dead; what we cannot do in ourselves, He will do it in us, and what we can’t live out or express, He can do it in us.

It is in this living and applied word of God that becomes our faith that we can live our Christian life, and in this organic union with the Lord, He can do in us what we can’t do in ourselves.

May we learn to convert the written word of God into the living word of God which is the applied word of God!

May we cooperate with the Lord to apply the living word of God to our experience to our human life, our daily living, our church life, and to all our relationships.

Praise the Lord, we can apply the word of God in a living way to our daily life with all its activities, and the Lord will be real to us, for He lives in us!

Praise the Lord, we have the wonderful, processed, all-inclusive, sevenfold intensified, life-giving Spirit in our spirit! Amen, Lord, we exercise our spirit to contact You as the living word of God in the written word of God so that You may become the applied word of God as the Spirit to us! We come to You in Your word, dear Lord, with a prayerful spirit so that our reading of any word in the Bible would become spirit and life to us to revive us. Amen, Lord, we want to learn to convert the written word of God into the living word, and we want to apply the living word to our daily life by the Spirit so that we may live one spirit with You and You may be expressed through us!

Receiving the words in the Bible in a Spirit and Atmosphere of Prayer to have our Self torn down, our Natural man Broken, and our Inner man Supplied with the Spirit!

The Bible is a book like no other; we say this concerning the Bible not merely because of its amazing history, its accuracy of the historical events, or because of the highest morality and ethics expressed in it.

The Bible is a book like no other because, in our coming to it, we need to be a certain kind of person and have a particular attitude.

Apparently, the Bible seems to teach us to cultivate the self and to build up the natural man.

Actually, the Bible is a book ful of life, light, spirit, and spiritual nourishment when we receive it in a spirit and atmosphere of prayer.

It all depends on our person and our attitude when we come to the Bible.

We need to turn the Bible from a book that apparently teaches us to cultivate the self, into a book that actually is full of life and light with much spiritual nourishment.

We do this by coming to the Bible in a spirit and atmosphere of prayer to have our self torn down, our natural man is broken, and our inner man supplied with the Spirit!

We need to come to the Bible in a spirit of prayer and even in an atmosphere of prayer; this will tear down our self, break our natural man, and supply us with the consummated Spirit of the Triune God.

How can we cooperate with the Lord in His organic salvation and in His tearing down work? It is by coming to the word of God in an atmosphere and spirit of prayer so that the written word would become the living word and the applied word of God to our being!

May we not love our self or our old man; may we let it go, let it be consumed.

May we simply starve it to death by our coming to the word of God again and again in a spirit and atmosphere of prayer.

The Lord is sovereign, on one hand, to arrange all kinds of situations and circumstances to tear down our natural man; He arranges our environment so that, by the discipline of the Holy Spirit, our natural man is consumed.

May we not hold on to our natural man but rather, cooperate with the Lord and apply His living word to our being so that we may build up the new man!

May our inner man be more and more transformed and eventually fully conformed to the image of Christ!

For this to happen, we need to be persons who love the Lord and pursue Christ, not self-perfection (see Phil. 3:3-14).

We need to be those who love the Lord’s word in the entire Bible and read it with a praying spirit.

Our aim in coming to the word of God is not to seek doctrine of letters but to seek the Spirit and the word of life (John 5:39-40; 2 Cor. 3:6).

Especially as we come to the book of Proverbs, may we read it not to gain help for self-cultivation but for us to nourish our spirit so that we may live a Christian life that is perfect in the divine virtues, which are the expression of the divine attributes (Gal. 5:22-23; Matt. 5:5-9).

May we have a certain view from the Lord regarding this matter; may we have a revelation that will motivate us to come to the word of God in a prayerful way to seek to gain more of God.

If we do this, if we come to the Bible not to seek ethics, morality, or principles on how to behave, but to gain more of God as spirit and life, we will find the Lord, we will enjoy Him as the Spirit, and He will be lived out and magnified in us.

Lord Jesus, we come to You in a prayerful spirit to contact no one else but Your dear self. We come to You in Your word, dear Lord, to be infused with Your spirit and life. We don’t want to do anything apart from You. May the words we study in the Bible really nourish our inner man and supply us to pursue You, gain You, and magnify You. Lord, we want to cooperate with You to build up our inner man so that we may live by the new man! Amen, Lord, make us Your true and real testimony both personally and also as the church. We love You, Lord, and we pursue after You; our seeking and desire is not self-perfection but that we may gain God and be filled with God! Keep us coming to You in Your word in a spirit and atmosphere of prayer to be filled with life, light, spirit, and spiritual nourishment!

References and Hymns on this Topic

• Sources of inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message by Minoru Chen for this week, and portions from, Crystallization-study of the Epistle to the Romans, Chapter 8, by Witness Lee, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Crystallization-study of Job, Proverbs, and Ecclesiastes (2020 winter training), week 9, Reading the Book of Proverbs with a Praying Spirit So That It Will Render Us Nuggets and Gems to Strengthen Our Life of Pursuing Christ for the Fulfillment of God’s Economy.
• Hymns on this topic:
  – All the knowledge of the Scriptures / Into life must be transformed, / All the mental understanding / In the spirit must be formed; / All the Scriptural understanding / Must become the life received, / All the knowledge of the letters / In the spirit be conceived. (Hymns #816)
  – Here, O my Lord, may I feast upon Thee; / Flood with Thy Spirit and fill by Thy Word; / May, Lord, Thou be such a feast unto me / As man hath never enjoyed nor e’er heard. (Hymns #811)
  – Jesus is the living Spirit / And the living Word; / When we touch Him by pray-reading / We receive this Lord. (Hymns #1142)