Love God and exercise our spirit over the Word to get nuggets and gems in our Christian life

We need to love God and exercise our spirit over the Word to get nuggets and gems in our life of pursuing Christ.

When we as believers in Christ come to the book of Proverbs, we need to turn ourselves from the mind to the spirit by praying in our spirit; we need to exercise our spirit with the Spirit to contact the word in the spirit of prayer so that this book would become spirit and life to us. Amen!

It is so easy for us to come to the book of Proverbs in our natural man and read it according to what we are in our natural being.

However, what God is after is not the building up of our outer man but rather, He wants to gain the new creation, the new man, and He wants to build up the new man and renew it according to Himself.

God’s economy is not to build up the old man from Adam but to terminate it, cause it to decay and be put aside, and to renew the new man according to God to express God and represent Him.

If we read the book of Proverbs in our natural man, we will find many “self-help”-style proverbs to aid us in our improving of character and perfecting ourselves to achieve man-made integrity.

Such integrity and human perfection, however, is not approved by God but rather, it constitutes a hindrance for Him to operate in us and to renew us as the one new man.

We are not here for human perfection; we are here to be as perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect, but we are not here to improve ourselves or perfect ourselves but rather, to contact the Lord and be filled with Him.

We need to be perfect according to God, that is, be perfect as the heavenly Father is perfect; this means that we need to be perfect by the divine life.

The divine life was imparted into us at the time of our regeneration, and it is by this life that we can become perfect as our Father is perfect.

When we come to the Word of God, no matter what book in the Bible we are reading, we need to realize that all Scripture is God-breathed and profitable for many things.

The Word of God is the breathing out of God and we can breathe God in by praying over His word; then, the word becomes profitable for conviction, correction, teaching, and instruction in righteousness.

This is so that the man of God may be complete and equipped for every good work.

When we come to the book of Proverbs and realize that it is a collection of the words of the wise, we need to come to God to receive the wisdom of God through our contacting of Him in His word.

Being one who Loves God and Pursues Christ as we come to the Word of God to get Nuggets and Gems for our Life of Pursuing Christ

What kind of person we are and the way we approach the word of God determines what kind of book the Bible is to us; this is true in particular related to the book of Proverbs.

Job is a good example of a person who did his best to obey the word of God and please God by his own efforts, working tirelessly to build up his human perfection and integrity. Little did Job know that his integrity was a great frustration to God.

This is why God had to allow certain things to happen to him, based on His love and care for him, so that Job would know God, see God, and gain God.

If we are a law-keeper, we will come to the book of Proverbs and appreciate the proverbs in this book as words of wise men; we will think that these will help us to be a good person and a better law-keeper.

If we do this, we will make all these proverbs be many laws, and we will fall into the snare of keeping the laws – as many Jews do. Oh, Lord!

God doesn’t want us to merely seek the knowledge, the doctrine, the truth, the theology, and the so-called revelation in letters; rather, He wants us to seek after Him and love Him!

Instead of being those who want to keep the law, we should simply love the Lord and pursue Christ!

Instead of pursuing self-perfection, we should love the Lord’s word in the entire Bible and read it with a praying spirit; our seeking is not for doctrine of letters but for seeking the Spirit and the word of life.

What we seek when we come to the word of God is not merely help to better ourselves or cultivate the self; we seek to have nourishment for our spirit so that we may live a Christian life that is perfect in the divine virtues as expressions of the divine attributes.

If we have the attitude of loving the Lord and seeking Christ when we come to the word of God, in particular to the book of Proverbs, what we get is nuggets and gems to strengthen our life of pursuing Christ for the fulfilment of God’s economy.

If we come to the book of Proverbs to keep these proverbs and fulfill them, we will be exposed and killed by the letter of the law; but if we come to the word of God to gain God and be nourished by Him, we will gain nuggets and gems to live a life for the building up of the Body.

We will be strengthened into our inner man to pursue Christ and live a life for the fulfillment of God’s economy.

But if we come to the word of God to study the Bible in the way of letters, not in the way of the Spirit and of life, we will make the Bible a book of letters.

Sadly, most Christians today have made the New Testament of the Spirit and of life the Old Testament of letters; the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.

We need to learn to turn ourselves from the mind to the spirit by praying in our spirit when we come to the word of God (Eph. 6:18; Luke 18:1; Col. 4:2); in this way, we will gain more of God in His word.

Too many Christians throughout the ages have made the New Testament proverbs, precepts, exhortations, and instructions of letters. Oh, Lord!

When we read the Bible, it should be a book of life; when we read the life-studies of the Bible, we will get life and spirit from the word of God!

It really matters what kind of person we are and what way we take when we come to the word of God, in particular in our coming to the book of Proverbs.

We want to be those loving God and pursuing Christ so that the word of God may render to us nuggets and gems to strengthen our life of pursuing Christ. Amen!

Lord Jesus, we open our whole being to You and we come to You when we come to Your word. We want to be those who love the Lord and pursue Christ, not the law-keepers. May Your word become to us spirit and life as we turn ourselves from our mind to the spirit by praying in our spirit over the word of God. Amen, Lord, we come to You in Your word not to get help for self-cultivation but for the nourishment of our spirit so that we may live a Christian life perfect in the divine attributes expressed through our human virtues. May Your word render to us nuggets and gems to strengthen our life of pursuing Christ for the fulfilment of God’s economy in producing and building up of the Body of Christ!

Exercising our spirit with the Spirit to Contact the Word in the spirit of prayer so that God’s word becomes Spirit and Life to us

When we as Christians come to the book of Proverbs, we need to turn from our mind to our spirit; we need to come to this book by praying in our spirit.

This means that our coming to the word of God shouldn’t be as coming to any book, just to read it in order to get some help from it and understand it, but as coming to a living Person, Christ Himself.

We need to come to the word by turning to the Lord in spirit, we will touch the Word by the new man, and we will live a life by the Lord Jesus, who is our life and person living in our spirit (2 Tim. 4:22; John 6:57, 63; Jer. 15:16).

If we come to the book of Proverbs in our old man, the result will be that we will at best gain more knowledge and we will try to do what we read; we may get some help for self-development, some self-help.

We need to come to the Proverbs as the new man and in our new man, our inner man, that is, in our spirit.

When we are in our spirit, Christ is our life and our person; as we come to the word of God in our new man, we will gain more of God Himself as our wisdom and our everything.

As New Testament believers, we should believe that the book of Proverbs is past of the holy word in God’s Holy Scriptures; therefore, we should lift up our hands to the Lord’s word, which we love (Psa. 119:48).

For us to lift up our hand to the word of God is for us to receive it warmly and gladly and that we say Amen to it (Neh. 8:5-6).

Instead of trying to fulfill God’s word we should simply say Amen to it, agreeing with it and opening to the Lord in prayer concerning it.

The word of God is not for us to keep as commandments with all our strength; rather, the word is the breathing out of God, and we love Him, so we come to the word warmly and gladly, and we say Amen to the word of God.

We need to come to the word of God by exercising our spirit with the Spirit to contact the word in the spirit of prayer so that the word in the Bible becomes spirit and life to us (John 6:63; Matt. 4:4; Eph. 6:17-18).

We need not to merely “practice pray-reading the word” but mix our prayer with our reading, mingle our breathing with our reading of the Bible, and read the word of God with the exercise of our spirit.

We all need to learn to exercise our spirit with the Spirit to contact the word of God in the spirit of prayer so that the word of God would become spirit and life to us.

Day by day, as we come to the Lord in His word, we need to exercise our spirit with the Spirit to contact the word in the spirit of prayer; then, we will get spirit and life.

Whether the book of Proverbs is human words full of wisdom or the Word of God to us depends on who we are and on how we approach this word.

The book of Proverbs was written by wise men, by human beings, but they are still the word of God; however, whether they are mere human words to us or really the word of God depends on whether we exercise our spirit with the Spirit to contact the Word in the spirit of prayer.

Whether the word of God is the law as the night or the living word as the day depends on our being and our attitude toward it; it is the same black-and-white word in letter, but the person coming to it makes it different.

May we say Amen to the Lord’s word, welcome it warmly, and enjoy the Lord in His word!

Lord Jesus, we exercise our spirit with the Spirit to contact the Word of God in the spirit of prayer so that the word would become spirit and life to us. Amen, Lord, we want to learn how to take in Your word with much prayer, consideration, and prayerful reading. We come to Your word with the exercise of our spirit with the Spirit to contact the word in the spirit of prayer. We say Amen to Your word. We receive Your word warmly and gladly, and we pray it back to You in a spirit of prayer. Amen, Lord Jesus, may Your word become spirit and life to us to supply us and sustain us in our living of the Christian life. Make us the right kind of person with the right kind of attitude toward Your word when we come to read the Bible!

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, Life-study of Proverbs, msg. 3, 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:
  – Now to enjoy Thee I come to Thy Word, / On Thee to feed till my hunger is o’er. / Now in my spirit I turn unto Thee, / Of Thee to drink till I’m thirsty no more. / Feeding and drinking, Lord Jesus, of Thee, / Feeding by reading, and drinking by prayer; / Reading and praying, I eat and I drink, / Praying and reading-Lord, Thou art my fare. (Hymns #811)
  – Thus, to receive Thy Word is not / To read it only with our eyes / And understand it in our mind, / But ‘tis the spirit’s exercise. / 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. (Hymns #814)
  – God’s own Word must not be taken / Just as knowledge but as life, / Not alone God’s thought conveying, / But Himself to us as life; / Not alone God’s mind revealing, / But His Christ as life within, / Not alone the teaching giving, / But experience of Him. (Hymns #816)