The Word of God we Eat becomes the Gladness and Joy of our Heart: God is our Joy!

When we eat, digest, assimilate and are constituted with the Lord’s words, is word becomes to us the gladness and joy of our heart, for the Lord’s joy becomes our joy, and we have joy in the Holy Spirit.

It is very important for us as believers in Christ to read the Bible, and our reading the Bible it is crucial to exercise our spirit to not only read but also pray over and with God’s word.

The word of God in the Bible is not merely for us to read, know, understand, and try to keep; His word is for us to eat, drink, breathe in, and be filled with, until this word becomes living and operative in our being.

So on one hand we need to love the Lord and open to Him, exercising our spirit to pray over the word of God as we read it, and on the other hand, we need to say Amen to the Lord’s word as He speaks to us, touches us, deals with us, and desires to move in us and do things in our being.

The Lord’s word needs not only to be enjoyed and eaten by us through pray-reading the word; it also needs to be digested and assimilated into our being.

How can the word of God be digested and assimilated into our being? How can we make sure we have a proper spiritual digestion as we eat the Lord in His word?

To have a proper digestion means that the Lord as food has a thoroughfare in our being; it means that the spiritual food gets into and is constituted into our inward parts.

As we read the word of God with much musing, consideration, care, and prayer, we need to also allow the word to have a free way in our being. We need to mix the word with faith by saying Amen to the Lord’s word.

The word of God is not merely requirements, dos and dont’s, or commandments; the word of God is what God is, God breathed out to be our breath, our food, and our drink.

So we need to eat the Lord in His word and keep our whole being open to Him so that the spiritual food we eat will have a thoroughfare within us.

When the Lord has a free way in our being, when we mix the word with prayer and faith and say Amen to the word as it inwardly speaks to us and operates in us, we will have a proper digestion and assimilation, and Christ will be absorbed as spiritual nourishment to become our constituent.

God’s desire is to work Himself into us to become our very constituent, even us, so that we may become the same as He is in life and nature but not in the Godhead, for Him to have a corporate expression in the universe.

He accomplishes it by our pray-reading the word and opening our inner being to Him, for in this way He has a thoroughfare in our being and He can become our constituent, even us. Wow, amen Lord Jesus!

Our Eating and Digesting the Lord’s Word makes the Word of God become the Gladness and Joy of our Heart

In Jer. 15:16 we see that Jeremiah found the Lord’s word and ate them, and these words became to him the gladness and joy of his heart.

The issue of our eating the word of God is that there’s gladness and joy in our heart.

Although Jeremiah suffered more than all the other prophets, he had gladness and joy in his heart whenever he found God’s words and ate them.

We may go through persecutions, trials, and tribulations, and we may have much sufferings, but when we exercise our spirit over the word of God and eat the Lord in His word, we receive God into our being and we find gladness and joy in the word!

What issues out of our eating the Lord in His word is not only understanding of God’s will and being enlightened, but receiving the supply resulting in the gladness and joy! Amen!

This word “became” in Jer. 15:16 indicates that gladness and joy are an issue of God’s words being eaten by us, digested by us, assimilated into us, and constituted into our inner being; this causes the Lord’s joy to become our joy!

The Lord speaks His living words to us not only to give us Spirit and life (John 6:63) but also that our joy may be made full, that is, that His joy would be our joy (John 15:7, 10-11).

On one hand the result of our eating the word of God is that we have all kinds of inward dealings, exposing, and prayers, and on the other hand, this word becomes the joy and gladness of our heart.

We may fluctuate in our feelings, sometimes being happy and enjoying the Lord, but then we may be discouraged and therefore are down and critical; this shows that we need to eat the Lord in His word!

The word of God has to be eaten, digested, assimilated, and constituted into our inner being to become the anchor within us; then the word will have the thoroughfare in us, and there’s joy and rejoicing in the heart.

Brother Watchman Nee was a pattern to us all in this matter; he read the Bible hundreds of times, so when he was in the terrible environment in prison, his final testimony was that he maintained his joy.

He was not practising “positive thinking” to keep himself happy, neither did he possess a physical Bible to maintain his joy in this way in that environment.

Rather, because he ate the Bible hundreds of times, most likely he was musing over and enjoying the word of God, and that gave him joy.

The word of God is not something to “excite us” but rather, to become the joy and gladness of our heart.

When we eat God’s words, when we truly exercise our spirit to pray over the word and say Amen to His word inwardly, His word become sour heart’s gladness and joy.

After we take the word of God into us and assimilate it into our inward parts, these words become our joy within and our gladness without.

The joy of the Lord is our strength and supply within, and this joy is expressed in our gladness without!

When we eat the Lord in His word in the morning and we allow the word to have the thoroughfare in our being, we are filled with joy and gladness in our heart.

Then, whatever happens to us during the day, we just rejoice and are filled with gladness, for His word is our gladness and joy!

Lord Jesus, we come to eat You in Your word until Your word becomes to us the gladness and joy of our heart. Amen, Lord, may we find Your words, exercise our spirit to pray Your words back to You, and take in Your word by means of all prayer and petition so that we may eat, digest, and assimilate You in Your word. Have the thoroughfare in our being, Lord, and have a free way to constitute us with Your very element. Lord Jesus, Your word is our heart’s gladness and joy! Your words are our joy within and our gladness without! We love You Lord Jesus, and we praise You!

God is a God of Joy, He wants us to Enjoy Him, and we can have Joy in the Holy Spirit!

Hallelujah, our God is a God of joy! He doesn’t want us to suffer, and His intention is not to judge us or deal with us to cause us to be sad and unhappy.

It is Satan, the enemy, whose aim is to make man suffer and who offers man a temporary enjoyment with the prize of losing the real enjoyment and pleasure!

Our God is a God of joy; His joy is the strength of our heart (Neh. 8:10), and He wants us to partake of the rivers of His pleasures (Psa. 36:8).

He flows from eternity to eternity to satisfy us and please us, and He wants us to enjoy Him and be full of joy within and gladness without.

A sweet thought revealed in the Word of God is that in Christ God has given Himself to us as grace to be our enjoyment; God is embodied in Christ and reaches us as the Spirit to be our enjoyment, our satisfaction (John 1:14, 16-17; 2 Cor. 13:14).

This is why Paul greets the saints again and again with, The grace of the Lord be with you all.

Actually, in the very first reference in the Bible regarding God’s relationship with man, God presented Himself to man as food (Gen. 2:7, 9); this shows that God’s desire is to give Himself to us to be our enjoyment (Psa. 16:11; Jer. 15:16).

God is not “out there to get us”; He is not waiting for us to fail so that He may judge us and condemn us – all these are thoughts that the enemy, Satan, puts in us.

Satan condemns us, judges us, and accuses us before our God; God, on the other hand, is the fountain of living waters to us, and He wants us to enjoy Him and be satisfied with Him, so that He may become the gladness and joy of our heart. Amen!

God doesn’t present us with a list of “do’s and dont’s” but with a tree of life that is edible, good for food.

God put man in a garden called Eden, which means pleasure; He put man in a favourable and pleasant place to enjoy God.

Today God put us in the church life, such a lovely place, and here we can enjoy Him in a happy, joyous way.

Rom. 14:17 speaks of, “joy in the Holy Spirit”; this indicates that the Spirit is related to joy, and joy is an attribute of the Spirit (see 1 Thes. 1:6).

Joy is also a fruit of the Spirit; the indwelling Spirit gives us joy (Gal. 5:22).

If we find ourselves in depression and anger, we have to realize we are not in the Spirit, for in the Spirit there is joy!

According to Acts 13:32, the disciples were filled with joy and the Holy Spirit! When we are in the Spirit, we are joyful, so joyful that we may sing and shout praises to the Lord (see Acts 16:25).

Outwardly we may be in a not-so-pleasant situation or environment, but inwardly we sing, praise, and are full of joy!

In Acts 16 Paul and Silas were in dungeon, but they broke in singing and praises; they were not singing songs of comfort but of praise! Amen!

We may exult with joy that is unspeakable and full of glory (1 Pet. 1:8).

This joy is full of glory, which means that the joy is immersed in the Lord as glory; thus, our joy is not “wild” or “too excited” but rather, it is full of the expression of God (Acts 7:2, 55; 1 Pet. 5:10; 2 Pet. 1:3).

When we read the Bible, enjoy the Lord, and eat God in His word, allowing Him to be digested and assimilated into our inner being, we exult with a joy that is immersed in glory. Hallelujah!

Nothing expresses God as much as a people who are joyful, for He is a God of joy, and His people enjoy Him and praise Him!

Hallelujah, our God is a God of joy, and He wants us to enjoy Him! Our God doesn’t want us to suffer and be sad – He wants to be our pleasure, He wants to delight us and satisfy us, and He flows as rivers of pleasures to be our gladness and joy! Amen, we can have joy in the Holy Spirit, for the indwelling Spirit gives us joy! May we be in the Spirit so that we may be joy ful, so joyful that we may sing and shout praises to the Lord! Praise the Lord! Hallelujah, we can exult with joy that is unspeakable and full of glory, a joy that is immersed in glory for the expression of God! Praise the Lord!

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, 1958, vol. 1, “How to Enjoy God and How to Practice the Enjoyment of God,” chs. 2, 6-7, 10-11, 13, 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:
  – We have found the Christ who’s all in all; / He is everything to us; / O how blest upon His name to call, / How divine, how glorious! / It is joy unspeakable and full of glory, / Full of glory, full of glory; / It is joy unspeakable and full of glory, / And the half has never yet been told! (Hymns #1153)
  – Your words were found, / And I ate them. / And Your words became, / Became to me, / The gladness and joy / Of my heart, / Became the gladness and joy / Of my heart. (Scripture song)
  – I have come to the Fountain of Joy; / His joy is the strength of my heart. / My delight is unmixed with alloy, / My sunshine can never depart. (Hymns #523)